Lanterna Rally

Author: Melville Davisson Post

Publisher: Theclassics.Us

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 50

ISBN-13: 9781230420943

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 edition. Excerpt: ... THE CORPUS DELICTI. "T DEGREESHAT man Mason," said Samuel Walcott, 1. "is the mysterious member of this club. He is more than that; he is the mysterious man of New York." "I was much surprised to see him," answered his companion, Marshall St. Clair, of the great law firm of Seward, St. Clair, & De Muth. "I had lost track of him since he went to Paris as counsel for the American stockholders of the Canal Company. When did he come back to the States?" "He turned up suddenly in his ancient haunts about four months ago," said Walcott, "as grand, gloomy, and peculiar as Napoleon ever was in his palmiest days. The younger members of the club call him 'Zanona Redivivus.' He wanders through the house usually late at night, apparently without noticing anything or anybody. His mind seems to be deeply and busily at work, leaving his bodily self to wander as it may happen. Naturally, strange stories are told of him; indeed, his individuality and his habit of doing some unexpected thing, and doing it in such a marvellously original manner that men who are experts at it look on in wonder, cannot fail to make him an object of interest. "He has never been known to play at any game whatever, and yet one night he sat down to the chess table with old Admiral Du Brey. You know the Admiral is the great champion since he beat the French and English officers in the tournament last winter. Well, you also know that the conventional openings at chess are scientifically and accurately determined. To the utter disgust of Du Brey, Mason opened the game with an unheard of attack from the extremes of the board. The old Admiral stopped and, in a kindly patronizing way, pointed out the weak and absurd folly of his move and asked him to begin again with some one of the safe...