Anna Katharine Green

But he was not destined to carry out this impulse yet. For just at the height of his secret dissatisfaction there came a telephone message to Headquarters which roused the old man to something like his former vigor and gave to the close of this gray fall day an interest he had not expected to feel again in this or any other kind of day. It was sent from Carter's well-known drug store, and was to the effect that a lady had just sent a boy in from the street to say that a strange crime had been committed in --'s mansion round the corner. The boy did not know the lady, and was shy about showing the money she had given him, but that he had money was very evident, also, that he was frightened enough for his story to be true. If the police wished to communicate with him, he could be found at Carter's, where he would be detained till an order for his release should be received. A strange crime That word "strange" struck Mr. Gryce, and made him forget his years in wondering what it meant. Meanwhile the men about him exchanged remarks upon the house brought thus unexpectedly to their notice.

The sewing girl in the New York mansion of wealthy Mr. Blake has been abducted. Traces of struggle and drops of blood are visible in her room. And yet how did the abductors get her out a window and down a tall ladder without some cooperation from her? The housekeeper, Mrs. Daniels, appeals to police inspector Ebenezer Gryce to find the girl and keep the search quiet. She wants to protect the privacy of her aristocratic employer. Holman Blake, though relatively young, is reclusive and hates any sort of notoriety. Mrs. Daniels offers her savings to help fund the investigation, a strange act considering she's not a relative. But then there are lots of strange things about the sewing girl. Her room is curiously large and elegant for a servant, and she's been reading Shakespeare. The investigation takes many a surprising direction, from an exclusive Charity Ball to the most disreputable streets in New York to a sinister old inn deep in the mountains of Vermont. Frustrated love and the love of wealth play an important role in a plot rich in mystery and dark deeds.