The dark eyes of London

Larry Holt sat before the Café de la Paix, watching the stream of life flow east and west along the Boulevard des Italiens. The breath of spring was in the air; the trees were b...

Flash Fred, whose other name was Grogan, had a genuine grievance; for, after he had been solemnly assured by a reputable officer of the law that he intended going to Monte Carlo...

Room No. 47 was on the floor above that where the Commissioner’s office was situated. It lay at the end of a long corridor, facing the detective. He carried the tray in one hand...

Flash Fred had seen Larry Holt off the premises of the railway terminus; for, though he had left the station building first, he had waited until Larry’s taxi had gone.

“You know our friend, Mr. Grogan,” he said easily. “He’s a member of our amateur dramatic society, and we were practising a scene from ‘The Corsican Brothers.’ I suppose it look...

“Nothing at all,” he said, shaking his head. Then he remembered he had not examined the little roll of brown paper. “I don’t know what this is; it was found in his pocket.”

“Yes, there are books and newspapers printed in that type,” she said. “It is a sort of embossed character made of a number of small dots, the relation of one with the other prod...

She nodded, took out a telegram form from her rack, and began writing. Larry glanced through the reports mechanically, initialled one, and put the others aside. Then he opened t...

An examination of local records produced no satisfactory result. Margaret Stuart had died at a farm three miles out of Beverley Manor, and the farm had changed hands twice since...

Flash Fred had not left London: he had no intention of leaving London, if the truth be told. He had certain doubts in his mind which he had determined to set at rest, certain ob...

He was wearing his favourite indoor kit, a dressing-gown, a pair of old cricketing trousers, and a soft shirt, and now he filled his polished brier with a sense of physical well...

The girl was watching interestedly. Now she saw the real Larry Holt, the man of whom it is said by the Commissioner that “he slept trailing.” At his request, she stood outside t...

“I didn’t promise to keep you up all night,” he said good-humouredly, “and you’re looking a wreck. I don’t think I shall do anything much more this morning--except sleep,” said...

No. 280 Coram Street was an apartment house, and Mrs. Fanny Weldon occupied two rooms, one facing Coram Street and one a side turning. She lived well and she paid well, gave lit...

Larry was in a dilemma. The man’s advance toward him brought the half-fainting woman on the bed in the line of fire. But for that he undoubtedly intended to shoot if the man sho...

There was a fashionable wedding on the Monday at St. George’s, Hanover Square. A queue of motor-cars and broughams stretched in all directions and lined both sides of the street...

It chilled him a little, for he was so completely absorbed by the game that he could not understand that what was fun to him was work to her. She must have read his thoughts, fo...

“I hate declining your invitation,” said Larry, “but I am hanging on to the end of a wire. I sent Harvey on a tour of investigation to-day, and he promised to ’phone me round ab...

“Mr. Grogan came in at about eleven o’clock to-night,” he said, “and went up to his flat. I took him a syphon of soda he ordered, and said good-night to him.

“I wish to heaven it would grow clearer to me,” grumbled Larry. “Here is the situation. Let me recapitulate.” He ticked off the points on the fingers of one hand as he leant bac...

“No, it was not necessary,” said the doctor. “I told you I gave her an open cheque. Well, she seemed a little perturbed at first. She did not want a cheque; so I sent my clerk t...

“I’m not going home,” she said firmly. “I am going with you to Todd’s. You promised me I should, and as soon as I get into the air I shall be all right. If you were to take me a...

Was it guesswork? Was it sheer deduction? Was it knowledge? These three questions flashed through Larry’s mind, but before he could ask her any further questions, John Dearborn...

Larry paced the dormitory, sick with fear, terrified as he had never been before. He had searched the house from roof to cellar, had explored dusty and dark corners of which the...

Diana Ward had strolled to the farther end of the dormitory and was feeling the texture of the rough sheets. The housewife instinct in her was a strong one and her nurse’s train...

That sense of security, of peace, and of deep happiness was inexpressibly sweet, she thought, as she lay in Larry Holt’s arms. Presently she released herself, and in a few hurri...

They carried the injured man into the sitting room and laid him on a couch. There was a doctor living in the flat above and luckily he had not gone to bed, and was down in a few...

“Don’t you know that when you shake hands with the blind, you always reach out and take their hand, because they cannot see yours offered; but Dearborn raised his just as soon a...

“Now I’m going to give it to you straight, governor,” said Fred, settling himself comfortably in bed. “I won’t say that I couldn’t tell a lie--that’s the one saying of Napoleon’...

He sat huddled up at one side of the tubular room, and his remarks were addressed to a wretched-looking woman who sat on the other side, her arms folded on her knees, her head b...

It had been Diana Ward who had called Larry’s attention to the great rusty boiler at one end of the house, the boiler which had supplied the steam and the power for the laundry....

A thin white mist overhung the park and shrouded the deserted stretch of Rotten Row, and the one or two riders who had come out at this early hour for their constitutional merel...

“On both sides,” said Larry. “But there are a dozen ways this fellow could get out, and the fact that he goes for an early morning constitutional, and the people who are behind...

Larry jerked open the gates on the ground floor, and staggered from the lift-shaft to meet the dumbfounded Dr. Judd standing in an attitude of surprise, and incredulity expresse...

He carried a flash-lamp in his hand, but it was some time before he discovered the switch, which was set high in the wall, near the sloping roof of the stairs on the farthermost...

“Wait!” said Larry. He was on the point of leaving the House of Death. “We may not get another opportunity of making a leisurely examination of these premises. I am curious abou...

It was she who had failed to register the birth of Diana and her twin sister, and this failure had, curiously enough, saved her life; for when the gang had discovered, as they d...

The man who called himself the Rev. John Dearborn sat behind the locked door of his study and methodically burnt papers in a little fireplace that was at the back of his chair....

“There are two policemen at the end of the road. Hurry,” said John Dearborn sharply, and listened to the flip-flap of the messenger’s slippers as he shuffled up the street.

Diana had gone home--it was queer how in a few days she had come to regard Larry’s flat as her home--before dinner. Her work was done, and there remained only the stern, grim pr...

Dearborn put his arm about her waist and dragged her from the room into the saloon. When he released her, her knees gave way under her and she dropped to the floor.

Larry sat on the iron bedstead of the cell, his aching head between his hands. He had anticipated many ends to that night’s adventure, but never did he imagine that he would be...

She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came. She had killed Larry! Her hand had pulled the lever which drowned him! That was the word Judd had used. Drowned him--but how?...

Slowly David pushed the girl away from him and faced the intruder, looking at him from under his heavy brows. Larry did not see the man’s hand move, so quick was the motion. A w...

Two months later, Dr. Judd sat on the edge of a very small bed and smoked three cigarettes, one after the other. It was a rainy morning, and the square of glass which gave light...