The Riddle of the Frozen Flame

"What a day! And what a mission to waste it on!" sighed Cleek next morning, as he finished breakfast and took a turn to the front door, smoking his cigarette. "Here's murder at...

The court room was crowded on every side. There was barely space for another person to enter in comfort, and when the news went round in the street that Sir Nigel Merriton, late...

"For the sake of _le bon dieu_, man, cease your cruel mockery!" said Brellier, suddenly, in a husky voice, as the clerk rose to quell the interrupted flow of oratory, and the co...

Better men than they might have quailed in such a predicament. Here they were, at ten o'clock at night, shut in an underground passage that led heaven only knew where, and with,...

Through the long watches of the night Cleek sat there thinking, his chin sunk in one hand, his eyes narrowed down to pin-points, the whole alert personality of the man vitally d...

Merriton, clad in his evening clothes and looking exceedingly handsome, stood by the smoking room door, with Tony West, short and thickset, wearing a suit that fitted badly and...

It was a night without a moon. Great gray cloud-banks swamped the sky, and there was a heavy mist that blurred the outline of tree and fence and made the broad, flat stretches o...

The question of packing was a very small matter altogether, and it was barely seven o'clock when, this finished, Cleek and Mr. Narkom had collected their coats and hats from the...

Fetchworth, as everybody knows, lies in that part of the Fen district of Lincolnshire that borders on the coast, and in the curve of its motherlike arm Saltfleet Bay, a tiny shi...

Meanwhile, Cleek, Mr. Narkom, and Dollops stayed on at the Towers for such time as it would take to have the coroner's inquest arranged, and Merriton brought up before the local...

Merriton Towers had been called the loneliest spot in England by many of the tourists who chanced to visit the Fen district, and it was no misnomer. Nigel, having seen it some t...

"Gently, gently, my friend," interposed Cleek, as he neatly caught Merriton's upthrown arm. "It won't help you, you know, to attack a possible witness. We've got to hear what th...

"I did. Just before I first came to England. I had been travelling through Tunis before that, and--well, one doesn't like to be without these things. Sir Nigel's revolver came f...

Mr. Maverick Narkom, Superintendent of Scotland Yard, sat before the litter of papers upon his desk. His brow was puckered, his fat face red with anxiety, and there was about hi...

It was not until the evening was fairly far advanced that the opportunity of speaking to Dollops alone was afforded Cleek. He took it when the "Pig and Whistle" was filled to ov...

For a few days there was no more overtime to be earned by Cleek or Dollops, so that they were free to spend their evening as they wished, and though the "Pig and Whistle" got it...

What followed was like a sort of nightmare to Merriton. That he should be arrested for the murder of Dacre Wynne reeled drunkenly in his brain. Murderer! They were calling him a...

Merriton stood at the study window, looking out, and pulling at his cigar with an air of profound meditation. Upon the hearth-rug Doctor Bartholomew, clad in baggy tweeds, stood...

Thus, despite the bad beginning at Merriton Towers the weeks that followed were filled with happiness for Merriton. His acquaintance with 'Toinette flourished and that charming...

But if Merriton slept, the others of the little party did not. After his door had closed upon him they appeared from their rooms, and met by arrangement once more in the study....

When Merriton shaved himself next morning he laughed at the reflection that the mirror cast back at him. For he looked for all the world as though he had been up all night and h...

But Merriton was past explaining anything just then. For he had bowed his head in his hands and was sobbing in great, heart-wrung sobs with Doctor Bartholomew's arms about him,...

The church clock, some distance over Herne's Hill which lies at the back of Merriton Towers, broke the half silence that had fallen upon the little group of men in the warm smok...

Dacre Wynne had vanished, leaving behind him no trace of mortal remains, and only a patch of charred grass in the middle of the uninhabited Fens to mark the spot. And Nigel Merr...

The alterations at Merriton Towers were certainly a success, from the builder's point of view at any rate. White paint had helped to dispel some of its gloominess, though there...

The arrival of Dollops lighted a spark of great interest in the servants' hall. The newly engaged maids accepted him for his youth and sharp manners, as an innovation which they...

And this was the extraordinary chain of events which brought young Merriton into Mr. Narkom's office that day while Cleek was sitting there, and on being introduced as "Mr. Head...

The flower in Cleek's buttonhole was jauntily erect, his immaculately garbed figure fitted in perfectly with every detail of the whole scene of which he was a part. He looked--a...