The master criminal

The night was of velvety blackness--one of those soft, warm, dark nights of June when the southwest wind rolls a cloud-curtain over the stars, when the air is heavy with unshed...

Later on that same morning all London was thrilled by the story of a sensational burglary at the house of Mr. Hildebrand Flurscheim, the noted connoisseur and dealer in objects...

The philosophy of Lynton Hora had for once given way under the stress of a deep emotion. There could be no doubt about that, and no doubt either that the emotion which had strai...

There was undoubted reason why the name of Marven should move Lynton Hora to emotion. It swept him back over the thirty years which bridged him from his youth. He would not have...

"We are getting near the end of our resources, Guy," remarked Hora quietly, as he held a glass of port up to the light, sipped the wine, nodded his head approvingly, and set the...

Guy had ten minutes to spare as he stepped out of the cab at St. Pancras Station, and, handing a bag to a porter, made his way leisurely to the booking office and took a ticket...

Captain Marven was certainly not at ease in his own mind in regard to the experience on his journey. He seemed to remember awaking, and seeing in Guy's possession the despatch b...

Lynton Hora felt that Fate had dealt generously with him when it made Captain Marven the bearer of the despatch case which Guy had so ingeniously rifled of its secrets. Guy's su...

When the carriage containing the Great Man rolled up to the door on the south side of Downing Street the constable stationed there stiffened himself preparatory to saluting. But...

Time did not touch Mr. Hildebrand Flurscheim's sore with a healing finger. A month after he had been robbed of his treasures the wound was still open, though by that time he had...

In the days that followed the conversation between Guy and Meriel, the young man's disquiet strengthened, though he hid his perturbation successfully enough from the eyes of his...

One day at the beginning of July Detective Inspector Kenly's face as he left the railway station and stepped out briskly homewards wore a particularly injured air. It was not en...

A hundred times a day Myra told herself that she would forget Guy, that she would tear every tender memory of him from her heart, and a hundred times a day her heart cried out p...

The whole of Cornelius Jessel's cringing heart and slinking soul was put into the work which the Master had given him to do. He loved to peer and pry into other people's busines...

Inspector Kenly had good cause for regretting the departure of the man whose arrival in his home had been the source of so much annoyance to him, for Cornelius Jessel had become...

The dog days had come and the season was almost moribund when Captain and Mrs. Marven and Miss Challys left town for their country house in Essex, where Guy was to join them a w...

Whitsea lies on the estuary of one of those Essex rivers which flow into the North Sea through a wilderness of shallows. The visitor who goes to it expecting to find any one of...

The morning was heavy with an almost unnatural calm. By nine o'clock the sun's rays glowed with the intensity of noon. The flowers drooped their heads and the leaves hung listle...

Although Cornelius had been entirely unaware of the fact, his late landlord had arrived at Whitsea by the same train as himself, and had been keeping a sharp eye on him, and if...

While Inspector Kenly was hastening to London events at Whitsea were shaping themselves to the bewilderment of a number of the inhabitants of that pleasant little yachting resor...

Lynton Hora felt more uneasiness than he would have acknowledged at Guy's failure to communicate with him. Nor did the daily reports with which Cornelius Jessel supplied him do...

The last evening Guy had spent at Whitsea had seemed interminable. Both his host and hostess had observed his depression, but tactfully took no notice. Then when Guy was alone w...

Blue skies and sunshine and a rippling silver sea, all nature jocund and gay, and for the first time in her young life Meriel was unresponsive to the appeal. The romance had gon...

Events were coiling themselves swiftly, and Lynton Hora at the very centre of the coil was inert, motionless, unaware of the web which was being spun about him. Indeed some of t...

A minute after Guy had peeped into her bedroom Myra awakened. Her sleep had been short and she awoke unrefreshed. She arose mechanically and was surprised that her maid was not...

When in response to the official summons Captain Marven returned to town he was more perturbed than he would have cared to confess, at the disastrous ending to Meriel's love aff...

All too swiftly speeded the minutes which were at Captain Marven's disposal. There was so much to be explained, so much to be learned, and barely an hour to explain everything....

Lynton Hora was not to be allowed to escape. That was the decision arrived at, after the prolonged conference at the Foreign Office, and Detective Inspector Kenly's mind was the...