The Golden Web

The Golden Web by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Stirling Deane, a rising mining magnate at the head of the Incorporated Gold-Mines Association, is approached in his City office by Basil Rowan, a shabby, dying old comrade from his African days who begs for work or money. Deane refuses ordinary employment but reveals a secret danger: Richard "Bully" Sinclair, the very man who once tipped Deane off to the Little Anna Gold-Mine, has resurfaced claiming he was cheated out of ownership and threatens a ruinous lawsuit just as Deane's engagement to Lady Olive, daughter of Lord Nunneley, has been announced. Since Rowan has only months to live and wants to leave money for his sister Winifred, Deane offers him ten thousand pounds to recover the incriminating document from Sinclair, on condition Deane's name is never linked to the scheme. Rowan visits Sinclair at the Universal Hotel, a quarrel turns violent, and Sinclair is killed. Rowan is arrested, tried, and convicted of murder despite Deane's quiet efforts (funding the defense, pressing his lawyer friend Hardaway) to have the charge reduced to manslaughter. The verdict devastates Deane, who is haunted by guilt even as he keeps up appearances with Olive and her family. Winifred Rowan pleads with Deane to save her brother and, at his suggestion, agrees to try to retrieve the document from Sinclair's effects still held at the hotel. Through bribery and string-pulling (including securing a reprieve via Hardaway and unofficial channels), Deane manages to have Rowan's sentence commuted to a reprieve, news he receives while at Rakney, a remote coastal village, where he has also just met Ruby Sinclair, the murdered man's niece and a discontented, ambitious girl awaiting an inheritance from the uncle she never knew was dead. Deane learns Ruby is planning to travel to London to investigate her uncle's estate, which alarms him since any thorough search of Sinclair's belongings could expose the incriminating document. During a storm, Winifred flees to Deane's remote tower lodging in evident terror and the two share an unpremeditated moment of passion. Deane later breaks into Sinclair's hotel room himself to search for the document but finds it missing; he is astonished to encounter Winifred there too, apparently disguised as a hotel chambermaid, who claims to have already found the paper and promises to bring it to him. Afterward, however, she flatly and repeatedly denies ever having been at the hotel or knowing anything about any document, unsettling Deane with her impassive denials even as Rowan, now released to die at home, corroborates that he never told anyone but her about the paper. Meanwhile Ruby Sinclair, defying her stodgy uncle Sarsby, breaks free of her dull country life to search London for her uncle's hidden fortune, and by chance meets Steve Hefferom, another South African adventurer who lent Sinclair money and independently confirms the existence of the valuable gold-mine deed, now missing. Ruby and Hefferom join forces, track Rowan and Winifred to the seaside cottage Deane has lent them, and confront the dying Rowan directly, demanding the document as their rightful claim to the Little Anna Gold-Mine, while Rowan protests he never took it and does not know what became of it.

By E. Phillips Oppenheim · First published 1907 · Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Adventure · 42 chapters · 91,038 words

First lines

The contrast in personal appearance between the two men, having regard to their relative positions, was a significant thing. The caller, who had just been summoned from the waiting-room, and was standing before the other's table, hat in hand, a little shabby, with ill-brushed hair and doubtful collar, bore in his countenance many traces of the wild and irregular life which had reduced him at this moment to the position of suppliant. His complexion was pale almost to ghastliness, and in his deep-set, sunken eyes there was more than a suggestion of recklessness. He was so nervous that his face twitched as he stood there waiting, and the fingers which held his hat trembled. His lips were a little parted, his breathing was scarcely healthy. There was something about his whole appearance indicative of failure. The writing upon his forehead was the writing of despair.

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mystery · thriller · suspense · romance · adventure · intrigue · betrayal · secrets · wealth · power · deception · crime

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More by E. Phillips Oppenheim