Andrew Lauriston, a young writer, visits the premises of a pawnbroker only to find the man's dead body in suspicious circumstances. At first he is the prime suspect but is soon cleared of suspicion through the actions of his friends, John Purdie and Melky Rubenstein, the grandson of the pawnbroker. They decide to investigate the pawnbroker's death and are led on a chase across London in search of a very valuable orange-yellow diamond. They become involved with an MP, an American, a Japanese doctor and two Chinese medical students before the mystery is solved.
Andrew Lauriston, a young writer, visits the premises of a pawnbroker only to find the man's dead body in suspicious circumstances. At first he is the...
A stranger to a small cathedral city falls to his death from some stairs in the cathedral. Was it an accident or murder? Bryce, a young egotistical assistant doctor, who always gets what he wants, decides to investigate, in the hope that he will find evidence against his late employer Dr Ransford, and force the doctor's ward to marry him, in spite of her intense dislike of him.
A stranger to a small cathedral city falls to his death from some stairs in the cathedral. Was it an accident or murder? Bryce, a young egotistical as...
When John Mallathorpe, a wealthy industrialist, is killed in an accident, he is thought not to have made a will and the estate passes to his widowed sister-in-law and her children. Two years later an elderly bookseller finds the will in a book purchased from the Mallathorpe estate, which leaves the family a comparatively small bequest. He takes the will to his solicitor's office where he dies suddenly. The chief clerk on duty sees an opportunity to benefit from the contents of the will and secretes it in his pocket. As a result of this action, there follow events of fraud, blackmail and...
When John Mallathorpe, a wealthy industrialist, is killed in an accident, he is thought not to have made a will and the estate passes to his widowed s...
On that particular November evening, Viner, a young gentleman of means and leisure, who lived in a comfortable old house in Markendale Square, Bayswater, in company with his maiden aunt Miss Bethia Penkridge, had spent his after-dinner hours in a fashion which had become a habit. Miss Penkridge, a model housekeeper and an essentially worthy woman, whose whole day was given to supervising somebody or something, had an insatiable appetite for fiction, and loved nothing so much as that her nephew should read a novel to her after the two glasses of port which she allowed herself every night had...
On that particular November evening, Viner, a young gentleman of means and leisure, who lived in a comfortable old house in Markendale Square, Bayswat...
Half way along the north side of the main street of Highmarket an ancient stone gateway, imposing enough to suggest that it was originally the entrance to some castellated mansion or manor house, gave access to a square yard, flanked about by equally ancient buildings. What those buildings had been used for in other days was not obvious to the casual and careless observer, but to the least observant their present use was obvious enough.
Half way along the north side of the main street of Highmarket an ancient stone gateway, imposing enough to suggest that it was originally the entranc...
On the southern edge of the populous parish of Paddington, in a parallelogram bounded by Oxford and Cambridge Terrace on the south, Praed Street on the north, and by Edgware Road on the east and Spring Street on the west, lies an assemblage of mean streets, the drab dulness of which forms a remarkable contrast to the pretentious architectural grandeurs of Sussex Square and Lancaster Gate, close by. In these streets the observant will always find all those evidences of depressing semi-poverty which are more evident in London than in any other English city. The houses look as if laughter was...
On the southern edge of the populous parish of Paddington, in a parallelogram bounded by Oxford and Cambridge Terrace on the south, Praed Street on th...
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 crookedness, so long as it could be performed in safety and secrecy, had once during one of his periodical visits to the town Reference Library, lighted on a maxim of that other unscrupulous person, Prince Talleyrand, which had pleased him greatly. "With time and patience," said Talleyrand, "the mulberry leaf is turned into satin." This seemed to Linford Pratt one of the finest and soundest pieces of wisdom which he...
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, wit...
Jerramy, thirty years' stage-door keeper at the Theatre Royal, Norcaster, had come to regard each successive Monday morning as a time for the renewal of old acquaintance. For at any rate forty-six weeks of the fifty-two, theatrical companies came and went at Norcaster with unfailing regularity. The company which presented itself for patronage in the first week of April in one year was almost certain to present itself again in the corresponding week of the next year. Sometimes new faces came with it, but as a rule the same old favourites showed themselves for a good many years in succession.
Jerramy, thirty years' stage-door keeper at the Theatre Royal, Norcaster, had come to regard each successive Monday morning as a time for the renewal ...
