The Project Gutenberg EBook of The After House, by Mary Roberts Rinehart

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Title: The After House

Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart

Posting Date: March 1, 2009 [EBook #2358]
Release Date: October, 2000

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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The After House

by

Mary Roberts Rinehart

CONTENTS

I I PLAN A VOYAGE
II THE PAINTED SHIP
III I UNCLENCH MY HANDS
IV I RECEIVE A WARNING
V A TERRIBLE NIGHT
VI IN THE AFTER HOUSE
VII WE FIND THE AXE
VIII THE STEWARDESS'S STORY
IX PRISONERS
X "THAT'S MUTINY"
XI THE DEAD LINE
XII THE FIRST MATE TALKS
XIII THE WHITE LIGHT
XIV FROM THE CROW'S NEST
XV A KNOCKING IN THE HOLD
XVI JONES STUMBLES OVER SOMETHING
XVII THE AXE IS GONE
XVIII A BAD COMBINATION
XIX I TAKE THE STAND
XX OLESON'S STORY
XXI "A BAD WOMAN"
XXII TURNER'S STORY
XXIII FREE AGAIN
XXIV THE THING
XXV THE SEA AGAIN

CHAPTER I

I PLAN A VOYAGE

By the bequest of an elder brother, I was left enough money to see me
through a small college in Ohio, and to secure me four years in a
medical school in the East. Why I chose medicine I hardly know.
Possibly the career of a surgeon attracted the adventurous element in
me. Perhaps, coming of a family of doctors, I merely followed the line
of least resistance. It may be, indirectly but inevitably, that I
might be on the yacht Ella on that terrible night of August 12, more
than a year ago.

I got through somehow. I played quarterback on the football team, and
made some money coaching. In summer I did whatever came to hand, from
chartering a sail-boat at a summer resort and taking passengers, at so
much a head, to checking up cucumbers in Indiana for a Western pickle
house.

I was practically alone. Commencement left me with a diploma, a new
dress-suit, an out-of-date medical library, a box of surgical
instruments of the same date as the books, and an incipient case of
typhoid feve