The Terriford mystery

In the star-powdered sky there hung a pale, golden moon. It was the 25th of May, and though the day had been warm and sunny, it was cold to-night, and even as early as ten o’clo...

It was twelve o’clock the next morning, and the sun was streaming into the pleasant downstairs rooms of the Thatched House. The only sign of last night’s alarums and excursions...

The Macleans had bought the charming old house soon after the doctor had taken over the practice of Miss Prince’s father, and they had renamed it after Mrs. Maclean’s birthplace.

Poor Emily Garlett’s funeral took place on a beautiful bright spring morning. The broad sunny street of Terriford was filled with motors and carriages, and quite a concourse of...

Harry Garlett was lying on the bank of a Norwegian fjord. It was a beautiful warm September day. He felt well in soul and body, and intended to give himself three more months’ g...

As he swung along in the bright winter sunshine on the field path which formed a short cut to the town, again and again these words seemed to hammer themselves, in joyful cadenc...

The man who had come down to Terriford to make these delicate inquiries was honest and conscientious, set on finding out the truth and nothing but the truth. Also, this was to b...

Harry Garlett and Dr. Maclean had gone to a city hotel where they felt sure that they would run little risk of meeting any one from their part of the world.

Ten long days, including the quietest Christmas ever spent in Bonnie Doon, and then on the second day of the New Year—“A letter for you, Miss Jean, from the Thatched House.” Els...

“Elsie,” he said abruptly, “I want your good help. First, go and tell your mistress that I require to see her about something urgent and private. Then get hold of Miss Jean and...

In every human drama where anguish, shame, despair, play a part, there are always certain minor characters who deserve, though they never receive, almost as much sympathy as do...

Elsie, the cook, was an early riser and worker, but even she had been exhausted by the doings of the long day on which Harry Garlett had been arrested. So she came down later th...

On the arrest of a man for murder he is taken before the magistrates at the earliest possible opportunity, but only to be formally charged—that is, evidence of arrest is given,...

“I sent her upstairs to lie down after Mr. Kentworthy had gone away, and about tea-time Elsie went up to see if she was asleep. But she wasn’t in her room. We looked all over th...

Miss Prince got up very early on the morning Harry Garlett was to appear before the magistrates, to be either committed for trial, or sent out into the world a free man.

Early that same afternoon Miss Prince made her way to the rectory. She felt too anxious, too excited, too restless to stay quietly at home, and she knew that the rector would so...

her from their engagement, but he begs her strongly to allow it to come to an end. Whatever he may have done, there’s something very fine about the chap. Both Toogood and the go...

Once in the now leafless wilderness, she began walking slowly, her feet sinking into the sodden, fallen leaves, longing and yet dreading to know what Harry had written to her.

Sir Harold Anstey came bustling into his pleasant chambers. He had only just come back from a long week-end, there was a bright fire burning in the attractive, wasteful, eightee...

As she walked away from the great advocate’s chambers Jean Bower felt happier than she had felt since the terrible morning when Harry Garlett had been arrested in her presence o...

Jean Bower sat in the waiting room of what was called the New Prison. Though she was clad in a warm fur cloak which had just been given her by her uncle and aunt, she felt dread...

To Jean Bower it was an extraordinary stroke of good fortune that to-day, for the first time for many weeks, Dr. Maclean had persuaded his wife to accept an invitation to lunche...

The man peered through the dark fog-laden air into the young pale face looking up at him from under the brim of a singularly unbecoming plain brown straw hat. He was an old bach...

For a moment or two she didn’t know where she was, and fear clutched at her heart. And then, though memory soon came back, it was accompanied by icy waves of terror, and it was...

Jean walked the whole way back to Coburg Square. She was numb, spent with misery. For the first time hope, that illusive yet infinitely comforting and uplifting companion, had l...