The Middle of Things

Four o'clock had struck, and the doors of the bank were closed when Miss Wickham and Viner hurried up to it, but there was a private entrance at the side, and the man who answer...

A murmur of astonishment ran through the court as the witness made his last reply, and those most closely interested in him turned and looked at each other with obvious amazemen...

On the principle that business should never be discussed when one is dining, Mr. Pawle made no reference during dinner to the matter which had brought Viner and himself to the E...

On that particular November evening, Viner, a young gentleman of means and leisure, who lived in a comfortable old house in Markendale Square, Bayswater, in company with his mai...

When Langton Hyde was brought up before the magistrate next morning, the court was crowded to its utmost limits; and Viner, looking round him from his seat near the solicitors'...

Before the sputter of the match had died out, Viner had recognized the man who lay dead at his feet. He was a man about whom he had recently felt some curiosity, a man who, a fe...

The man who was waiting in Mr. Pawle's room, and who rose from his chair with alacrity as the old lawyer entered with Viner at his heels, was an alert, sharp-eyed person of some...

"Hyde!" he said. "Then--that's what I remembered! Of course I know you! But good heavens, man, what does all this mean? What's brought you to this--to be here, in this place?"

"Now, have you said as much as that to anybody before?" he asked, eking her significantly. "Have you mentioned it to your neighbours, for instance, or to any one in the town?"

Unknown to those who had taken part in the conference at Viner's house, unknown even to Carless, who in the multiplicity of his engagements, had forgotten the instructions which...

For the first time since they had entered the room, Drillford turned and glanced at Viner; his look indicated the idea which Miss Wickham's last words had set up in his mind. He...

The man who presently walked in, a tall, grey-bearded, evidently prosperous person, dressed in the height of fashion, glanced keenly from one to the other of the two men who awa...

When Viner, half an hour later, walked into the waiting-room at Crawle, Pawle and Rattenbury's, he was aware of a modestly attired young woman, evidently, from her dress and app...

The three men who heard this announcement were conscious that at this point the Ashton case entered upon an entirely new phase. Armitstead's mind was swept clean away from the e...

Mr. Pawle turned sharply on his companion as Viner pulled him up. He saw the direction of Viner's suddenly arrested gaze and looked from him to the two men who had now walked do...

Mr. Pawle, an alert-looking, sharp-eyed little man, whom Viner at once recognized as having been present in the magistrate's court when Hyde was brought up, smiled as he shook h...

Remembering that Barleyfield had said that the man who now entered had been in Ashton's company in that very room on the evening of the murder, Viner looked at him with keen int...

Viner was hoping that the police had got hold of the wrong man as he reluctantly walked into Drillford's office, but one glance at the inspector's confident face, alert and smil...

The man whose extraordinary story had excited such intense interest had become the object of universal attention. Hyde, hitherto the centre of attraction, was already forgotten,...

"I'm sure I'm right!" he exclaimed. "You'll find out that I'm right! But there's a tremendous lot to do, Carless. If only that unfortunate man, Ashton, had lived, he could have...

"It's the only thing to do," he said. "We must get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible--whether Miss Wickham can tell us much or little, we must know what she can tell....

The meeting between the solicitors suggested to Viner and to Lord Ellingham, who looked on curiously while they exchanged formal greetings and explanations, a certain solemnity-...

Carless and Driver practised their profession of the law in one of the old houses on the south side of Lincoln's Inn Fields--a house so old that it immediately turned Viner's th...

Events had crowded so thick and fast upon Viner during the last day or two, that he went to the telephone fully expecting to hear of some new development. But he was scarcely pr...

Viner looked over Mr. Pawle's shoulder at the letters--there were numbers of them, all neatly folded and arranged; a faint scent of dried flowers rose from them as the old lawye...

Viner was so sure that the sound which he had heard on Mrs. Killenhall's retirement was that caused by the turning of a key or slipping of a lock in the door by which he had ent...

But Viner, instead of ordering the teacups, whispered a word or two to Miss Penkridge, and then beckoned Lord Ellingham and the two solicitors to follow him out of the room. He...

Near the police-station Viner fell in with his solicitor, Felpham, who turned a corner in a great hurry. Felpham's first glance showed his client that their purposes were in com...

"You say there is something you can tell?" observed Mr. Pawle. "If it's anything that will help to solve the mystery of this murder,--for there is a mystery,--I shall be very gl...

The two men who were presently ushered in were typical Colonials--big, hefty fellows as yet in early middle age, alert, evidently prosperous, if their attire and appointments we...