The Talleyrand Maxim

Nesta Mallathorpe, who had just arrived in Barford when Eldrick caught sight of her, was seriously startled as he and Collingwood came running up to her carriage. The solicitor...

Collingwood had many things to think over as he walked across Normandale Park that morning. He had deliberately given up his Indian appointment for Nesta's sake, so that he migh...

Until that afternoon Collingwood had never been in the village to which he was now bending his steps; on that and his previous visits to the Grange he had only passed the end of...

Linford Pratt, senior clerk to Eldrick & Pascoe, solicitors, of Barford, a young man who earnestly desired to get on in life, by hook or by crook, with no objection whatever to...

When Pratt arrived at Eldrick & Pascoe's office at his usual hour of nine next morning, he found the senior partner already there. And with him was a young man whom the clerk at...

Collingwood at once realized that he was in the presence of one of the two fortunate young people who had succeeded so suddenly--and, according to popular opinion, so unexpected...

Collingwood's return to London was made on a Friday evening: next day he began the final preparations for his departure to India on the following Thursday. He was looking forwar...

Mrs. Mallathorpe was alone when Pratt's card was taken to her. Harper and Nesta were playing billiards in a distant part of the big house. Dinner had been over for an hour; Mrs....

As quietly and composedly as if he were discharging the most ordinary of his daily duties, Pratt unfolded the document, and went close to the solitary gas jet above Eldrick's de...

Under the warming influence of two glasses of rum and water, and lulled by Pratt's assurance that all would be well, Murgatroyd had carried home his hundred pounds with pretty m...

"That's our Parrawhite, of course!" he said. "Who's after him, now?" And he went on to read the rest of the advertisement, murmuring its phraseology half-aloud: "'in practice as...

Pratt started when he heard that voice and felt the arresting hand. He knew well enough to whom they belonged--they were those of one James Parrawhite, a little, weedy, dissolut...

The clerk presently ushered in a short, thick-set, round-faced man, apparently of thirty to thirty-five years of age, whose chief personal characteristics lay in a pair of the s...

By the time she had been admitted to Eldrick's private room, Nesta had regained her composure; she had also had time to think, and her present action was the result of at any ra...

Had any third person been present, closely to observe the meeting of these two young people, he would have seen that the one to whom it was unexpected and a surprise was outward...

When Collingwood said that he was following out something of his own, he was thinking of an interesting discovery which he had made. It was one which might have no significance...

Byner, in taking his firm's advertisement for Parrawhite to the three Barford newspaper offices, had done so with a special design--he wanted Pratt to see that a serious wish to...

While Byner was pursuing his investigations in the neighbourhood of the _Green Man_, Collingwood was out at Normandale Grange, discussing certain matters with Nesta Mallathorpe....

For a full moment of tense silence Nesta and Pratt looked at each other across the letter which he held in his outstretched hand--looked steadily and with a certain amount of st...

Mrs. Mallathorpe, left to face the situation which Pratt had revealed to her in such sudden and startling fashion, had been quick to realize its seriousness. It had not taken mu...

"It's not a bit of use appealing to me to know what it means!" he exclaimed. "I know no more than what I've told you. That chap walked into my office as bold as brass, half an h...

On the evening of the day whereon Nesta Mallathorpe had paid him the visit which had resulted in so much plain speech on both sides, Pratt employed his leisure in a calm review...

Within a week of his sudden death in Eldrick's private office, old Antony Bartle was safely laid in the tomb under the yew-tree of which Mrs. Clough had spoken with such appreci...

Esther Mawson, leaving Pratt to enjoy his sherry and sandwiches at his leisure, went away through the house, out into the gardens, and across the shrubbery to the stables. The c...

Pratt wasted no time in cursing Mrs. Murgatroyd. There would be plenty of opportunity for such relief to his feelings later on. Just then he had other matters to occupy him--ful...

Pratt was in Eldrick & Pascoe's office soon after half-past eight next morning, and for nearly forty minutes he had the place entirely to himself. But it took only a few of thos...

Byner watched Eldrick and Collingwood inquisitively as they bent over Halstead's telegram. He was not surprised when Collingwood merely nodded in silence--nor when Eldrick turne...

If Pratt had only known what was going on in the old quarries at Whitcliffe, about the very time that he was riding slowly out to Barford on his bicycle, he would not only have...