The Green Rust

Dr. van Heerden expected many things and was prepared for contingencies beyond the imagination of the normally minded, but he was not prepared to find in Oliva Cresswell a pleas...

He looked at van Heerden thoughtfully, then picked up the phial again. It bore the label of a well-known firm of wholesale chemists, and the seal had apparently been broken for...

Dr. van Heerden's surgery occupied one of the four shops which formed the ground floor of the Krooman Chambers. This edifice had been erected by a wealthy philanthropist to prov...

Oliva Cresswell rose with the final despairing buzz of her alarm clock and conquered the almost irresistible temptation to close her eyes, just to see what it felt like. Her fir...

If there were committed in London the crime of the century--a crime so tremendous that the names of the chief actors in this grisly drama were on the lips of every man, woman an...

Oliva Cresswell remembered nothing. She did not remember being thrust limply into a long narrow box, nor hearing Beale's voice, nor the click of the door that fastened him in Dr...

Oliva Cresswell did not feel at all sleepy, so she discovered, by the time she was ready for bed. To retire in that condition of wakefulness meant another sleepless night, and s...

A light glowed in the hall, the door was opened and the doctor, in slippers and velvet coat, stood in the entrance. He showed no resentment nor did he have time to show it.

She made a rapid survey of the documents. They were unimportant, and consisted mainly of letters from the few girl friends she had made during her stay at Punsonby's--old theatr...

More than this she could not do, for her hands and feet were strapped, and on the pillow, near her head, was a big bath-towel saturated with water which had been employed in sti...

She rose to meet him, and he stood spellbound, still holding the handle of the door. It seemed that she had taken on new qualities, a new and an ethereal grace. At the very thou...

"I don't mind your kicks," he said, without looking up; "you can't say anything worse about me than I am saying about myself. Oh, I've been a fool, an arrogant mad fool."

"At Kingston-on-Thames," said McNorton--"the man was picked up in the street, fighting drunk, and taken to the police station, where he developed delirium tremens. Apparently he...

Mr. White, managing director of Punsonby's Store, was a man of simple tastes. He had a horror of extravagance and it was his boast that he had never ridden in a taxi-cab save as...

With her elbows resting on the broad window-ledge and her cheeks against the cold steel bars which covered the window, Oliva Cresswell watched the mists slowly dissipate in the...

The hotel and the cafe of the Grand Alliance was London's newest rendezvous. Its great palm-court was crowded at the tea-hour and if, as the mysterious Mr. Beale had hinted, any...

A dishevelled figure stood by the boxes, revolver in hand--it was Bridgers, the man he had left strapped and bound in the "ambulance-room," and Beale cursed the folly which had...

"It doesn't sound right, does it?" smiled Beale, "especially after McNorton telling us the other day that there was no such thing as a gunman in England. Do you remember his lon...

No. 342, Lothbury, is a block of business offices somewhat unpretentious in their approach but of surprising depth and importance when explored. Oliva Cresswell stood for awhile...

Oliva Cresswell awoke to consciousness as she was being carried up the stairs of the house. She may have recovered sooner, for she retained a confused impression of being laid d...

When Beale left Krooman Mansions with his two companions he had only the haziest idea as to where he should begin his search. Perhaps the personal interest he had in his client,...

Beale had a long consultation with McNorton at Scotland Yard, and on his return to the hotel, had his dinner sent up to Kitson's private room and dined amidst a litter of open n...

Dr. van Heerden did not hurry his departure from his Staines house. He spent the morning following Oliva's marriage in town, transacting certain important business and making no...

"I don't know whether there's a law that stops my doing this, Jim; but if there is, you've got to get round it. You're a lawyer and you know the game. You're my pal and the best...

It seemed that a grey curtain of mist hung before Oliva's eyes. It was a curtain spangled with tiny globes of dazzling light which grew from nothing and faded to nothing. Whenev...

His clothes were grimed and dusty, his collar limp and soiled. There were two days' growth of red-grey stubble on his big jaw, and he bore himself like a man who was faint from...

There is a menace about Monday morning which few have escaped. It is a menace which in one guise or another clouds hundreds of millions of pillows, gives to the golden sunlight...

"Thanks," said van Heerden, pocketing the ticket, "it is of no use to me now, for I cannot wait. I gather that you have not disclosed the fact that this ticket is in your posses...

After all, it was for the best--van Heerden could almost see the hand of Providence in this deliverance of his enemy into his power. There must be a settlement with Beale, that...

Stanford Beale spent a thoughtful three minutes in the darkness of the cellar passage to which Hilda Glaum had led him and then he began a careful search of his pockets. He carr...

Beale looked up and down the road. There was nobody in sight and he made a leap, caught the top of the wall and drew himself up. Luckily the usual _chevaux de frise_ was absent....

The church bells were chiming eleven o'clock when a car drew up before a gloomy corner shop, bearing the dingy sign of the pawnbroker's calling, and Beale and McNorton alighted.