THE FLAMING PHANTOM, by Jacques FutrelleCHAPTER I
Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, stood beside the City Editor’s desk, smoking and waiting patiently for that energetic gentleman to dispose of several matters in hand. City Editors always have several matters in hand, for the profession of keeping count of the pulse-beat of the world is a busy one. Finally this City Editor emerged from a mass of other things and picked up a sheet of paper on which he had scribbled some strange hieroglyphics, these representing his interpretation of the art of writing.
“Afraid of ghosts?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” Hatch replied, smiling a little. “I never happened to meet one.”
“Well, this looks like a good story,” the City Editor explained. “It’s a haunted house. Nobody can live in it; all sorts of strange hap
