Americans -- England -- Fiction; Courtship -- Fiction; Detective and mystery stories; London (England) -- Fiction
It was probably not difficult for Bray to keep journalists such as these
in the dark. So their great ungainly sheets come out in total ignorance
of a remarkable story in Adelphi Terrace. Famished for real news, they
begin to hint at a huge war cloud on the horizon. Because tottering
Austria has declared war on tiny Serbia, because the Kaiser is to-day
hurrying, with his best dramatic effect, home to Berlin, they see all
Europe shortly bathed in blood. A nightmare born of torrid days and
tossing nights!
But it is of the affair in Adelphi Terrace that you no doubt want to
hear. One sequel of the tragedy, which adds immeasurably to the mystery
of it all, has occurred, and I alone am responsible for its discovery.
But to go back:
I returned from mailing your letter at dawn this morning, very tired
from the tension of the night. I went to bed, but could not sleep.
More and more it was preying on my mind that I was in a most unhappy
position. I had not liked the looks cast at me by Inspector Bray, or his
voice when he asked how I came to live in this house. I told myself
I should not be safe until the real murderer of the poor captain
was found; and so I began to puzzle over the few clues in the
case--especially over the asters, the scarab pin and the Homburg hat.
It was then I remembered the four copies of the Daily Mail that Bray had
casually thrown into the waste-basket as of no interest. I had glanced
over his shoulder as he examined these papers, and had seen that each of
them was folded so that our favorite department--the Agony Column--was
uppermost. It happened I had in my desk copies of the Mail for the past
week. You will understand why.
I rose, found those papers, and began to read. It was then that I made
the astounding discovery to which I have alluded.
For a time after making it I was dumb with amazement, so that no course
of action came readily to mind. In the end I decided that the thing for
me to do was to wait for Bray’s return in the morning and then point out
to him the error he had made in ignoring the Mail.
Bray came in about eight o’clock and a few minutes later I heard
another man ascend the stairs. I was shaving at the time, but I quickly
completed the operation and, slipping on a bathrobe, hurried up to the
captain’s rooms. The younger brother had seen to the removal of the
unfortunate man’s body in the night, and, aside from Bray and the
stranger who had arrived almost simultaneously with him, there was no
one but a sleepy-eyed constable there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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