BLUE WALL
by RICHARD WASHBURN CHILD




THE BLUE WALL

A Story of Strangeness and Struggle

by

RICHARD WASHBURN CHILD






CONTENTS

BOOK I--THE PROBLEM OF MACMECHEM

I. The House Next Door 3

II. A Moving Figure 22

BOOK II--THE AUTOMATIC SHEIK

I. A Woman at Twenty-two 39

II. A Pledge to the Judge 65

III. The Torn Scrap 80

IV. The Face 101

V. At Dawn 126

VI. The Moving Figure again 137

BOOK III--THE DOCTOR'S LIMOUSINE

I. A Shadow on the Curtain 157

II. Margaret 170

BOOK IV--A PUPIL OF THE GREAT WELSTOKE

I. Les Trois Folies 181

II. The House on the River 196

III. A Visitor at Night 219

IV. A Suppression of the Truth 240

V. Again the Moving Figure 261

BOOK V--THE MAN WITH THE WHITE TEETH

I. Blades of Grass 283

II. In the Painted Garden 292

BOOK VI--A PUPPET OF THE PASSIONS

I. The Vanished Dream 301

II. Mary Vance 312

III. The Ghost 323

BOOK VII--THE PANELED DOOR

I. The Scratching Sound 337

BOOK VIII--FROM THE WOMAN'S HAND

I. The Voice of the Blood 351

II. This New Thing 362

BOOK IX--BEHIND THE WALL

I. An Answer to MacMechem 371

II. "Why Care?" 378



ILLUSTRATIONS

A picture there among the law-books Frontispiece

"Listen to me, Estabrook" 120

"It must be Julianna!" 238

She did not speak. She seemed in doubt 372

From drawings by Harold J. Cue.






BOOK I

THE PROBLEM OF MACMECHEM

THE BLUE WALL


CHAPTER I

THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR


What's behind this wall?

As I write, here in my surgeon's study, I ask myself that question.
What's behind it? My neighbors? Then what do I know--really know--of
them? After all, this wall which