Tracks in the snow

On the morning of the 29th of January, 1896, Eustace Peters was found murdered in his bed at his house, Grenvile Combe, in the parish of Long Wilton, of which I was then rector.

I was up early on the 29th. Snow lay thick on the ground but had ceased falling, and it was freezing hard, when, while waiting for breakfast, I walked out as far as my gate on t...

Hereupon Callaghan, who had a more important matter to relate, changed the subject abruptly by saying, “Sergeant, have your eye on that man Trethewy”. He told us that, ten days...

I am now driven to attempt the task, which I had hoped to escape, of a topographical description. To begin with what is of least importance for the present. The village of Long...

On Wednesday, the 2nd of February, Candlemas Day, I read the burial service over my friend’s body. I will not dwell upon what that service was to me, but like many funerals of m...

I was told of this behaviour of Trethewy’s by Sergeant Speke the day after the arrest. But it was no surprise to me, for I had come myself to communicate to the police something...

After several remands, the proceedings against Trethewy before the magistrates came to a close about the end of February. There was nothing much to note about these proceedings,...

With some doubt as to whether it was what I ought to do, but with no doubt that it was what I wanted to do, I sought out Callaghan next morning for a final talk with him before...

The enquiry upon which I had now stirred myself to enter, could not be an easy one, but it should have seemed for the present to be narrowed down to a question about a single ma...

“Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner,” is, I do not doubt, a saying which has its truth. Nevertheless, I have generally noticed, when I have read much about murders or other g...

By the time that my wife, who had been again obliged to be in London while I was spelling out this story, had returned, I had long come to the conclusion that my theory had enou...

In the course of the summer my wife and I paid our annual visit together to London, and I had a few days in Oxford before the end of the summer term.

_First Extract:_ “I have a new acquaintance, one Willie Cartwright, a young fellow who was at Oxford just after me. I spend a good deal of time with him because of talking Oxfor...

Towards the end of November, 1896, I again saw Callaghan. I had some time before ascertained that he had returned to London, and I daresay it may appear to the reader strange th...

The chapter which I am about to write may well prove dreary. It will be nothing but a record of two deaths and of much discouragement. Here was I with my theory (for it had been...

So then the mystery of Longhurst’s fate was not for me to unravel. Peters had held the clue of it, and had died because he held it; Verschoyle perhaps had the clue and was dead...

Crondall is a small market town on a chalk stream in a Southern county, and about two miles from it down the valley lies the shooting- and fishing-box which Vane-Cartwright, as...

Whether it was that my fancies pursued me to the inn, or that Vane-Cartwright’s words had unconsciously impressed me, I took and have retained a great dislike to the gentleman w...

There is not much that can be done for a thatched cottage once well alight, and for such salvage as could be done there were plenty of ready helpers soon upon the scene. That ag...

Here let me mention that I have fancied since that I recognised the ill-looking foreigner who was with me at the inn and in the train. I recognised him in a chemist’s shop in a...

As we left Thalberg’s office and walked down the narrow court which led to the street, I daresay our looks and voices, if not our words, betrayed the exultation of men who see a...

before Longhurst came to the place. Just afterwards I had an opening, a splendid opening; it would not have made me the rich man that I am, but it would have given me a good pos...

My story draws towards its close, and of mystery or of sudden peril it has little more to tell. Upon one point, the most vital to me, let me not give the reader a moment’s suspe...

Once again I saw William Vane-Cartwright. At his own request I was summoned to visit him in the gaol. It was not the interview of penitent and confessor; none the less I am boun...