Beadle's Dime Library No. 955

This issue of Goodness (Vol. LXXIV, February 10, 1897) features the serial "Secret Service Special from New York; or, Lightning Lew's Blind," by Ed. Gaines Burnes of the New York Police Detective Corps. The story begins with the death of Green Sackville in a New York hotel. His son Edge Sackville, a U.S. Marshal, arrives in time to hear his father's deathbed protestation of innocence regarding a real estate conspiracy. Two years earlier, Sackville had purchased confiscated property at auction; eight witnesses swore he conspired with a U.S. Commissioner to obtain it at an artificially low price. The Commissioner subsequently committed suicide. Edge consults with Colonel Scott of a Broadway detective agency, seeking to prove his father's innocence and clear the family name. Scott considers the case nearly hopeless, with no evidence except the dying declaration against eight affidavits, though Edge hints at suspicions regarding whether the Commissioner's death was truly suicide.