A. M. Williamson

“ A desire for the punishment of Wildred might have held a prominent place both in Cunningham's mind and mine, but our first thought was to save Karine from becoming the murderer's wife.
She must be disabused of the belief that her brother was in any way in Wildred's power. She must know that, as Cunningham expressed it, the "shoe was on the other foot." She must be shown the black depths of Carson Wildred's villainy, and be dragged back from the brink of the precipice on which she had stood. ”

“ I acquiesced in this opinion, and recalled a remark made in the club by a mutual acquaintance. "Carson Wildred is always inheriting fortunes from chaps that die at the four corners of the globe," he had curiously announced. I wondered grimly, as I remembered the speech, whether all these benefactors had met their death after the manner of poor Harvey Farnham.
Time was pressing now, and our idea was to go straight to Karine, I to appear only as the supporter of her brother. ”

“ I glanced at it carelessly at first, but in an instant I was as keen as Cunningham had been.
"Another Fortune for a Millionaire," the paragraph was headed, and beneath was set forth the interesting fact that Mr. Carson Wildred, who was shortly to marry Miss Cunningham, the celebrated beauty and heiress, had just heard of a legacy of half a million pounds, left him by an American friend, Mr. Harvey Farnham, lately burned to death in a San Francisco hotel. ”