The Rome Express

The Rome Express, the _direttissimo_, or most direct, was approaching Paris one morning in March, when it became known to the occupants of the sleeping-car that there was someth...

He lived just round the corner in the Rue des Arcs, and had not far to go to the Prefecture. But even now, soon after daylight, he was correctly dressed, as became a responsible...

The first who entered was a Frenchman. He was a jovial, fat-faced, portly man, who answered to the name of Anatole Lafolay, and who described himself as a traveller in precious...

He had other work to do, and was eager to get at it. So he left Block to show the Countess back to the waiting-room, and, motioning to the porter that he might also go, the Chie...

M. Floçon was an experienced detective, and he knew so well that he ought to be on his guard against the most plausible suggestions, that he did not like to make too much of the...

The stormy episode just ended had rather a disturbing effect on M. Floçon, who could scarcely give his full attention to all the points, old and new, that had now arisen in the...

When the Judge had brought down the interrogation of the Countess to the production of the small glass bottle, he paused, and with a long-drawn “Ah!” of satisfaction, looked rou...

No doubt the watch to be set on the Countess might lead to something yet—something to bring first plausible suspicion to a triumphant issue; but the examination of the other occ...

“That pestilent English officer, if you please, M. le Juge,” said the detective. “That fire-eating, swashbuckling soldier, with his blustering barrack-room ways. I long to come...

“It is my duty to withhold nothing. It is not the lace. That I could not swear to; for me—and probably for most men—two pieces of lace are very much the same. But I think I have...

The three officials went straight to where the still open window showed the particular spot to be examined. The exterior of the car was a little smirched and stained with the du...

Only the two Frenchmen remained for examination. They had been left to the last by pure accident. The exigencies of the inquiry had led to the preference of others, but these tw...

“It lies with those three, of course—the two women and the Italian. They are jointly, conjointly concerned, although the exact degrees of guilt cannot quite be apportioned,” sai...

The joy of the Chief of Detectives at having thus come, as he supposed, upon the track of the missing maid, Hortense Petitpré, was somewhat dashed by the doubts freely expressed...

It was barely 11 A.M. when he left the Lyons Station with his brother, the Reverend Silas, and the military attaché, Colonel Papillon. They paused for a moment outside the stati...

They sat there, these two, hand locked in hand, saying little, satisfied now to be with each other and their new-found love. The time flew by far too fast, till at last Sir Char...

Sir Charles Collingham and his escort, M. Floçon, entered a cab together and were driven first to the Faubourg St. Honoré. The General tried hard to maintain his nonchalance, bu...

Ripaldi’s diary—its ownership plainly shown by the record of his name in full, Natale Ripaldi, inside the cover—was a commonplace note-book bound in shabby drab cloth, its edges...

“Quite so,” put in M. Floçon. “When he wrote the early part, he was calm and collected; the last entries, so straggling, so ragged, and so badly written, were made when he was f...

“Draw back, gentlemen!” he went on, and he hustled his companions with frantic haste out at the back of the mortuary chamber. “Pray Heaven he has not seen us! He would know us,...