The Kingdom of the Blind

Olive Moreton gave a little start as the long, grey, racing car came noiselessly to a standstill by the side of the kerbstone. Captain Granet raised his hat and leaned from the...

Lady Anselman stood in the centre of the lounge at the Ritz Hotel and with a delicately-poised forefinger counted her guests. There was the great French actress who had every ch...

Granet, on his return to Sackville Street, paid the taxicab driver, ascended the stairs and let himself into his rooms with very much the air of a man who has passed through a d...

The two men who had walked up together arm in arm from Downing Street, stood for several moments in Pall Mall before separating. The pressman who was passing yearned for the sun...

About three o’clock the next morning Thomson was awakened by a light touch upon his shoulder. He sprang up from the couch upon which he had thrown himself. Ambrose was standing...

“But really,” she continued, “to me Captain Granet seems just the type of young Englishman who is going to save the country. He is a keen soldier, clever, modest, and a wonderfu...

There was a shrill whistle from the captain’s bridge, and the steamer, which had scarcely yet gathered way, swung slowly around. Rushing up towards it through the mists came a l...

Surgeon-Major Thomson awoke about twelve hours later with a start. He had been sleeping so heavily that he was at first unable to remember his whereabouts. His mind moved sluggi...

“London, too, has its scars, and London is proud of them,” a great morning paper declared the next morning. “The last and gigantic effort of German ‘frightfulness’ has come and...

It was towards the close of an unusually long day’s work and Major Thomson sighed with relief as he realised that at last his anteroom was empty. He lit a cigarette and stretche...

It was a queer little gathering in the drawing-room of Market Burnham Hall, queer and in a sense ominous. Two soldiers guarded the door. Another one stood with his back to the w...

Isabel Worth leaned back in the comfortable seat by Granet’s side and breathed a little sigh of content. She had enjoyed her luncheon party a deux, their stroll along the sands...

Granet turned quickly around in his chair. Almost instinctively he pulled down the roll top of the desk before which he was seated. Then he rose to his feet and held out his han...

The room was a study in masculine luxury. The brown walls were hung with a choice selection of sporting prints, varied here and there with silverpoint etchings of beautiful wome...

Surgeon-Major Thomson reeled for a moment and caught at the paling by his side. Then he recovered himself almost as quickly, and, leaning forward, gazed eagerly at the long, gre...

Mr. Gordon Jones rose to his feet. It had been an interesting, in some respects a momentous interview. He glanced around the plain but handsomely furnished office, a room which...

Lord Romsey, after his luncheon-party, spent an hour at his official residence in Whitehall and made two other calls on his way home. His secretary met him in the spacious hall...

They all followed him. He was standing just outside the French-windows of the sitting-room, upon the gravel walk, his head upturned, listening intently. There was scarcely a bre...

Granet emerged from the Tregarten Hotel at St. Mary’s on the following morning, about half-past eight, and strolled down the narrow strip of lawn which bordered the village stre...

“I was up till three o’clock again. Once I thought I was on the track of it. I have come to the conclusion now that it’s one of those codes that depend upon shifting quantities....

The Admiralty report that they received last night a message from Commander Conyers of the destroyer _Scorpion,_ announcing that he has destroyed German submarines U 22 and 27,...

At a little after noon on the following day Captain Granet descended from a taxicab in the courtyard of the Milan Hotel, and, passing through the swing doors, made his way to th...

Lady Anselman stood once more in the foyer of the Ritz Hotel and counted her guests. It was a smaller party this time, and in its way a less distinguished one. There were a coup...

Considering the crowded state of the waiting-room and the number of highly important people who were there for the same purpose, Surgeon-Major Thomson seemed to have remarkably...

Mr. Gordon Jones, who had moved his chair a little closer to his host’s side, looked reflectively around the dining-room as he sipped his port. The butler remained on sufferance...

Monsieur Guillot was a man of emotional temperament. For more than an hour after Granet had left him, he paced up and down his little room, stood before the high windows which o...

“It’s Hugh,” she explained. “He has rung up from the War Office or somewhere--says he has just got back from France and wants to see me at once. I think he might have waited til...

Granet, a few days later, brought his car to a standstill in front of an ordinary five-barred gate upon which was painted in white letters “Market Burnham Hall.” A slight grey m...

“You are not going to scold me for my memory, are you?” Captain Granet asked, looking down at her with a faintly humorous uplifting of the eyebrows. “I must have exercise, you k...

“We meant to stay longer,” Granet admitted, “but things went a little wrong. First of all there was this Zeppelin raid. Then my arm didn’t go very well. Altogether our little ex...

A few rays of fugitive sunshine were brightening Piccadilly when Geraldine and her escort left the Ritz. The momentary depression occasioned by the dramatic little episode of a...

Surgeon-Major Thomson looked up almost eagerly as Ambrose entered his room the next morning. The young man’s manner was dejected and there were black lines under his eyes. He an...

Surgeon-Major Thomson had apparently forgotten his appointment to view camp bedsteads, for, a few minutes after he had left Geraldine and her brother, his taxicab set him down b...

“Well, we could hear the vibration like anything, coming from over the marsh there. I got the car out and we were no sooner on the road than I could see it distinctly, right abo...

The little party trooped out of the restaurant and made their way to a corner of the lounge, where tables had already been prepared with coffee and liqueurs. Geraldine Conyers a...

It was a very cheerful little party dining that night at the Dormy House Club. There was Granet; Geoffrey Anselman, his cousin, who played for Cambridge and rowed two; Major Har...