Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square: A Mystery

At six o'clock in the evening of the first day of March, in the year of Grace, 1898, Abel Death, a man of middle age, with a face appropriate to his name--which should never be...

Abel Death experienced a feeling of relief when he heard the street door slammed in token that Mr. Reginald was gone. Whatever his thoughts may have been with reference to that...

A close and crafty face, masking a soul which knew no mercy and gave none. The grave holds its secrets, and holds them no less securely than Mr. Samuel Boyd, in his outward pres...

Was it indeed a grave, and were the phantom shapes thrown upon the walls and ceiling by the flickering light the phantoms of the dead that were buried there? How easy to imagine...

In the course of the next few days the weather exhibited its vagaries in a more than usually astonishing fashion. On the night of the 1st of March the sobbing and the moaning of...

"It was nothing compared to this. I'd sooner walk through a foot and a half of snow than through such a fog. It gets into the eyes, and into the chest, and into the head; you ca...

Availing itself of the privilege to creep through every chink and crevice, to steal up backstairs and take advantage of every keyhole, and to make its dismal presence felt equal...

Dick Remington waited patiently to hear the full sum of the reproaches which Aunt Rob brought against him. He, too, saw with his mind's eye the image of the young girl for whom...

She spoke in a hoarse voice, and very slowly, a scraping, grating cough accompanying her words. "Mr. Samuel Boyd, sir, of Catchpole Square," might, according to her utterance, h...

"Mightn't he have said so to his wife to quiet her? And even if it wasn't in his mind then, it might have come suddenly afterwards. When a man's in the state he was, there's no...

"Come, old man, let us review the past, and see how we stand. If I'm not mistaken Aunt Rob has hit the nail straight on the head, and Uncle Rob made a clumsy blow at it. But my...

"Come, come, old man," ran again the tenor of his musings, "this sort of thing won't do, you know. What's the use of crying for the moon? Leave that to children. Now where did I...

"Worry enough, in all conscience," said Dick, "and you've got a level head, too, if any member of the force has. You're the last man I should have expected to be scared by shado...

To this journal Dick had been an occasional contributor, and he was responsible for a paragraph which appeared in its columns on the day following Mrs. Death's visit to the poli...

"I don't think there's any scent on it, sir," said Mrs. Pond, "leastways, I didn't notice any. Some scents do have that effect upon people. There's a cousin of mine who faints d...

Aunt Rob, a healthy, homely woman of forty-five, was standing at the door of her house, looking up and down the street for the form of one she loved, looking up to heaven for a...

Had Dick timed his visit to Draper's Mews a couple of hours earlier he would have had a second instance in one day of female hands at the wash-tub--in this case not a wash-tub b...

"No," the man answered, "good news I trust you will find it. I have come to attend to your little girl, who, I hear, has a bad attack of bronchitis."

The night was well on by this time, and though he did not intend to commence operations in Catchpole Square before midnight, there was plenty for him to do in the meantime. He m...

His familiarity with the regulations and movements of the police hailing from the Bishop Street Police Station was of assistance to him. He knew that one end of Constable Appleb...

He reeled back in horror, but even in that one moment of discovery the necessity of preserving self-control forced itself upon him, and he became calm. The first real step in th...

"At last!" said Dick. "At last a ray of light! What's the time?" He looked at a clock in a baker's shop. "Five minutes past ten. Ought I to go to her at once? No, I think not. H...

The hands of all the clocks in Islington that kept correct time marked the hour of two as Dick stood before the door of 16, Park Street. His hand was on the knocker, when the do...

The admonition was needed, for his brain was in a whirl. The disclosure of Reginald's movements made by Florence, his statement to her that he had an idea for improving his circ...

A fine starlight night, and the weather fair all over England, especially in Bournemouth where, in their beautiful estate, The Gables, Lord and Lady Wharton are giving their yea...

Two days afterwards, that is, on the 9th of March, some hours after the morning papers were in circulation, all London was ringing with the news of the mysterious murder in Catc...

in the North of London, and we hasten to lay the particulars before the public. It will be fresh in the recollection of our readers that in our Tuesday's editions we drew attent...

Inspector Robson, being on night duty, was not present at the Bishop Street Police Station when the reporter of "The Little Busy Bee" gave information of the murder. Aunt Rob ha...

Draper's Mews and its purlieus were on fire with excitement, raised by a spark dropped by a vicious beetle-browed coster, whose chronic state for years past had been too much be...

As it was in Draper's Mews so was it in other parts of the metropolis. The murder was talked of everywhere, and in some mysterious way the disappearance of Abel Death was associ...

From time to time there had been murders committed in London with details dismal and sordid enough to satisfy the most rabid appetites, but it was generally admitted that the gr...

This morning, at the Coroner's Court, Bishop Street, Mr. John Kent, the Coroner for the district, opened an inquiry into the death of Mr. Samuel Boyd, of Catchpole Square, who w...

The Lady (rising): "My name is Lady Wharton, and I know what I am saying. It is not in the nature of things to be silent when so monstrous a statement as that is made. I say aga...

"There's trouble coming, there's trouble coming." This was the dominant thought in Dick's mind as he emerged from the court. Reporters, hurriedly gathering their sheets of notes...

When the jury re-assembled on Wednesday the excitement created by the mystery had reached fever heat, and long before the Court was opened a crowd of people had gathered round t...

These words, spoken loudly and emphatically, acted like a spark upon gunpowder, and it was not until the Coroner threatened several times to clear the Court that order was again...

There was an interval of almost breathless suspense as, upon the Coroner's instructions, an officer left the Court. Dick looked forward to the entrance of Dr. Pye with no less c...

In great agitation Reginald and his party left the Court and turned in the direction of home, followed at a short distance by a few persons, whose appetite, whetted by what had...

He did not resist. The enterprise to which he was pledged had so fastened itself upon his imagination that the least thing appertaining to it claimed first place. Except that he...

At ten o'clock on this night, Dr. Pye was employed looking over a number of manuscripts, setting some aside and burning others, keeping a jealous eye upon the fire as he watched...

Dr. Vinsen vainly seeking in the darkness for the cause of Dr. Pye's alarm, could not utter a word. In his listening attitude, with the white fear depicted on his countenance, h...

On the following morning Aunt and Uncle Rob and Florence and Reginald sat at the breakfast table, waiting for Dick, who had not been home all night. Although they had had no wor...

"There's villainy at the bottom of it," cried Aunt Rob. "Dick, you're our guardian angel, and that poor little girl, that I'd like to hug, is another. I knew that wretch on the...

"Now Gracie," said Dick, as they wended their way to a small "jobbing" printer with whom he was acquainted; he himself had spent a few weeks in a printing office, and, as a Jack...

Dick recognised him instantly, and scented danger. The man who peered up at him, with all the leering muscles of his face at work, was the man of whom he had bought the rope and...

The inquiry into the death of Mr. Samuel Boyd was resumed at the Coroner's Court in Bishop Street this morning before Mr. John Kent. Long before eleven o'clock the usual crowd o...

The public are by this time acquainted with much of the evidence Mrs. Death had to offer. After narrating the circumstances of her husband's dismissal from the service of Mr. Sa...

"We have now," said the Coroner, addressing the jury, "arrived at the end of the inquiry, so far as the examination of witnesses is concerned, and the duty devolves upon you of...

While her mother was being examined in the Coroner's Court, little Gracie Death, glowing with gratitude to Aunt Rob and her family, and solemnly impressed with a sense of the im...

At Charing Cross Dr. Vinsen alighted, and Gracie descended from the roof in the manner generally adopted by females, with her back instead of her face to the horses, which is by...

"The Little Busy Bee" and the other evening papers were kept very busy that afternoon. So far as the examination of the witnesses and the Coroner's address were concerned, the i...

As the men fell back a pace or two they came face to face with Mrs. Death. In his heart Reginald believed Abel Death to be innocent, and even in the midst of his own trouble he...

"The fact is," said Aunt Rob, sternly, "that there's been too many little matters of business between this one and that one, and too many secrets that are kept from them who hav...

The intense interest taken by the public in the progress of the mystery of Catchpole Square was markedly shown this morning by the enormous concourse of people assembled in the...

A man may be an easy-going man all his life, and go down to his grave without anything occurring to take him, as it were, out of himself, or to make him, either suddenly or by g...

Arrested Mr. Reginald Boyd this evening for the murder of his father, Mr. Samuel Boyd, of Catchpole Square. Arrest made at the door of the Coroner's Court. Had a little scene wi...

On Monday morning Detective Lambert, as recorded in his diary, received Joseph Pitou's letter from Milan--this time written in French, which, being duly translated by Mrs. Lambe...

While Detective Lambert was making these entries, events of which he had no suspicion were progressing in another quarter. Some premonition of startling incidents soon to happen...

Constable Applebee, seeking shelter from the storm beneath the roof of Deadman's Court, kept his face and his thoughts in the direction of Samuel Boyd's house, for such complete...

"Dick Remington brought before the magistrate this morning. Court crowded, proceedings very brief. Formal evidence of the arrest only was given, and Dick remanded till Friday, w...

In view of the surprising turn the Mystery of Catchpole Square has taken, considerable interest was manifested in the proceedings at the Coroner's Court this morning, a large sh...

There was an unusual bustle in the Bishop Street Police Court on Friday morning, every person who could gain admittance and every person in the crowds outside being on the tipto...

"His outer garments were such as a Mongolian wears, and in his hand was the mask of a Chinaman's face. He carried also in his hand a hollow cane of the reign of Charles the Seco...

"Permit me. Of his many crimes. Many robberies, attended with extreme brutality. And worse than robberies. One positive murder in Gallicia; another probable murder in Vienna; an...

"The sensational incidents in the Bishop Street Police Court to-day, where two innocent men were charged with the murder of Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square, were in keeping with...

There was joy almost too great for utterance in two London homes that night. After partaking of a wonderful meal provided by Lady Wharton, Gracie's little brothers and sisters h...