The Clue of the Silver Key

They were all in this business—Dick Allenby, inventor and heir-at-law; Jerry Dornford, man about town and wastrel; Mike Hennessey, theatrical adventurer; Mary Lane, small part actress; Leo Moran, banker and speculator; Horace Tom Tickler (alas, for him!) was very much in it, though he knew nothing about it.

Mr. Washington Wirth, who gave parties and loved flattery; old Hervey Lyne and the patient Binny, who pulled his bath-chair and made his breakfast and wrote his letters—and Surefoot Smith.

There came a day when Binny, who was an assiduous reader of newspapers that dealt with the more picturesque aspects of crime, was to find himself the focal point of attention and his evidence read by millions who had never before heard of him—a wonderful experience.

Mr. Washington Wirth's parties were most exclusive affairs and, in a sense, select. The guests were chosen with care, and might not, in the manner of the age, invite the uninvited to accompany them; but they were, as Mary Lane said, "an odd lot." She went because Mike Hennessey asked her, and she rather liked the stout and lethargic Mike. People called him "poor old Mike" because of his bankruptcies, but just now sympathy would be wasted on him. He had found Mr. Washington Wirth, a patron of the theatre and things theatrical, and Mr. Washington Wirth was a very rich man.