Bernard Treves's Boots: A Novel of the Secret Service

Next morning, at twelve o'clock, Doctor Voules sat at the big oak table in his dining-room at Brooke. He had arrived from London in the morning, and was busy consuming a heavy l...

Then Colonel Treves rose slowly to his feet, took up his stick, and moved towards the door of the room. With his hand on the door knob, he pointed his stick at the weapon on the...

Dacent Smith, busy in his luxurious bachelor apartments in Jermyn Street, was going through a pile of documents, all relating directly or indirectly to the multitudinous activit...

On the Saturday following John's first experience of his Chief's excellent bachelor cuisine, two men sat in a little, barely furnished room, four hundred feet above the sea. The...

At six o'clock that same evening Colonel Treves issued from the front door of his fine Tudor residence at Freshwater, and made his way down the drive. The weather had cleared, t...

The portentous day, the twenty-eighth of the month, passed at Heatherpoint Fort with no untoward incident whatever. There was a difference, however; there existed an atmosphere...

One evening, a week later, when darkness had fallen, John found himself in Grosvenor Place, pacing unobtrusively in the shadow of the russet-brown brick wall which surrounds the...

In pursuance of Dacent Smith's instructions, John presented himself at the massive doors of 289, Grosvenor Place, two nights later. He had pondered much upon those three adverti...

"'Crumbs' is the man," thought John the moment he opened his eyes next morning. During the night he had been awake for hours pondering the situation, and this was the decision h...

The moment the door closed upon John, General Whiston flung himself into a chair beside Sir Robert's table. There was an expression on his face that puzzled the Police Commissio...

"My dear Treves," he said, "you have been away from me a very long time." He was thinking to himself that Treves carried himself a little better than usual; his gaze was more di...

John, who had deposited himself on a chair at the hearth, lit a cigarette, and was consuming it with a good deal of satisfaction. He had never in his life partaken of an evening...

The hour was eleven o'clock. Dacent Smith was, as usual, up to his ears in work. Very little of the real work, conducted by him on behalf of the Department, was dispatched at th...

One afternoon, when Colonel Hobin's permission had been obtained, Parkson invited Mrs. Beecher Monmouth to tea at Heatherpoint Fort. It was only occasionally that ladies were al...

"Mr. Treves," he said, "I hand these into your care. You have discharged your duty very well indeed. I think the letters will be of great service to your department." He uttered...

Almost as John closed the door of the south room Gates began to strike, in rising and rhythmic cadences, the great dinner-gong that stood in the hall. The elderly butler turned...

Things were not as they seemed. The situation in the little parlour was delicate in the extreme, and as John's gaze passed from the fat countenance of Manners to the cold forcef...

Six days later Manton found himself once more in Lymington, alone in Treves's lodgings, in the crowded room, littered with that young man's desirable possessions. Those possessi...

At the very hour when Elaine received the strange letter signed "Bernard Treves," a letter which awoke all her defensive feminine instincts, John occupied a chair in the little...

John decided to walk into Freshwater, and then take the train to Newport. As he made his way along the road from Heatherpoint, carrying a small handbag, a red bicycle came towar...

On the following evening, at eight o'clock, John Manton presented himself at Dacent Smith's apartment in Jermyn Street. He had hurried to London in answer to a wire, telling him...

In the soft illumination of the white and gold dining-salon of the Golden Pavilion Hotel John found himself completely at home. Two days had passed since his visit to Elaine, an...

John pricked up his ears, then flashed a glance at the contents of the letter. But Mrs. Beecher Monmouth was very quick; he caught only the words, "secret session," and "ready b...

John having disposed of Mrs. Beecher Monmouth returned to Heatherpoint Fort. Within the fort gates the ground quivered and vibrated. Far below him the Solent was alive with the...

Captain Gilbert looked keenly across the table. The light in the little room was not good, and the expression on the Captain's face was one of intense interest and bewilderment.

John's work of that night was commended highly by Dacent Smith. For his discovery of the japanned box had put the department in possession of Mrs. Beecher Monmouth's code and a...

A red glare of light saturated the low hanging clouds and suddenly vanished. Close, windless air vibrated under the detonation of heavy artillery. A Sergeant, who had been conce...

A few minutes later in his own room and by candle-light he set to work to find a meaning for the arrangement of little pebbles "Crumbs" had placed upon the foreshore. A dozen ti...

It was six o'clock when John stepped out into Dacent Smith's bachelor room. His Chief was seated at his desk, deep in work. John closed the door and crossed the room.

"No, madame. I learned also that Lieutenant Treves, who was supposed by us to be staying with his father, was, however, at that time acting as one of the officers at Heatherpoint."

That evening, when John Manton stepped off the boat at Lymington, a heavy summer rain was falling. In the town itself the streets appeared to be deserted, and it was some minute...

"Very well, Cecily, let him come up." And when Cecily had departed to summon Doctor Voules, Mrs. Beecher Monmouth went to her low Turkish table, lit a buff-coloured cigarette, a...

"I am as empty as a drum," exclaimed Captain X. His slender figure occupied one of the Chief's deep armchairs. He was smoking one of Smith's cigarettes, and his handsome face an...

The situation at Heatherpoint was exactly to the liking of Captain Sinclair. He realised, from what John had told him, that "Crumbs" was no mean antagonist, and he was feverish...