The Mystery of the Four Fingers

Vera ought to have experienced a feeling of deepest surprise; but she was long post any emotion of that kind. On the contrary, it seemed quite natural that Evors should be there...

Gurdon waited for his companion to go on. It was a boast of his that he had exhausted most of the sensations of life, and that he never allowed anything to astonish him. All the...

Gurdon looked hopelessly about him, utterly at a loss for anything to say. The whole thing had been so unexpected, so very opposite to the commonplace ending he had anticipated,...

It was perhaps an imprudent thing for the two friends to remain there, exposed as they were to the danger of discovery at any moment; but, so completely were they fascinated by...

It would have been a comparatively easy matter for the two friends to have slipped out of the house before the cripple came down the stairs accompanied by the young man who call...

Something in the tone of Fenwick's voice caused Vera to look up hastily. Perhaps it was her imagination that in the unsteady light of the flickering fire his face seemed to have...

For a long space of time Fenwick stood there, his head buried in his hands. All the way through, he had never been able to disguise from himself the feeling that, sooner or late...

Vera came down a few moments later ready for her journey. Now that she had had time to think matters over, she was looking forward with some dread to her forthcoming interview w...

Gurdon waited to hear what his companion was going to say now. He had made up his mind to place himself implicitly in her hands, and let her decide for the best. Evidently, he h...

There was not the slightest doubt that Gurdon had hit the mark. As far as they could see at present, the man most likely to benefit by the death or disappearance of the cripple...

Vera had entirely recovered her self-possession by this time. She was able to regard the men coolly and critically. There was nothing about them that suggested anything wrong or...

On the whole the discovery was startling enough. It proved to demonstration that the man who called himself Bates must have been in some way connected with the one-time unfortun...

Gurdon looked out from the shelter of the great portico to see the sheets of rain falling on the pavement. Silence reigned supreme but for the steady plash of the raindrops as t...

Beth raised no objection to the programme; indeed, the suggestion seemed to fill her with delight. She would not be a moment, she said. She would put certain necessaries in a ha...

Gurdon complied; he turned the coins over in his hand and weighed them on his fingers. So far as he could see they were good, honest, British coins, each well worth the twenty s...

The girl looked dreamily about her; it was some little time before she appeared to appreciate the significance of Fenwick's question. She was more like one who walks in her slee...

Gurdon nodded thoughtfully. He was trying to piece the puzzle together in his mind, but so far without success. He was not in the least surprised to find that Venner had guessed...

Night was beginning to fight with morning by the time that Venner returned to Merton Grange. There was no one to be seen; the house was in total darkness, so that Venner placed...

Venner sat just for a moment or two with the thin stream trickling through his fingers, and wondering what it all meant. With his superior knowledge of past events, he could see...

It was, perhaps, fortunate for all concerned that, though Venner was so closely identified by the irony of Fate with the movements of Mark Fenwick, he was not known to the latte...

Considering it was nearly the height of the London winter season, the Great Empire Hotel was not unusually crowded. This might perhaps have been owing to the fact that two or th...

"I am afraid I am very dense," Venner said, "but I quite fail to see how a man could make a fortune by selling for a sovereign an article that cost him twenty shillings, to say...

A feeling of helpless exasperation gripped Fenwick to the exclusion of all other emotions. Everything seemed to be going wrong just now; turn in any direction he pleased some ob...

It cannot be said that Gurdon's announcement caused any particular sensation. To all of those who knew anything about the inner history of the Four Finger Mine the conclusion ap...

Venner lost no time in reaching the rooms of his friend Gurdon, and was fortunate enough to find the latter at home. He was hard at work on some literary matter, but he pushed h...

Fenwick looked at the speaker as if he did not exactly comprehend what he had said. The man's mind was apparently dazed, as if the accumulation of his troubles had been too much...

"Upon my word," Evors was saying to Beth, "I feel as nervous as an Eton boy sent up to the head for a flogging. It is just the same sensation as I used to enjoy in my schooldays...

Money can do most things, even in the matter of furnishing a large house with competent servants, and by six o'clock Vera had contrived for the domestic machine to run a little...

In the ordinary course of things, and but for the dramatic events of the evening, it would have been about the time of night when dinner was finished and the house-party had gat...

the grave at the call of one bearing the beloved name of Le Fenu. There is nothing I would not do for you. At this moment I owe my life to your resourcefulness and courage. Had...

The startled group on the stairs stood gazing at Fenwick as if they were stricken dumb. There was not one of them who had the slightest advice to offer, not one of them but felt...