Produced by Suzanne Shell, Ernest Schaal, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Thisbook was produced from scanned images of public domainmaterial from the Google Print project.)

  BY RODRIGUES OTTOLENGUI

  =An Artist in Crime.= 16^o, $1.00; paper, 50 cts.

  =A Conflict of Evidence.= 16^o, $1.00; paper, 50 cts.

  =A Modern Wizard.= 16^o, $1.00; paper, 50 cts.

  =The Crime of the Century.= 16^o, $1.00; paper, 50 cts.

  =Final Proof, or, the Value of Evidence.= 16^o, $1.00; paper, 50 cts.

  G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

  NEW YORK & LONDON

  FINAL PROOF OR THE VALUE OF EVIDENCE

  BY R. OTTOLENGUI

  AUTHOR OF "AN ARTIST IN CRIME," "A CONFLICT OF EVIDENCE," "THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY," ETC.

 

  G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON The Knickerbocker Press 1898

  Copyright, 1898 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Entered at Stationers' Hall, London

  The Knickerbocker Press, New York

  PREFATORY

  The first meeting between Mr. Barnes, the detective, and Robert LeroyMitchel, the gentleman who imagines himself to be able to outdodetectives in their own line of work, was fully set forth in thenarrative entitled _An Artist in Crime_. Subsequently the two menoccupied themselves with the solution of a startling murder mystery, thedetails of which were recorded in _The Crime of the Century_. Thepresent volume contains the history of several cases which attractedtheir attention in the interval between those already given to theworld, the first having occured shortly after the termination of theevents in _An Artist in Crime_, and the others in the order here given,so that in a sense these stories are continuous and interdependent.

  R. O.

  CONTENTS

  PAGE

  I THE PHOENIX OF CRIME 1

  II THE MISSING LINK 132

  III THE NAMELESS MAN 151

  IV THE MONTEZUMA EMERALD 169

  V A SINGULAR ABDUCTION 189

  VI THE AZTEC OPAL 210

  VII THE DUPLICATE HARLEQUIN 230

  VIII THE PEARLS OF ISIS 261

  IX A PROMISSORY NOTE 294

  X A NOVEL FORGERY 325

  XI A FROSTY MORNING 341

  XII A SHADOW OF PROOF 365

  FINAL PROOF

  OR

  THE VALUE OF EVIDENCE