The Layton Court mystery

It did not pay, William held, to rush things; especially the important things of life, such as the removal of greenfly from roses. Before action was taken, the matter should be...

Mr. Victor Stanworth, the host of the little party now in progress at Layton Court, was, according to the reports of his friends, who were many and various, a thoroughly excelle...

Like many of the other rooms at Layton Court, the library had been largely modernised. Dark oak panelling still covered the walls, but the big open fireplace, with its high chim...

Inspector Mansfield, of the Elchester police, was a methodical person. He knew exactly what he had to do, and just how to do it. And he had precisely as much imagination as was...

“Now, gentlemen,” said the inspector, when the four of them were seated in the morning room, “there is a certain amount of routine work for me to do, though it may strike you as...

“Simply what I say,” returned Roger. “Why did Stanworth go out of his way to shoot himself in such a remarkably difficult manner? Don’t you see what I mean? It isn’t natural.”

“I’m blessed if I know,” Roger confessed. “In fact, I can’t really say that I actually expect to find anything. I’ve got hopes, of course, but in no definite direction.”

“Absolutely. It’s a bullet mark all right. The bullet isn’t there, but it must have just embedded itself in the wood and been dug out with a pen-knife. You can see the marks of...

They entered the house by the front door, which always stood open whenever a party was in progress. The unspoken thought was in the minds of both that they preferred not to pass...

“Yes, I suppose so,” Alec hesitated, “if you put it like that. But—— Well, we seem to be getting on so jolly fast. I mean, it’s rather difficult to realise that a murder’s been...

Leaving Alec to accompany Mrs. Plant to the house, Roger hurried on ahead with a muttered excuse. He was anxious not to miss a moment of the highly significant scene which was a...

“About this case?” Roger retorted. “You’re quite right. Lots of things do. But let’s put all these side issues behind us for the moment. There’s one thing that I’m simply aching...

“How the murderer escaped,” Roger repeated, turning and smiling happily at his dumb-founded accomplice. “It’s extraordinarily simple, really. That’s why we never spotted it. Hav...

The ash pit proved easy to locate. It lay among some outhouses and was surrounded on three sides by mellow old red-brick walls, the space within which was filled with a depresse...

After the blazing sun and the dust, the cool bar of the old-fashioned little village inn, with its sanded floor and its brasses gleaming in the soft twilight, was remarkably wel...

“Alec,” interrupted Roger plaintively, “if you say one more word to me about bulls, cows, or any other farmyard impedimenta, I shall burst at once into loud tears. I warn you.”

But however much Jefferson might guess of their activities, certainly nothing was visible in his manner as Roger and Alec entered the drawing room, twenty minutes late for tea....

“Ah, now you’re asking me something. I haven’t the least idea. I don’t even know that he was going back into the house. All I say is that that is the only inference I can draw f...

At the top of the stairs the two parted, Alec going to his own room and Roger to his. Arrived there, the latter did not proceed immediately with his changing; for some moments h...

For a moment Mrs. Plant sat perfectly rigid. Then she put out her hand and mechanically took the handkerchief that Roger was still holding out to her. Her face had gone quite wh...

Long after Alec’s not altogether willing departure, Roger sat smoking and thinking. On the whole, he was not sorry to be alone. Alec was proving a somewhat discouraging companio...

It was past ten o’clock on the following morning, and Roger and Alec were engaged in taking a constitutional in the rose garden after breakfast before the inquest proceedings op...

The inquest, in spite of the snail-like deliberation demanded by all legal processes, did not occupy more than an hour and a half. The issue was never in the least doubt, and th...

Roger sat through the first part of lunch in a species of minor trance. It was not until the necessity for consuming a large plateful of prunes and tapioca pudding, the two thin...

Roger had no time to waste. Mrs. Plant, Alec, and himself were all to leave by the train soon after five o’clock; the car would be ready to take them into Elchester at half-past...

For some moments Roger was incapable of speech. This disclosure was so totally unexpected, so entirely the reverse of anything that he had ever imagined, that at first it litera...

Roger did not reappear until the car was at the front door and the other members of the party already making their farewells on the steps. His leave-taking was necessarily a lit...

“No, I don’t mean that. I mean, if I hadn’t killed Stanworth, he would probably have killed me. It was partly self-defence. I’ll tell you the whole story in a minute.”