Inspector French's greatest case

TO a comparative stay-at-home like Inspector French, who considered a run to Plymouth or Newcastle a long journey, the trailing of Jan Vanderkemp across south-west France opened...

IT was one of Inspector French’s most constant grumbles that a man in his position was never off duty. He might come home after a hard day’s work looking forward to a long, lazy...

THE fact that he had been out all the previous night was not, in Inspector French’s eyes, any reason why he should be late at his work next day. At his usual time, therefore, he...

“Good-afternoon, Inspector,” he greeted him quietly. “Come aboard again? You should have stayed with us, you know.” He smiled quizzically. “It would have been much less tiring t...

INSPECTOR FRENCH put up at a small hotel near the town station, and next morning was early at the White Star offices. There he learned that the _Olympic_ was even at that moment...

ABOUT ten o’clock on the morning of the tenth day after the murder of Charles Gething, Inspector French sat in his room at New Scotland Yard wondering for the thousandth time if...

French, his usual cheery confidence sadly deflated, hesitatingly admitted that at the moment he was not doing very much, embellishing this in the course of a somewhat painful co...

INSPECTOR FRENCH had now so many points of attack in his inquiry that he felt somewhat at a loss as to which he should proceed with first. The tracing of Mrs. Vane was the immed...

IN the vast organisation of Scotland Yard the indexing of information on every available subject has been brought to something more than a fine art. If French had wished to know...

FULL of his new idea, French on arrival at his office on the following morning took from his archives the letter addressed to Mrs. Vane which he had found in the box on that lad...

THE back streets surrounding Hatton Garden, in the City of London, do not form at the best of times a cheerful or inspiring prospect. Narrow and mean, and flanked with ugly, sor...

DURING Inspector French’s brief lunch hour he continued turning over in his mind the immediate problem which Mr. Williams’s story had raised for him, namely, at what point he ha...

INSPECTOR FRENCH had not quite finished supper that evening when his telephone bell rang. He was wanted back at the Yard immediately. Some information about the case had come in.

INSPECTOR FRENCH’S cheery self-confidence was never so strongly marked as when his mind was free from misgiving as to his course of action in the immediate future. When somethin...

BY the time Inspector French had finished supper and lit up a pipe of the special mixture he affected, he felt in considerably better form. He determined that instead of going e...

WHEN Inspector French felt really up against it in the conduct of a case, it was his invariable habit to recount the circumstances in the fullest detail to his wife. She, poor w...

TAXIMAN TOMKINS was a wizened-looking man with a surly manner and the air of having a constant grievance, but he was evidently overawed by the situation in which he found himsel...

“I say, Inspector, here’s a puzzle,” he cried. “I happened to look behind the safe door, and I find it has been opened with a key. I thought at first it had been broken or force...

SOME days later Inspector French was once again sent for by his chief. The great man seemed in an irritable frame of mind, and he began to speak before the other had well entere...

GIVEN the key of the identity of the murderer, it was not long before Inspector French had unearthed all the details of the murder of Charles Gething and the theft of the diamon...