Category: Crime, Thrillers and Mystery
The village publican, scanning the stranger's features keenly, moved slowly to execute the command and lingered over the cutting of the meat. The other seemed to read the signs like a flash, for he roughly drew out a handful of money, saying in his bluff outspoken way--
Some untoward event had evidently occurred of which we knew nothing, and she had been forced to the last extremity. We had explored all my love's favourite walks, but in that gu...
20. CHAPTER NINETEEN.Their gaze met, and I saw that in a moment her heart became gripped by a nameless terror, her countenance blanched, and she halted rigid, as utterly dumbfounded as I had been; w...
12. CHAPTER ELEVEN.The inquest concluded, I walked back to the Hall with the Earl. The latter was annoyed that the Home Secretary had not acted upon his suggestion. He was young, and therefore imp...
30. CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.There was no light save one single lamp at the far end of the road, and by its feeble rays I saw that the silhouettes of the two men who carried their burden to the carriage wer...
7. CHAPTER SEVEN.The doctor's keen desire to solve the mystery caused me most serious apprehension. His bluff good-humour, at other times amusing, now irritated me, and I was glad when he rose r...
8. CHAPTER EIGHT.During the journey up to London my thoughts were fully occupied by the discovery of what that oddly-shaped ring contained. That portrait undoubtedly linked my love with the vict...
6. CHAPTER SIX.Lolita's appearance showed too plainly that she had been out all the night. Her cloak was torn at the shoulder, evidently by a bramble, and the weary manner in which she walked...
24. CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.This could not be, for the night air in Scotland is chilly in September. Therefore I felt convinced that she wished the bowl of flowers to remain in view of some one outside, a...
29. CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.The journey, as far as there, proved uneventful, but as soon as I stepped out upon the rain-swept landing-stage, I saw that our crossing was to be a "dirty" one. Beneath the ele...
16. CHAPTER FIFTEEN.When the Countess had gone, leaving behind her a sweet breath of "Ideale," that newest invention of the Parisian perfumer, I sat with my elbows idly upon the table, pondering ov...
4. CHAPTER FOUR.The clump of rank high grass in the hollow had been beaten down, and in the centre, revealed by the uncertain light of our lanterns, lay a young man, whose white face and wide-o...
31. CHAPTER THIRTY.It seemed quite evident by the fact that five places had been laid at table that the Frenchwoman must have already been in the flat awaiting the arrival of Marigold and her comp...
14. CHAPTER THIRTEEN.The instant she arrived Sibberton always put on an air of gaiety which it never wore during her absence. Full of verve and go, she lived only for excitement and pleasure, and al...
5. CHAPTER FIVE.63 26 59 69 65 56 65 33 59 35 65 44 49 55 22 59 57 46 78 63 23 98 59 39 46 67 82 45 58 35 54 45 46 26 78 75 68 75 49 64 22 86 48 73 78 45 62 45 76 47 64 66 85 44 78 48 73 78 58 62
15. CHAPTER FOURTEEN.The open declaration of the Countess held me in weak indecision. No doubt she was well aware of the motive of the crime, and therefore guessed who had struck the fatal blow. Yet...
21. CHAPTER TWENTY."I really don't understand you. It's late, and one of the servants may pass this way and overhear you. Let us resume this highly interesting discussion in the morning," she sugg...
27. CHAPTER TWENTY SIX."I only know that your presence here is unwelcome to certain members of Lord Stanchester's household," I exclaimed. "And I should consider it a very wise course if you excused y...
28. CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.Certain matters were arranged between the man Keene and the woman I so dearly loved, but strangely enough both were equally careful to allow me no loop-hole through which to gai...
26. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.In the entrance-hall of the hotel I saw the man Logan, the man who held my love's secret, seated in a chair patiently awaiting her summons. There were others, well-dressed men a...
17. CHAPTER SIXTEEN.By half-past four we had covered the eleven miles that lay between the old-world village of Sibberton and that point beyond Brigstock on the Oundle road which skirts that dense...
13. CHAPTER TWELVE.To press her further was out of the question. I had sufficiently explained that I held the knowledge to myself, and that I did not intend to divulge to the police what I had dis...
25. CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.Mention of the name of Logan placed me instantly on the alert. It was surely the man whom I had seen with her in the wood in the early hours of the morning following the tragedy...
18. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.The old fellow's recognition of the name made it clear that the mysterious Mademoiselle, on her escape from Chelsea, had taken refuge in that house, together with certain other...
23. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.Love knows not want--he has no such intimate as poverty; if he smiles, he has but one dread foe; if he frowns, he has but one true friend; and those both concentrate in the obli...
32. CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.Still very unwell, my head gave me excruciating pain when next morning I joyfully took my discharge from the hospital. My first destination was the telegraph-office, whence I se...
19. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.The man's audacity in coming there openly and boldly as Lord Stanchester's guest so utterly astounded me that my very words froze upon my lips. Was this some further development...
22. CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.After breakfast on the following morning I contrived to make an appointment with the Countess to meet her at a short distance from the house in what was known as the Saints' Gar...
11. CHAPTER TEN."Let me go!" cried the woman, speaking in French in her excitement. "Let us cry quits and I will tell the truth. If I am arrested, Lady Lolita must also fall into the hands of t...
1. CHAPTER ONE.The village publican, scanning the stranger's features keenly, moved slowly to execute the command and lingered over the cutting of the meat. The other seemed to read the signs...
2. CHAPTER TWO.I strolled back up the long beech avenue to the Hall, apprehensive and puzzled. The stranger's manner, his curious expression when he had spoken of Lolita, and the bold way in w...
10. did. Why, I wondered, was that police officer lounging up and downkeeping such a vigilant surveillance upon the place? Surely it was with some distinct motive that a plain-clothes man watched the house day and night, and to me that motive seem...
3. CHAPTER THREE.In my hot passionate declaration I repeated my readiness to serve her, at the same time acknowledging the difference in our stations and the fear that my dream of happiness must...
35. CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR."The woman Marie Lejeune quickly developed from the smart ladies' maid of the Comtesse de Martigny, a gay Parisienne, into the shrewdest and cleverest of adventuresses, and aide...
36. CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE."You see," Logan went on, "Lady Stanchester feared the revelation which the young valet could make concerning her, therefore, knowing that Lady Lolita was in the habit of writin...
33. CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.These numbers I began to subtract from the first six numbers of the secret message, but the letters represented by the remaining numbers were a mere unintelligible jumble. At la...
37. CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.It will be recollected how, with her maid, she left Sibberton Hall for Paris, and how in her room at the _Hotel Continental_ she was found dead, having unfortunately taken an ov...
9. CHAPTER NINE.Along the dark street, quiet after the glare and bustle of the King's Road, I retraced my steps, when, about half-way up, I met a man dressed as a mechanic, idly smoking a pipe....