The Seven Secrets

"Why should I?" asked my friend, Ambler Jevons, with a deep pull at his well-coloured briar. "What you've told me shows quite plainly that you have in the first place viewed one...

The consulting-room in Harley Street, where Sir Bernard Eyton saw his patients and gathered in his guineas for his ill-scribbled prescriptions, differed little from a hundred ot...

The house was a large red-brick one, modern, gabled, and typically suburban. Mr. Courtenay, although a wealthy man with a large estate in Devonshire and extensive properties in...

"Annoyed?" I laughed. "Not at all, dearest. Nervous and impatient, perhaps. You must make allowances for me. A doctor's life is full of professional worries. I've had a trying d...

I saw by the man's agitation, his white face, and the hurried manner in which he had evidently dressed to come in search of me, that something tragic had really occurred.

Search for the weapon with which the crime had been committed proved fruitless; hence it was plain that the murderer had carried it away. There were no signs whatever of a strug...

The police were busy examining the doors and windows of the back premises, kitchens, scullery, and pantry, but could find no evidence of any lock or fastening having been tamper...

People were about me the whole time. Hence I had no opportunity of re-examining the little object I had picked up from the spot where the murderer must have stood.

Already I had, by placing my hand in contact with the shawl, ascertained its exact texture, and saw that both its tint and its fabric were unquestionably the same as the knotted...

At the inquest held in the big upstair room of the Star and Garter Hotel at Kew Bridge there was a crowded attendance. By this time the public excitement had risen to fever-heat...

"No," my friend said. "Forgive me, Ralph, for speaking quite plainly, but in this affair we are both working towards the same end--namely, to elucidate the mystery. We cannot ho...

The adjourned inquest was resumed on the day appointed in the big room at the Star and Garter at Kew, and the public, eager as ever for sensational details, overflowed through t...

She was dressed, as at the inquest, in deep mourning, wearing a smartly-cut tailor-made dress trimmed with astrachan and a neat toque, her pale countenance covered with a thick...

The dark days of the London winter brightened into spring, but the mystery of old Mr. Courtenay's death remained an enigma inexplicable to police and public. Ambler Jevons had p...

"I've been having trouble with a lunatic," he explained, after greeting me, and inquiring why I had come down to consult him. "The woman's people are anxious to place her under...

Dinner was announced, and I took Mrs. Mivart into the room on the opposite side of the big old-fashioned hall, a long, low-ceilinged apartment the size of the drawing-room, and...

It certainly seemed beyond credence that the man whose fatal and mysterious wound I had myself examined should be there, walking with his wife in lover-like attitude. And yet th...

Justice is always vigilant--it stops not to weigh causes or motives, but overtakes the criminal, no matter whether his deeds be the suggestion of malice or the consequence of pr...

On coming down to breakfast on the following morning I found Mrs. Mivart awaiting me alone. The old lady apologised for Mary's non-appearance, saying that it was her habit to ha...

In the feverish restlessness of the London night, with its rumbling market-wagons and the constant tinkling of cab-bells, so different to the calm, moonlit stillness of the prev...

The fellow had seized my wrists, and I saw that one of the men who had sprung from his place of concealment was pouring some liquid from a bottle upon a sponge. I caught a whiff...

"But how do you know of his existence? I have heard nothing of him, and surely she would have told me. All her correspondence, all her poignant grief, and all her regrets have b...

Without a moment's delay I sent a reply in the affirmative, and, after searching in the "A.B.C.," found that I had a train at three o'clock from King's Cross. This I took, and a...

At midnight I was seated in the drawing-room of the Manor. Before me, dressed in plain black which made her beautiful face look even paler than it was, sat my love, bowed, despo...

"Found Drowned" was the verdict of the twelve respectable villagers who formed the Coroner's jury to inquire into the tragic death of young Mrs. Courtenay. It was the only concl...

The sleepy-eyed tea-blender of Mark Lane remained plunged in a deep reverie during the greater part of the journey to town, and on arrival at King's Cross declined to allow me t...

The Seven Secrets, each distinct from each other and yet connected; each one in itself a complete enigma, formed a problem of which even Ambler Jevons himself could not discover...

Ambler appeared to be much concerned regarding the poor man's death. When we had first met beside his vegetable barrow in the London Road he certainly seemed a hard-working, res...

_"Sir,--I fail to comprehend the meaning of your words when you followed me into the train at Huntingdon last night. I am in no fear of any catastrophe; therefore I can only tak...

Sir Bernard was unwell, and remained down at Hove; therefore I was compelled to attend to his practice. There were several serious cases, the patients being persons of note; thu...

A sudden idea occurred to me, and I acted instantly upon its impulse. There was a second entrance through the morning room; and I dashed round to the other door, which fortunate...