The Duke of York's steps

“I should have thought you were too old a Grendonian to fall into that trap,” he said. “Where was it? The Grandleigh? They generally give you pretty good stuff there. I hate tho...

At half past four on the same afternoon, Inez Fratten walked into the morning-room of her father’s big house in Queen Anne’s Gate, pulled off her soft hat and threw it on to a c...

The morning after Sir Garth’s confession to Hessel, the cause of it, Major-General Sir Hunter Lorne, K.C.B., D.S.O., stepped from his car outside Ald House in Fenchurch Street,...

One evening, about a fortnight later, Sir Garth Fratten and Leopold Hessel walked down the steps of the “Wanderers,” in St. James’s Square, of which rather large-hearted club He...

The sudden death of Sir Garth Fratten, interesting and, in financial circles, important as it had been, was not sufficiently sensational to remain in the public memory more than...

Detective-Inspector John Poole had had, as Chief Inspector Barrod had told Sir Leward Marradine, a good education. That is to say, he had been to a private school, one of the sm...

After a quick luncheon and a visit to the library of the Yard to look up “Aneurism” in the Encyclopedia Britannica, in order to check Sir Horace’s description, Inspector Poole p...

“That means, then,” he said at last, “that if Sir Garth had died on the evening of the 25th of October instead of the 24th, Miss Inez Fratten would have inherited the whole of t...

Thinking over his interview with Ryland Fratten, Poole felt rather uncertain as to what deduction to draw from it as to his character. Undoubtedly he was a much more intelligent...

The inquest on the exhumed body of Sir Garth Fratten was held at Scotland Yard, as any unnecessary movement was considered undesirable in view of the stage of decomposition that...

“There you are, Poole,” he said. “I’ve given you a start on that young fellow. You stick to it now and don’t leave go till you’ve got him. You’ll have to keep him shadowed now.”

When Inez left the detective on the first occasion, she found her brother, where she had left him, in her own sitting-room, hunched up in an arm-chair and staring gloomily at th...

Poole realized that before pinning the crime of murdering Sir Garth Fratten to any individual, he must first find out, or at any rate try to find out, how that murder had been c...

Although he had had a hard day’s work and it was nearly six o’clock, Poole felt that he had made so little progress that he could not leave things as they were. Consequently, he...

Inez Fratten, on hearing from the sedate Miss Gilling that the scent she had been trying to trace to Ryland’s mysterious charmer had been actually bought by Ryland himself, felt...

When Poole reached Scotland Yard on the morning after his perusal of Sir Garth’s papers, he went straight to the room of Chief Inspector Barrod. That officer had just arrived bu...

Inez explained to the two detectives how she had obtained from Ryland the handkerchief with an unusual scent which had belonged to Daphne, the mysterious girl who alone could ha...

Whether Fratten recognized him or not, the detective could not be certain; he did not appear to look at him, but turned away and walked off at the same pace as before. Poole gav...

Poole sent the police-car, with Detective-Constables Kelley and Rawton in it, back to Scotland Yard, keeping Sergeant Gower with him. He questioned the scavenger, whose name was...

Returning to Scotland Yard, Poole reported this new and significant development to Barrod. The latter decided that the time was ripe for a reference to Sir Leward Marradine and...

On his return to the offices of the Victory Finance Company on Monday afternoon, Major-Gen. Sir Hunter Lorne found awaiting him a note brought by a young man in a neat dark suit...

A few minutes after Sir Hunter Lorne left the offices of the Victory Finance Company, Inspector Poole presented himself at the door and asked the junior clerk who answered his r...

“You see how it is, Inspector,” continued Wraile; “when I first came here as manager I was very hard up indeed. We had got married just after the War, when everyone thought they...

The two trails that Poole was now following—excluding, for the moment, Ryland Fratten—had diverged; one remained in London, the other led to Belgium—Brussels. He had to decide w...

Three people sat in the Board Room of the Victory Finance Company—Captain James Wraile, his wife, and Mr. Travers Lessingham. A fire burnt in the hearth, the blinds were down, a...

“Revolver, sir, I think,” replied Fallows weakly “—hit me with it—on the head. Munt ran to the body—when it fell. I waited—below stairs—there’s a drop. Chap jumped—hit at me as...