The crime at Black Dudley

The view from the narrow window was dreary and inexpressibly lonely. Miles of neglected park-land stretched in an unbroken plain to the horizon and the sea beyond. On all sides...

After dinner, Abbershaw was one of the first to enter the great hall or drawing-room which, with the dining-room, took up the best part of the ground floor of the magnificent ol...

The weirdness of the great stone staircases and unlit recesses was even more disquieting than Abbershaw had imagined it would be. There were flutterings in the dark, whisperings...

Wyatt was doing his best to relieve any feeling of constraint amongst his guests, assuring them that his uncle’s heart attacks were by no means infrequent and asking them to for...

Abbershaw made his way quietly down the corridor to Wyatt’s room. The young man had taken him into it himself earlier in the day, and he found it without difficulty.

Abbershaw sat up for some time, smoking, after Prenderby left him, and when at last he got into bed he did not sleep at once, but lay staring up into the darkness of the beamed...

George Abbershaw stood in front of the fire-place in his bedroom and looked down into the fast-greying embers amongst which some red sparks still glowed, and hesitated irresolut...

The general opinion was that a tactful farewell and a speedy departure was the obvious procedure of the day. The story of the old man’s last wish had not tended greatly to alter...

As soon as Abbershaw had recovered from his first surprise, he turned to Meggie. She was standing just beside him, the others having split up into little groups talking quietly...

A hasty search revealed the fact that Mr Campion had indeed disappeared, and the discovery, coupled with Chris Kennedy’s experience of the morning, reduced the entire company to...

That evening, after tea had been served in ominous silence by the same two men-servants who had waited at lunch, Michael Prenderby crossed the room and spoke confidentially to A...

‘I don’t know much about it,’ he said. ‘My client didn’t go into all that, naturally. But I can tell you this much, it’s something sewn in the lining of a red leather wallet. It...

Ten minutes after Mr Campion had first suggested that Meggie might be the next victim, Prenderby ran into Abbershaw in the corridor outside the girl’s room. ‘I’ve been all over...

When Abbershaw picked himself up he discovered that he was not in Colonel Coombe’s bedroom as he had supposed, but in a smaller and more luxurious apartment presumably leading o...

The room into which Meggie and Abbershaw were thrust so unceremoniously in the middle of the night was one of the three which opened out on to the small winding staircase leadin...

‘The wicked shall perish,’ said a loud, shrill, feminine voice, in which the broad Suffolk accent was very apparent. ‘The earth shall open and they shall be swallowed up. And yo...

The disturbing discovery which Meggie and Abbershaw had made in Mrs Meade’s story silenced them for some time. Until the old woman’s extraordinary announcement ten minutes befor...

When Albert Campion and his two refugees crawled out at the far end of the passage, they found the cupboard door open and the entire crowd assembled in the bedroom without, wait...

The six young people went down to the big dining-hall with a certain amount of trepidation. Jeanne clung to Prenderby, the other two girls stuck together, and Abbershaw was able...

As Abbershaw and Campion made their way slowly down the staircase to the first floor, the house seemed to be unnaturally silent. The candles in the iron sconces had not been lig...

There was no way of telling if the cold merciless voice behind the blinding lights was speaking truth or no, but in the circumstances it was impossible not to regard it.

There was a stir in the room after he had spoken, and almost everybody looked at the pale-haired bespectacled young man who sat squatting on his haunches in a corner. Jeanne and...

‘Hello! Hello! Hell-o! Up here – top window! Up here! I say, we’re prisoners. A loony in charge is going to burn the house down. For God’s sake give the alarm and get us out.’

Detective-Inspector Pillow, of the County Police, flapped back a closely written page of his notebook and resettled himself on the wooden chair which seemed so small for him as...

He had not put the case before his friend, Inspector Deadwood, for a reason which he dared not think out, yet his conscience forbade him to ignore the mystery surrounding the de...

‘If you’d only keep quiet,’ said Michael Prenderby, edging a chair between himself and the vigorous Martin who was loudly demanding particulars, ‘I’ll tell you all about it. The...

For the first few miles, while they were still in the traffic, Prenderby contented himself with keeping the disguised Rolls in sight. It would be absurd, he realized, to overtak...

Whitby was still the harassed, scared-looking little man who had come to ask Abbershaw for his assistance on that fateful night at Black Dudley. He was, if anything, a little mo...

In the six weeks which followed the unsatisfactory trip to the Essex Marshes, Abbershaw and Meggie were fully occupied preparing for their wedding, which they had decided should...