The Clevedon Case

I BECAME mixed up with the Clevedon case—the Cartordale Mystery, as it has been called—in curious fashion. True, it was to some extent in my line of business, though I do not ac...

WHEN I came down to Stone Hollow to take over my new inheritance, I found the house completely furnished on extremely comfortable if rather old-fashioned lines; and Martha Helte...

I HAD not long to wait before making further acquaintance with my pretty midnight visitor. Our second meeting took place within a few hours of the police call and on the same da...

THE Midlington evening papers reached Cartordale about seven o’clock. To accomplish that they had to be printed somewhere about 3.30 p.m., and accordingly were rather early edit...

I MET Sergeant Gamley, the officer who had called on me in company with Detective Pepster, and I asked him whether the public would be admitted freely to the inquest.

IT was in Dr. Crawford’s surgery the day before the resumed inquest that I met Lady Clevedon again. A little to my surprise she recognised me, though, as far as I knew, she had...

I TOOK my place at the jury table for the resumed inquest with considerably quickened anticipations. Dr. Crawford’s story had introduced new factors into the case which promised...

THE inquest, as far as it had gone, afforded no leading at all. We had not even learned how the poison had been administered, for though there had been some suggestion of possib...

THE next witness was Miss Kitty Clevedon herself and I confess I awaited her coming with more than ordinary interest. Of one thing I was certain, that she would say exactly what...

“OH, Mr. Holt,” cried the young lady behind the counter of the little general shop that was also the village post office. “I have just taken a telegram for you. You can have it...

THE “Waggon and Horses” in Cartordale was one of the best known inns in the district, with a history behind it that went far beyond the printed word into the mists and myths of...

“Yes, he went from White Towers to Lennsdale—that is Mr. Thoyne’s house, you know. Thoyne engaged him the day after the inquest and he went at once. And now he has gone altogeth...

IT was by means of the Vicar that the story was carried a stage further. I had made the old man’s acquaintance soon after I first came to Cartordale and had conceived a great li...

“Oh, you and your brick walls!” the old lady cried, waving her hands with an impatient and fretful gesture. “I want to see the murderer hanged and the whole thing cleared away a...

There was a jetty, built of stone in a rough-and-tumble fashion that clearly betokened amateur workmanship, and flanked on either side by a semi-circular sweep of sandy beach th...

“I am not sure that I know very much about him,” Pepster said. “You see, he never came under my survey professionally, though according to accounts that was rather by way of goo...

favour. Your very horror of the possibility persuades you to treat it almost as a probability. But I, on the other hand, consider only evidence. I have no personal views in favo...

THOYNE must have started off immediately for Cartordale because it was no later than the next morning, while I was seriously considering whether I should return home or follow P...

THE first thing I had to settle was as regards the entrance to White Towers of which Kitty Clevedon had spoken. We had to pick up Billy Clevedon’s tracks after he left Midlingto...

IN point of fact the first real clue I secured in this case consisted of that hairpin I found on the floor of the lower cellar, though its bearing on the mystery was not at firs...

AND now I come to a very pretty and pleasant little adventure which has its own place in the sequence of events. Only part of it came under my own immediate observation; the res...

SIR WILLIAM and Lady Clevedon settled down in Cartordale and very quickly made themselves popular with their neighbours. Billy himself was of a buoyant and friendly disposition,...

I SENT Stillman back to keep an eye on Tulmin until I could myself interview him and then set myself to arrange a meeting with Thoyne. He was staying at White Towers and I had n...

DURING my journey to London I devoted careful and prolonged thought to the difficult problem of Mr. Ronald Thoyne, whose exact place in the story I had by no means satisfactoril...

“I WANT you to come with me to Midlington,” I said to Pepster, whom I met soon after I reached home. “I am going to try a long shot, and I would like you to be there.”

“And what may you be doing here, Mr. Detective?” she said. “This is a family council, and strangers—besides, what have you to do with this? It is the other mystery you are engag...

“I have every hope of it,” I responded and there I left it, though during dinner I was subjected to a sort of oblique catechism, chiefly by the two ladies, which I parried as be...

IT has fallen to my lot to outline the solution of a good many mysteries, but never did I have a more appreciative or attentive or admiring audience than on this particular occa...