Read "The Valley of Ghosts" by Edgar Wallace online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"A good deed," said Scottie sententiously, "brings its own reward, and I am merely acting in consonance with all the high-class literature I've read dealing with reformed criminals. I'm not sure that 'consonance' is the word, but it sounds right. In my last prison they ran a line of fiction dealing exclusively with the good deeds of old lags that had been saved from a life of shame and misery by the smile of a child. Sometimes she was the governor's daughter and sometimes the chaplain's sister, and her age varied from nine to nineteen. But she was always rescued from drowning by the hook--generally when he was on his way to commit an even more hideous crime. And the memory of her blue eyes turned him from his career, and he lived happily ever after. The end!"
"You're only--talking--to stop me--from getting hysterical," gasped Stella.