The Red House Mystery The Piccadilly Novels

It stood on the top of a high hill--bleak, solitary. In winter all the winds of heaven raved round it; in summer the happy sunshine rarely touched it. It was, indeed, hemmed in...

Dr. Darkham's eyes turned to the hearthrug, and then turned away again hastily. He loathed to look upon this, his first-born and only child. He shrank with horror whenever he sa...

"What have you got into your head now?" asked she. "He has attended me for the past year. Last month I sent him a cheque with a little hint to the effect that as I felt so much...

"Late as usual, and all your partners in hysterics!" said a quick voice--a voice a little sharp, perhaps, and decided, but clear as a bell. Agatha, who had just entered the danc...

"I am unfortunate." He looked keenly at her, with open question in his eyes. He had educated himself very carefully on the lines of social etiquette; but education of that sort,...

"Oh, that is too bad of you," said the girl, colouring softly. She meant to be angry with him, perhaps; but if so, the effort was a dead failure. The corners of her lips were sm...

A sense of faintness crept over her. By some strange prescience, she knew who stood behind there in the darkness, concealed, listening. A great horror took possession of her. Wh...

Mrs. Greatorex was, in a ladylike sort of way, a confirmed gossip. To have told her so personally would have been to make her your enemy for life. The way she looked at it was f...

At this moment a young man pushed his way vigorously through a thick hedge of laurel, and, springing forward, intercepted the idiot. He stood before him in an authoritative mann...

Round the corner now came the elder Miss Firs-Robinson, with Elfrida in her train, and Mr. Blount, the curate, in Elfrida's. And after them a young man--rather short and stout,...

It was quite true: Mrs. Darkham was at the very portals of death. Whether those great gates were to be opened for her, or she could be dragged back from them, was the question t...

He went back to his chair again, however, and fought it out with himself. Pah! what was it, after all, but to bring to a quicker end a life that the doctors had all but declared...

It was over--done! He was free! He reeled against the bedpost and tried to collect himself--to check the terrible laughter that rose to his lips. He was free at last.

It was the next day, and the news of Mrs. Darkham's death had spread and was now known far and wide. All the people in Rickton had "a day," and this one belonged to Miss Firs-Ro...

"Nothing is more pleasant to the eye," said Lord Bacon, "than green grass nicely shorn." And truly his quaint Lordship would have been pleased had he been able to look upon Mrs....

"Is _that_ all!" She laughed now, merrily. Her lovely little face, that was so infantile, yet so strong and so determined beneath all its youth and sweetness, seemed now slightl...

"Yes. I followed you!" He looked at her, his eyes resting on her. Such strange eyes, they seemed on fire! And his tone--it was one she had never heard before.

Dr. Darkham, true to the promise he had made to himself, had gone to Rickton Villa the previous night, had sought a private interview with her, and told her all: of his admirati...

Agatha went slowly downstairs, and ate no breakfast. She went into the garden after breakfast, and tried to do wonders with a small bed of asters; but her heart was in nothing,...

On each side of her rose banks, filled with glorious colourings. Autumn, always so rich in variety, was painting everything with a lavish hand--all the tints were gorgeous, sple...

It was the next day, and evening was far advanced. The idiot was sitting in the garden outside mumbling to himself, and stupidly turning and twisting a sort of white rag between...

The evening was now merging into night. Far up above in the darkening sky a pale star or two were shining. Night falls early in September, and already the flowers in the small g...

Agatha remained quite still. Her heart was beating wildly, but she showed no outward sign of fear, and it was too dark now for him to see that her face was as white a death.

A cheerful voice came to her over the gate. It was the voice of Mr. Browne. Now, Dicky's voice, though good enough of its kind, had never up to this been likened to music; to Ag...

"Wait a moment!" His voice was stern. "Give me your hands. You must come in and tell me all." The window was very close to the ground, and she sprang to his side easily.

It was the next day, and quite an ideal one for late September, though that is perhaps the least capricious month of all the year. Still Mrs Poynter hardly knew what to do with...

"At last you are alone," said Dillwyn, advancing to meet her. "I thought that fellow would never go. I could only see the top of his head, and I longed for a pea-shooter."

They were bathed. And as a fact it took Agatha and Jack Dillwyn quite an hour to get back to the others. The first two they met were Elfrida and Mr. Blount sitting _tête-à-tête_...

Dillwyn had received Mrs. Greatorex's note with joy. Here was the meeting he had hoped to gain by a manoeuvre actually given him by the enemy. He reached the villa next morning...

Lord Ambert had chosen this place for his tea with most consummate care and a very artistic eye. Elfrida told him so on her arrival--which was late; she was, in fact, the very l...

"Well," said Elfrida angrily, when Mr. Browne got back to her, "you think him very brave, of course, but why did he run away like that? You're a most annoying man, anyway." Elfr...

She dressed herself and went down to the garden. She always rose early, and was in the habit of taking a little first breakfast in her own room. And now she found that the tiny...

One surprise makes many. The neighbourhood of Rickton had hardly recovered from its astonishment about the fact that Elfrida had thrown over Lord Ambert and accepted the curate,...

A clock somewhere struck five, and Darkham suddenly heard it. It seemed to wake him from his frightful dream--a dream in which he had been walking--walking always--he did not kn...

A loose sweeping branch met him, and cut him across the face a swingeing blow. He felt no pain. When he had broken it he cast it aside impatiently and went on with even increasi...