The American Marquis by Nick Carter

The American Marquis; or, Detective Foe Vengeance

This serialized detective story, authored by Nick Carter, follows Clinton Hastings, a poor American artist living in Morlaix, Brittany. Hastings subsists in a dilapidated house, obsessing over a portrait of a mysterious woman glimpsed once and painted from memory. A masked stranger arrives at night with an extraordinary proposition: Hastings will marry an unseen bride—whose face and name he must not learn—in exchange for ten thousand francs. The marriage, the stranger reveals, serves a noble family: their sister's wedding triggers the release of a wealthy uncle's inheritance, though she intends to enter an Austrian convent immediately after the ceremony. Despite the dubious nature of the scheme, the destitute artist accepts. After being provisioned with food and fine clothes, Hastings is driven away in a carriage toward the mysterious ceremony, though the text becomes fragmentary at this point.