The purple sickle murders

Inspector Joseph French, of the Criminal Investigation Department of New Scotland Yard, sat writing in his room in the great building on Victoria Embankment. Before him on his d...

“No,” he said with a smile, “I don’t mean it that way. I believe everything that you have said. But I really must compliment you on the way you’re telling the story. You did tha...

The problem with which Dr. Hills had presented French was not so difficult as it appeared at first sight. There could indeed be only one solution, but that solution carried with...

The major was a small dark man with a rather Jewish cast of countenance. French had noticed him come in late to the inquest and had imagined he was a police official.

When French woke next morning he found a brilliant sun pouring in through his window. A good omen, he thought, as he gazed out on a sea just as blue and sparkling as the Mediter...

Though self-congratulation is not precisely the same as pride, common experience teaches us that it is usually followed, if not by a fall, at least by a disappointment. French’s...

Once he had decided his course of action, French was not the man to let the grass grow under his feet. On that very same evening on which he had learnt of the existence of the t...

The remainder of that day came to French as a sort of anticlimax. He put in a wearisome afternoon’s work with, so far as he could see, no result whatever.

About ten o’clock the next day French knocked at the door of No. 27 Nelson Street, and sending in a card inscribed “Mr. Joseph French,” asked if he could see Miss Molly Moran.

The first step which French took to meet his new problem was to make a reconnaissance of the enemy’s country. He went early next morning to Tate’s Lane, so as to get the job ove...

Next day French, and an intelligent but somewhat mischievous looking boy, alighted at Harrow shortly before nine. They were dressed for their parts. French was obviously a lande...

“It’s in connection with our previous conversation, Miss Moran,” he explained. “There is a fresh development which I want to discuss with you. Will you meet me in half an hour a...

Inspector French continued his stroll along the Embankment until he reached the Yard. There, after an interview with his chief, he got a cheque for ten pounds, and going to the...

The night was intensely dark. There was no moon and a thick pall of cloud cut off even the meagre light of the stars. Above the wall bounding Tate’s Lane they could see the uppe...

French was profoundly worried by the disappearance of Molly Moran. He could not get out of his mind the thought that if anything happened to her he was by no means free from res...

French’s conversation with Molly Moran had given that young lady very seriously to think. From the beginning she had realized that the undertaking in which she was assisting was...

For a few minutes after she had been left alone Molly lay motionless, too full of horror even to think. She felt herself near death, and with all the intensity of her being she...

It was shortly after eleven o’clock on that same night that news came to Inspector French. Fed up with the whole business and tired out, he was actually on his way upstairs when...

When Gwen Lestrange, to give her the name by which she had been known to French—she was really Mrs. James Sibley—saw from the cabin the turn affairs had taken, she surrendered a...