Christopher Quarles: College Professor and Master DetectiveBrebner, Percy James
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Christopher Quarles: College Professor and Master Detective
Brebner, Percy James
College teachers -- Fiction; Detective and mystery stories
"They thought it was the light that troubled him," Quarles went on.
"We'll go to the Towers to-morrow, Wigan, and I think we shall find
some candelabrum, or, more likely, some old silver candlestick which
unscrews. If we do not, I think we shall have to get an interview with
Frisby Morton somehow. That is why I wanted to know if he were in
Boston. You see, there was a riddle to read, and a bare possibility
exists that Morton has read it already."
I thought this most unlikely, but the fact that Quarles had conceived
the possibility showed how exceedingly careful he was of details. The
will, a very short one, leaving everything to Edward Oglethorpe, was
found in an old silver candlestick, which stood, as a rule, on a table
in Mr. Frisby's dressing-room.
It was a heavy candlestick which unscrewed just below the cup which
held the candle, and the will was in the hollow stem.
Christopher Quarles insisted on dividing the reward into three parts.
Zena certainly had had a definite conviction about the affair from the
first, so perhaps earned her share; but I am very sure I did nothing
to deserve mine.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CASE OF THE MURDERED FINANCIER
The division of the thousand-pound reward made the three of us
inclined for frivolity and pleasure. I happened to have little to do,
so we made several excursions and visited many theaters. Relaxation is
good, but one may have too much of it; certainly it was not the best
training for the next case I was called upon to investigate.
I remember a man of many convictions once telling me that he rather
enjoyed picking oakum, a proof that one may become used to anything.
In the course of my career I have become accustomed to ghastly sights,
yet when I entered that room in Hampstead a feeling of nausea seized
me which had something of fear in it. Without attempting any close
observation, I went out and sent a line to Christopher Quarles, asking
him to come to me at once.
It was chiefly my desire for companionship in my investigations which
made me do so, I think; still, it may be that subconsciously I
realized that this was a case for the professor. The force of
contrast, too, may have had something to do with my attitude. Two
nights ago, the professor, Zena, and I had been to the opera, mainly
to see a Hungarian dancer who had recently caused a sensation. She was
a very beautiful woman, and her dancing, which was illustrative of
abstract ideas, was impressive, if bizarre. Quarles had pointed out a
man in a box who seemed literally absorbed in the performance, and
said he was a wealthy German named Seligmann, who was financially
interested in the opera season.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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