United States or Macao ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"If you will come to Harkings with me the day after to-morrow, sir, I shall hope to show you exactly how Mr. Parrish met his death ..." "No, no, Manderton," responded the Chief; "I can't leave here for a bit. There are bigger murderers than Jeekes at liberty in Holland to-day ..." The detective slapped his thigh.
The man was a stranger: the occupants of the other chambers were all known to him. With a thoughtful expression on his face Robin entered the house and mounted to his rooms. "D !" exclaimed Bruce Wright. He stood in the great porch at Harkings, his finger on the electric bell. No sound came in response to the pressure, nor any one to open the door.
Five minutes later Miss Trevert went to fetch Parrish in to tea and heard a shot behind the locked door of the library. Horace Trevert got in through the window and found Parrish dead. Every one down at Harkings believes that I went in and threatened Parrish so that he committed suicide ..." "Whom do you mean by every one?" Robin laughed drily. "Mary Trevert, her mother, Horace Trevert ..."
Over their meal Bruce told Robin of his adventure in the library at Harkings. "Jeekes must have collected that letter," Bruce said. "Before I came to you, I went to Lincoln's Inn Fields to see if he was still at Bardy's Parrish's solicitor, you know. But the office was closed, and the place in darkness. I went on to the Junior Pantheon, that's Jeekes's club, but he wasn't in.
Nowhere had his master grasp of detail been seen to better advantage than in the management of his country home. Overwhelmed with work though he constantly was, accustomed to carry his business and often part of his business staff to Harkings with him for the week-ends, there was never the least confusion about the house. The methodical calm of Harkings was that of a convent.
It was twenty minutes to ten. The principals, he reflected, were not likely to be at the office before ten o'clock. It was a fine morning and he decided to walk. The hotel porter gave him a few simple directions: the gentleman could not miss the way, he said; so Robin started off, hope high in his breast of getting a step nearer to the elucidation of the mystery of the library at Harkings.
"You're a terror to the confirmed criminal, they tell me, Manderton," he said, "but you obviously don't understand that complicated mechanism known as the domestic servant. No servant at Harkings will voluntarily tell you anything ..." Mr. Manderton, who had stood up, shook his big frame impatiently. "Explain the rest of your theories," he said harshly.
Their architect was given carte blanche to produce a house of character out of the rather dingy, out-of-date country villa which Harkings was when Hartley Parrish, attracted by the view from the gardens, first discovered it. The architect had gone to his work with a zest.
"Because," said Mary, "directly after discovering it I found Bruce Wright, who used to be one of Mr. Parrish's private secretaries, hiding behind the curtains in the library. Now, Bruce Wright is a great friend of Robin Greve's, and I immediately suspected that Robin had sent him to Harkings, particularly as ..." "As what?..."
"The blackmail is probably being levied from Holland. A threat of violence was finally carried into effect on Saturday evening between 5 and 5.15 P.M. by some one conversant with the lie of the land at Harkings. This individual, armed with an automatic Browning of the same calibre as Mr.
Word Of The Day