Chapter 1

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_Title:_ The Mystery Lady
_Date of first publication:_ 1925
_Author:_ Robert W. Chambers (1865-1933)
_Date first posted:_ July 23, 2018
_Date last updated:_ July 23, 2018
Faded Page eBook #20180793

This ebook was produced by: Al Haines, Alex White & the online
Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

THE
MYSTERY LADY

_By_
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

_Author of_
THE COMMON LAW, AMERICA, IN SECRET, ETC.

[Illustration]

GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

_Printed in the United States of America_

CONTENTS

PAGE
No. 1. THE ADVENTURE OF THE GIRL’S BROTHER 1
No. 2. THE ADVENTURE OF THE MUSEUM 21
No. 3. THE ADVENTURE OF THE FORTY CLUB 50
No. 4. THE ADVENTURE OF DRAWING-ROOM A 77
No. 5. THE ADVENTURE OF STEDE’S LANDING 107
No. 6. THE ADVENTURE AT PLACE-OF-SWANS 138
No. 7. THE ADVENTURE ON TIGER ISLAND 168
No. 8. THE ADVENTURE AT THE GAY-CAT 204
No. 9. THE ADVENTURE ON FALSE CAPE 232
No. 10. THE ADVENTURE IN CRESCENT BLIND 256
No. 11. THE ADVENTURE OF THE LITTLE DEATH 283
No. 12. THE ADVENTURE IN LOVELESS LAND 312

The Mystery Lady
A STORY IN TWELVE ADVENTURES

* * * * *

NUMBER ONE
_The Adventure of the Girl’s Brother_

That was the trouble with the boy when he came into his own money—a
headstrong desire to prove himself a grown man—reaction, probably, from
twenty years of apron-strings, from which the death of his widowed
mother and the advent of his majority set him free.

Now he was through with advice. He was through with having anybody tell
him anything. He was now ready to tell the world. . . . At twenty-one.

His sister could do nothing with him. He was sensitive, stubborn,
cocksure of himself. He flared up at any hint of admonition, of
authority, of pressure.

He was neither vicious nor weak; he was a healthy cub suddenly unleashed
in the world’s very large back yard. It went to his head, and he raced
all over the place, intoxicated by a freedom with which he did not know
what to do.

There’s always some dog-catcher watching for crazy pups.

A Mr. Barney Welper made the boy’s acquaintance one evening in the Club
at Palm Beach. At West Palm Beach there was a religious revival and
prohibition rally, whither, it appeared, Mr. Welper was bound. That he
could not induce the boy to go, saddened Mr. Welper.

So, as the boy did not take readily to the spiritual, Mr. Welper tried
him with the material.

Like the Red Fisherman who has such a varied assortment of bait in his
bait-box, Mr. Welper therefore changed the lure and put on a gang-hook
garnished with cruder bait.

So several enormously wealthy friends of Mr. Welper’s sauntered onto the
stage, taking their several and familiar cues in turn.

The first of these was a very pretty brunette woman of thirty—a Mrs.
Helen Wyvern. She had been “misunderstood,” it appeared.

After half an hour on the beach with her the boy discovered that Mrs.
Wyvern was the first woman who ever had “understood” _him_.

Still all a-quiver with wonder, pride, and gratitude, he met another
friend of Mr. Welper’s—a Mr. Eugene Renton.

Mrs. Wyvern whispered to the boy that, like Mr. Welper and herself, Mr.
Renton was making millions out of Orizava Oil.

The rest is redundant.

When the boy’s money went into Orizava Oil they fed him “dividends”
until his last penny was up.

He was proudly a part of Orizava Oil. On a salary he travelled on
“confidential” missions for the corporation. All the glamour of a King’s
Messenger was his, only he didn’t carry the _Silver Greyhound_: he was
enough of a pup without other insignia.

And now the boy prepared to show the world,—and his incredulous sister.
Already the inevitable astonishment and admiration of Wall Street
entranced him in advance. He was a sad dog. He gazed into the brown eyes
of Mrs. Wyvern and knew he was as sad a dog as ever had been whelped on
earth.

Now it happened, when travelling on one of his “confidential”
missions—which were devised to keep him out of the way because he bored
Mrs. Wyvern——the boy found himself in Charleston, South Carolina,
where Mr. Welper awaited him.

What Mr. Welper ever was about few people on earth knew; but he
inhabited Charleston at that time, and the boy found him at the St.
Charles Hotel and delivered a heavily sealed packet proudly. No doubt
there were millions in securities in that envelope. It thrilled the boy
to see Welper lock it in his satchel. It thrilled the boy still more to
fish out a heavy automatic from the holster under his left arm-pit and
lay it carelessly upon Mr. Welper’s bureau.

“They’d be up against hell itself if they tried to pull anything on
_you_, wouldn’t they?” remarked Mr. Welper solemnly.

The boy attempted to look modest.

“Possibly,” suggested Welper, “while I’m busy here you might like to
stroll about town—m—m, yes—or see a moving picture—” He handed the
boy a local newspaper.

With the weary and patronising air of extremest sophistication the boy
condescended to glance over the newspaper. He remarked that theatres
bored him.

“There are some amusing auctions in the older part of town—if you are
psychologically inclined,” suggested Mr. Welper. “Man is, m—m, the
proper study of man.”

Psychology was the cant word of the hour.

“I’ll stroll around that way,” said the boy. In the back of his blond
head his thoughts were fixed upon a movie.

III

In the crowd in which the boy was standing a friendly neighbour drawled
gratuitous information to the effect that the house,—the contents of
which were being sold preparatory to demolition,—was “one of the oldest
houses in Charleston, Suh.”

Also the boy learned that here Governor Eden of evil fame, and of North
Carolina, died of fright several hundred years previously.

“What frightened him?” the boy inquired.