The Quest of the Sacred Slipper

Deep in thought respecting the inexplicable nature of this latest mystery, I turned in the direction of the bridge, and leaving behind me an ever-swelling throng at the gate of...

“It seems likely,” I replied; and was silent. Outside the open windows whispered the shrubbery, as a soft breeze stole through the bushes. Beyond, the moon made play in the dim...

I felt dazed, as a man must feel who has just heard the death sentence pronounced upon him. Hilton seemed to have become incapable of speech or action; and in silence we stood w...

At about five o’clock that afternoon Inspector Bristol, who had spent several hours in Soho upon the scene of the murder of the Greek, was walking along Fleet Street, bound for...

The sun was shining into my room now, but could not wholly disperse the cloud of horror which lay upon it. That I had been drugged was sufficiently evident from my present condi...

When the invitation came from my old friend Hilton to spend a week “roughing it” with him in Warwickshire I accepted with alacrity. If ever a man needed a holiday I was that man...

A little group of interested spectators stood at the head of the square glass case in the centre of the lofty apartment in the British Antiquarian Museum known as the Burton Roo...

Quitting the wayside station, and walking down a short lane, we came out upon Watling Street, white and dusty beneath the afternoon sun. We were less than an hour’s train journe...

The day that followed was one of the hottest which we experienced during the heat wave. It was a day crowded with happenings. The Burton Room was closed to the public, whilst a...

“There is no doubt,” said Mr. Rawson, “that great personal danger attaches to any contact with this relic. It is the first time I have been concerned with anything of the kind.”

I stood in the foyer of the Astoria Hotel. About me was the pulsing stir of transatlantic life, for the tourist season was now at its height, and I counted myself fortunate in t...

The manner in which we next heard of the whereabouts of the Prophet’s slipper was utterly unforeseen, wildly dramatic. That the Hashishin were aware that I, though its legal tru...

“I am entirely at your mercy; you can do as you please with me. But before you do anything I should like you to listen to what I have to say.”

Professor Deeping’s “Assyrian Mythology” lay open before me, beside it my notebook. A coal dropped from the fire, and I half started up out of my chair. My nerves were all awry,...

A clock chimed out—an old-world chime in keeping with the loneliness, the curiously remote loneliness, of the locality. Less than five miles from St. Paul’s are spots whereto, w...

When I opened my eyes it was to a conviction that I dreamed. I lay upon a cushioned divan in a small apartment which I find myself at a loss adequately to describe.

Not a sound broke the stillness of the Gate House. It was the most eerily silent place in which I had ever found myself. Out into the corridor we went, noiselessly. It was strip...

Hilton, I learned, was living the simple life at “Uplands.” The place was not yet decorated and was only partly furnished. But with his man, Soar, he had been in solitary occupa...

I was not the only passenger aboard the S.S. Mandalay who perceived the disturbance and wondered what it might portend and from whence proceed. A goodly number of passengers wer...

At four o’clock in the afternoon I had heard nothing further from Bristol, but I did not doubt that he would advise me of his arrangements in good time. I sought by hard work to...

“There’s very little doubt,” said Bristol, “that Earl Dexter has the slipper and that Hassan of Aleppo knows where Dexter is in hiding. I don’t know which of the two is more elu...

From sunset to dusk I lurked about the neighbourhood of the Gate House with my beautiful accomplice—watching and waiting: a man bound upon stranger business, I dare swear, than...

“The detective of fiction would be hard at work on this case, now,” he said, smiling, “but I don’t even pretend to be. I am at a standstill and I don’t care who knows it.”

I wonder how often a sense of humour has saved a man from desperation? Perhaps only the Easterns have thoroughly appreciated that divine gift. I have interpolated the adventure...

That night the deviltry began. Mr. Mostyn found himself wholly unable to sleep. Many relics have curious histories, and the experienced archaeologist becomes callous to that unc...

Professor Deeping’s number was in the telephone directory, therefore, on returning to my room, where there still lingered the faint perfume of my late visitor’s presence, I aske...

He tugged irritably at his moustache. “I don’t know!” he replied. “Of course it was no surprise to find that there isn’t a Mohammedan who’ll lay his little finger on Professor D...

During the next day or two my mind constantly reverted to the incidents of the voyage home. I was perfectly convinced that the curtain had been partially raised upon some fantas...

I had not been in my unnatural position for many minutes before I began to suffer agonies, agonies not only physical but mental; for standing there like some prisoner of the Inq...

I nodded grimly and raced down the steps. Despite my half-formed desire that the slipper should be recovered by those to whom properly it belonged, I experienced at times a curi...

Around a large square table in a room at New Scotland Yard stood a group of men, all of whom looked more or less continuously at something that lay upon the polished deal. One o...

“That’s a funny thing, sir,” he said. “I was keeping my eyes specially upon him. I noticed him hovering around while Mr. Mostyn was speaking; but although I could have sworn he...

That moment was pungent with drama. In the intense hush of the next five seconds I could fancy that the world had slipped away from me and that I was become an unsubstantial thi...

“I’ve had the most awful experience of my life,” said Bristol. “You’ve fared badly enough, but I’ve been hanging by my wrists—you know Dexter’s trick!—for close upon sixteen hou...