Jacques Futrelle

“ There was a quick, tense tightening of his lips, and a narrowing of his straight staring eyes as the thought the words had aroused grew in his mind, and he was just about to stop the taxicab, when he felt it slowing, and it came to a standstill half a block farther on. He stepped out and glanced up curiously at the six-story building towering above him. Yes, it was precisely as he expected, as he knew it ought to be, the Maison de Treville, which happens to be a quiet, eminently respectable place in the Latin Quarter, opposite the Beaux Arts. ”

“ Then he was whipped round a corner, and as he struggled to steady himself he caught the words “Rue Bonaparte” on a street sign under the full glare of an electric light, and sat up straight in his seat, aroused by some swift recollection. Rue Bonaparte! ”

“ Clarke,” he told the clerk. “We’ll fight that out to-morrow. The thing I most want in the world is a room—a room with four walls and a bed in it—a bed—sleep.” Mr. Smith made a pillow of his two hands, laid his weary head on it, closed his eyes, and snored. ”