The Mystery of Murray Davenport

Mystery of Murray Davenport
[with accents]

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Title: The Mystery of Murray Davenport A Story of New York at the
Present Day
Author: Robert Neilson Stephens
Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9185] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on September 12,

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MYSTERY OF MURRAY DAVENPORT ***

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THE MYSTERY OF MURRAY DAVENPORT
A Story of New York at the Present Day By
Robert Neilson Stephens
1903

Works of Robert Neilson Stephens
An Enemy to the King
The Continental Dragoon
The Road to Paris
A Gentleman Player
Philip Winwood
Captain Ravenshaw
The Mystery of Murray Davenport

[Illustration: "'DO YOU KNOW WHAT A "JONAH" IS?'"]

CONTENTS
I. MR. LARCHER GOES OUT IN THE RAIN
II. ONE OUT OF SUITS WITH FORTUNE

III. A READY-MONEY MAN
IV. AN UNPROFITABLE CHILD
V. A LODGING BY THE RIVER
VI. THE NAME OF ONE TURL COMES UP
VII. MYSTERY BEGINS
VIII. MR. LARCHER INQUIRES
IX. MR. BUD'S DARK HALLWAY
X. A NEW ACQUAINTANCE
XI. FLORENCE DECLARES HER ALLEGIANCE
XII. LARCHER PUTS THIS AND THAT TOGETHER
XIII. MR. TURL WITH HIS BACK TO THE WALL
XIV. A STRANGE DESIGN
XV. TURL'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED
XVI. AFTER THE DISCLOSURE
XVII. BAGLEY SHINES OUT
XVIII. FLORENCE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"'DO YOU KNOW WHAT A "JONAH" IS?'"
"THE PLAY BECAME THE PROPERTY OF BAGLEY"
"'I'M AFRAID IT'S A CASE OF MYSTERIOUS
DISAPPEARANCE'"
"'YOU'RE QUITE WELCOME TO THE USE OF MY
AUTOMOBILE'"
"TURL, HAVING TAKEN A MOMENT'S PRELIMINARY
THOUGHT, BEGAN HIS ACCOUNT"
"'GOOD EVENING, MR. MURRAY DAVENPORT! HOW ABOUT
MY BUNCH OF MONEY?'"

THE MYSTERY OF MURRAY DAVENPORT

CHAPTER I
.
MR. LARCHER GOES OUT IN THE RAIN
The night set in with heavy and unceasing rain, and, though the month

was August, winter itself could not have made the streets less inviting
than they looked to Thomas Larcher. Having dined at the caterer's in
the basement, and got the damp of the afternoon removed from his
clothes and dried out of his skin, he stood at his window and gazed
down at the reflections of the lights on the watery asphalt. The few
people he saw were hastening laboriously under umbrellas which
guided torrents down their backs and left their legs and feet open to the
pour. Clean and dry in his dressing-gown and slippers, Mr. Larcher
turned toward his easy chair and oaken bookcase, and thanked his stars
that no engagement called him forth. On such a night there was indeed
no place like home, limited though home was to a second-story "bed
sitting-room" in a house of "furnished rooms to let" on a crosstown
street traversing the part of New York dominated by the
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
Mr. Larcher, who was a blue-eyed young man of medium size and
medium appearance every way, with a smooth shaven, clear-skinned
face whereon sat good nature overlaid with self-esteem, spread himself
in his chair, and made ready for content. Just then there was a knock at
his door, and a negro boy servant shambled in with a telegram.
"Who the deuce--?" began Mr. Larcher, with irritation; but when he
opened the message he appeared to have his breath taken away by
joyous surprise. "Can I call?" he said, aloud. "Well, rather!" He let his
book drop forgotten, and bestirred himself in swift preparation to go
out. The telegram read merely:
"In town over night. Can you call Savoy at once? EDNA."
The state of Mr. Larcher's feelings toward the person named Edna has
already been deduced by the reader. It was a state which made the
young man plunge into the weather with gladness, dash to Sixth
Avenue with no sense of the rain's discomfort, mentally check