Detective and mystery stories

The documents in the case

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Chapters

1. Part 1

All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 10 East...

2. Part 2

Mr. Harrison has been more amiable lately. He has bought a wonderful new box of paints, on the strength of knowing a real artist, I suppose, and spends his time working up some...

3. Part 3

Ever and ever yours, funny-face, old dear. I’d like to see your cheery grin now and again. I must be damned fond of you—sometimes it positively puts me off my stroke. Damned inc...

4. Part 4

I was greatly pleased to have your letter and to know that the work goes so well. Yours is a great opportunity. I know how proud and happy I should have been at your age to have...

5. Part 5

Mr. Lathom has been perfectly sweet about it all. He went in to see Mr. Harrison when the uproar had calmed down a little, and finding it impossible to move him, gave way gracef...

6. Part 6

That led on to a general discussion of Art, and the yearning that every creative artist feels to obtain a public response to his art. And so, by devious ways, to Lathom and his...

7. Part 7

On arriving, I immediately interrogated Miss Milsom closely. Her story was that, on the night of the 22nd, at about 12.30, she had felt a sudden craving for sardines (the woman...

8. Part 8

Then he exploded and started to tramp about. She was the greatest miracle God had ever made. They were meant for one another. They had got into each other’s blood and all the re...

9. Part 9

Darling, if you think it’s better we shouldn’t be real lovers, don’t leave me altogether. Let us see each other sometimes. It doesn’t matter even if the Gorgon is there and we h...

10. Part 10

The next news I had about the Harrisons was about the middle of October, 1929, when I got a note from Lathom, written, rather unexpectedly, from “The Shack, Manaton, Devon.” He...

11. Part 11

Three miles uphill in the dark—it would take him close on the hour, certainly. Then he had to knock somebody up, find a telephone, if there was one, get on to the police—say hal...

12. Part 12

Did you ever remonstrate with the deceased about his habit of eating these dangerous fungi?—I told him I was afraid there would an accident some day. The subject had frequently...

13. Part 13

“All I understand is that you ruined his life, and drove him to a dreadful death,” I burst out. I had not meant to go so far, but I was too angry to think what I was saying.

14. Part 14

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “Mother says as she can’t bring it ’ere, not ’avin’ the tools by ’er, but if you was to come down to our place on Friday, the party as she obliges bein’...

15. Part 15

Supposing that Lathom had himself gathered the poisonous fungi and surreptitiously added them to the dish while it was in course of preparation, the murder might have been very...

16. Part 16

This is interesting. It makes it seem likely that Lathom only decided to make this trip to town at the last moment—in fact, after hearing my father express his intention of gath...

17. Part 17

Having thus shed the outward insignia of visitors, we found ourselves in a wide corridor, smelling faintly of chemists’ shops, with numbered doors on either side. A few men in w...

18. Part 18

“That’s all very well,” said Hoskyns, emerging with a grin from a cloud of tobacco-smoke, “but all you people talk so cheerfully about Matter, as if you knew what it was. I don’...

19. Part 19

“I shouldn’t taste it if I were you,” said Sir James, a little grimly. He struck a match and lit a Bunsen burner, the flame of which played upon a small mass of something held a...