- Libros en formato ePub -  

 The Piccadilly Puzzle
AT two o’clock in the morning, during the month of August, sounds of music could be heard proceeding from a brilliantly lighted house in Park Lane, where a ball was being given by the Countess of Kerstoke. True, the season was long since over, and though the greater part of London society had migrated, swallow-like, to the south of Europe in search of warm weather, still there were enough people in town to justify the ball being given, and a number of celebrities were present.

Outside it was dull and chill, with a thick yellow fog pervading the atmosphere, but within the great ball-room it was like fairyland with the brilliant light of the lamps, the profusion of bright flowers, and the gay dresses worn by the ladies. The orchestra, hidden behind a gorgeous screen of tropical plants, was playing the latest waltz, “A Friend of Mine,” and the sigh and sob of the melody as it stole softly through the room seemed to inspire the dancers with a voluptuous languor as they glided over the polished floor. The soft frou-frou of women’s dresses mingled with the light laughter of young-girls and the whispered confidences of their partners, while over all dominated the haunting melody with its weird modulations and suggestions of sensuous passion...

 The Gentleman Vanished
It was an oppressively hot night towards the end of June, and the heavy still atmosphere surcharged with electricity was full of premonitions of storm. Here in London the glare and glitter of myriad lamps seemed to be crushed down by a lowering sky, in which the stars were almost hidden by great masses of sombre clouds. Every now and then a thin thread of lightning flashed ghost-like through the murky air and the low hoarse roll of the thunder which followed, seemed to warn mankind that Nature was in one of her angry moods. So hot, terribly hot, one could hardly breathe in the crowded streets, where throngs of people, well-dressed and otherwise—principally otherwise—were sweeping along intent on business and pleasure, paying no attention to the sultry heavens pressing so cruelly down upon the panting earth.

The signs and tokens of heaven were not for them, with their sordid souls longing for gold, or their empty stomachs yearning for bread, as they worked, danced, sang, and busied themselves with the material things of this life, the same to-day as their forefathers centuries ago on the eve of that Deluge they did not believe would ever come...