United States or Bolivia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Furneaux, can manage that with much greater facility, being half a Frenchman. And now I'm going to say an unpleasant thing. I ask your forgiveness in advance. Both Mr. Furneaux and I agree in the opinion that your imaginary love affair is indissolubly bound up with the mystery of Miss Melhuish's death. In a word, I have brought you here today to discuss your prospective marriage, and nothing else.
In the absence of rain the water ran clear as gin, and the marks made by the feet of Adelaide Melhuish's murderer were still perceptible. If only those misshapen blotches could reveal their secret! If only some Heaven-sent ray of intuition would enable him to put the police on the track of the criminal!
In wrath, too, he glanced through the morning newspapers, and saw his own name figuring large in the "story" of the "alleged" murder. The reporters had missed nothing. His play was recalled, and Adelaide Melhuish's success in the title-rôle. Then Mr. Isidor G. Ingerman was introduced. He was described as "a man fairly well known in the City." That was all.
There was a strong muster of police, and the representatives of the press completely monopolized the scanty accommodation for the public. To Grant's relief, Doris Martin was not in attendance. He told the simple facts of the finding of Adelaide Melhuish's corpse. A harmless question by the coroner evoked the first "scene" which set the reporters' pencils busy.
She was a celebrity, I a mere nobody, best known, if at all, as 'Miss Melhuish's husband. Nevertheless, we were devoted to each other until, to her and my lasting misfortune, a certain author wrote a book which, when dramatized, contained a part for which my wife's stage presence and talents seemed to be peculiarly suited."
It enabled him to take the measure of Adelaide Melhuish's husband, if, indeed, the visitor was really the man he professed to be. At first sight, Isidor G. Ingerman was not a prepossessing person. Indeed, it would be safe to assume that if, by some trick of fortune, he and not Grant were the tenant of The Hollies, P.C. Robinson would have haled him to the village lock-up that very morning.
Possibly, the man was already in league with that narrow-minded village constable, so every passing hour made more urgent the need of a trained intelligence being brought to bear on the mystery of Adelaide Melhuish's killing. Grant racked his brains to discover who could possibly have a motive for committing the crime. Naturally, his thoughts flew to Ingerman.
He popped in after dusk, opening the door without knocking. "You in, Robinson?" he inquired. "Yes, sir. Will you " "Shan't detain you more than a minute. At the inquest you said that you personally untied the rope which bound Miss Melhuish's body. Here are a piece of string and a newspaper. Would you mind showing me what sort of knot was used?"
"For goodness' sake, let's drop this question of Melhuish's interference and settle the more important one of what we're going to do about you." "I resent that word 'interference," I put in. "Oh! resent it, then," Jervaise snarled. "Really, I think Mr. Melhuish is perfectly justified," Brenda said. "I feel horribly ashamed of the way you've been treating him at home.
He had worshiped the actress, the mimic, not the woman herself. At any rate, that was how he read the repellent notion that he should bargain with any man for the sale of a wife. "You might be a trifle more explicit, Mr. Grant," said the superintendent, almost reproachfully. "In what direction? Surely a three-years-old love affair can have little practical bearing on Miss Melhuish's death?"
Word Of The Day