The Draycott murder mystery

The wind swept down the crooked main street of the little village of Keys with a shriek that made those fortunate inhabitants who had nothing to tempt them from their warm fires...

Police Constable George Gunnet bent down with a grunt of satisfaction and slowly unlaced his second boot. He was not a quick mover at the best of times and the pleasant kitchen,...

Lady Staveley’s fine eyes were alight with amusement as she turned them on her guest. He had just alluded to Lady Cynthia Bell as “a demure little thing” and was now discussing...

Sir Edward Kean’s separation from his wife was to prove shorter than he had anticipated. On the local train which dawdled its lazy way to Whitbury he dozed fitfully, only to hav...

At the best of times Whitbury Junction cannot be described as an attractive spot, with its three long platforms, flanked on either hand by sidings with their usual array of catt...

Kean found Fayre waiting for him when he reached the hotel at Whitbury. Cynthia, he learned, had taken the car to the garage to fill up and Leslie had accompanied her.

The drive back to Staveley was a silent one. Cynthia had been allowed to see Leslie for a few minutes before he was removed to the police station and had taken friendly and reas...

Fayre and Grey lunched at the station hotel, where the solicitor had booked a room for the night. From Fayre’s point of view, the meal was more than satisfactory. Grey showed a...

When Fayre got back to Staveley he found a tea-party in full swing and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to escape from various formidable old ladies, who picked his brains...

Immediately after breakfast he betook himself to the library in the vain hope of finding a medical directory. A brief survey of the rows of calf-bound volumes convinced him that...

“You look hipped, Uncle Fayre,” she said, her sharp eyes on his face. “Didn’t you like your old friend when you did find him? Or are you just fed up?”

For one thing he did not feel equal just at that moment to facing any of the members of the Staveley party and, for another, the heading on the bill in Gregg’s garage had been t...

Having at last found something definite to do Cynthia proved herself a very able organizer. By lunch-time the next day she had extracted an invitation from the Campbells, square...

After dinner that night Lord Staveley, wishing to ring up his bookie, strolled into the little ante-room that housed the telephone. Here, to his surprise, he discovered Fayre. H...

When Cynthia stepped out of the train at Staveley Grange she found Fayre waiting on the platform. The station-master, an old friend of her childhood, bustled forward to receive...

As Fayre passed down the broad staircase of the Cottage Hospital he reviewed his conversation with the tramp and decided that, considering the little he had gained by it, he mig...

Fayre saw Miss Allen into a cab and then drove straight to his club. After a hot bath and a leisurely breakfast he felt better able to face the world, but he was not sorry to sp...

Before going out the next morning Fayre rang up Kean’s house and ascertained that Sybil Kean had passed a good night and was appreciably stronger. The doctors were still unable...

On his way to keep his appointment with Miss Allen, Fayre called at Kean’s house in Westminster, where he was assured by the butler that Lady Kean’s improvement “was maintained....

Fayre slept little that night and rose the next morning jaded and sick at heart. During the long hours in which he had tossed ceaselessly on his bed, wrestling in vain with the...

Sybil Kean’s amazing letter left Fayre in a condition of mingled bewilderment and relief. Out of all the tangle of events that he had been trying in vain to unravel one strand a...

The next six weeks dragged heavily enough for John Leslie within the four walls of his cell at Carlisle, but, to Cynthia, they were one long agony. She spent one short week-end...

“_To be hanged by the neck until you are dead._” The sentence still rang in Fayre’s ears as his taxi sped through the streets on its way to Miss Allen’s lodgings. He could hear...

The report of Sybil Kean when Fayre rang up at lunch-time was not reassuring. The heart attack had been less violent than either of those that had preceded it, but she had not r...

There was a tense silence, broken only by the sound of the distant traffic in Victoria Street. Fayre made an ineffectual effort to speak, but no words came. There was nothing he...

Afterwards, in bitter anguish and remorse, Fayre cursed himself for his blindness. At first he had been deceived by Kean’s attitude of cold detachment towards the whole gruesome...

They had chosen an old church, tucked away in an unfashionable corner of South London, as the scene of their wedding and had asked to the ceremony only those whose friendship th...