The Billiard Room Mystery

The next morning Mary joined me in the garden--just after breakfast. She looked lovelier than ever, although it was obvious to the careful observer that she was troubled. "Bill,...

The Monday afternoon following the murder found Roper busy in the small and unpretentious building in Considine that served as the Police Station. As he worked he muttered to hi...

There was a tap at the door. "May I come in?" It was Mary Considine's voice. I remembered what she had asked me in the garden that morning. "I hope I'm not intruding," she spoke...

Baddeley acquiesced. "That's very true. And the more I see of the case, the more I----Still, let's deal with the matter in hand. There isn't a reasonable doubt, Mr. Bathurst, th...

The morning of the inquest broke beautifully fine and sunny. I looked out of my bedroom window and felt that the duty that lay ahead of us meant putting such a glorious day to p...

"You will remember that when our friend here"--Anthony indicated the Inspector--"arrived on the scene, he saw the open window--and immediately had a look at it. I was watching h...

"Ole Baddeley will listen with both ears when you show him this," I continued. "In a way I'm glad it's turned out like this ... it was a pretty ghastly thought to imagine that a...

I glanced in Anthony's direction. Evidently the Inspector imagined that Barker knew something, or perhaps as an alternative he fancied that he in his turn knew something about B...

We had progressed along the gravel drive until we were opposite the billiard room window. This lay on our right. Separating the path where we were from the window in question, t...

Anthony drew me to one side. "I don't think we gain a lot by staying here, Bill," he whispered. "We'll get back to my original proposition--let's have another look at Prescott's...

"I don't suppose this is going to be a very pleasant job for the ladies, Sir Charles, and you can rest assured that as far as lies in my power, I'll make it as smooth and easy a...

"I ought to tell you gentlemen, or at least those of you to whom the Considine pearls are unknown, that they have been in my family for several generations and are of great valu...

Seeing Bathurst this evening, after a lapse of eight years, has given me a most insistent inclination to set down, for the first time, the real facts of that _cause célèbre_, th...

I have been asked by Cunningham to write the concluding chapter to the manuscript that has just reached me. Needless to say it has traveled by a somewhat circuitous route from t...

"I can't say exactly," replied the doctor. "Look at this mark"--he pointed decisively--"it runs right round his throat. The thing has been tightened at the back of the neck. Str...

Baddeley closed the library door behind us and gestured to us to be seated. "I don't purpose troubling Sir Charles Considine at the moment," he informed us, "for one or two reas...

When Anthony left us that morning there was much speculation as to where he had gone and deny it as I might, I am pretty certain that the company generally regarded me as being...

It was a woman screaming! Not that I'm in the position of having frequently heard men scream. But the feminine note in the voice was apparent to the most careless listener.

Punctually at eleven-thirty, Baddeley and Roper arrived at the Manor. They joined us in the library. Sir Charles was worried and fidgety. "The ladies have gone to bed," he volun...

He thought for a moment or two. "Awfully good of you, Bill--but if you don't mind, I'll go alone. I'm not altogether sure that I shan't be wasting my time--so I've no desire to...

"You've acted very decently all the way through, Baddeley, I'll say that for you, and I appreciate it as a compliment that we're running this little 'confab' now. I realize that...

I went to bed that night with a feeling of intense exhilaration. Mary's challenge, with anything like ordinary luck, meant a pretty comfortable victory for me, for although only...