Detective and mystery stories, English; Private investigators -- Fiction
as to the later movements; indeed the thing was displayed completely.
The business of Dorrington and Hicks had really been that of private
inquiry agents, and they had done much _bonâ fide_ business; but
many of their operations had been of a more than questionable sort.
And among their papers were found complete sets, neatly arranged in
dockets, each containing in skeleton a complete history of a case.
Many of these cases were of a most interesting character, and I have
been enabled to piece together, out of the material thus supplied, the
narratives which will follow this. As to my own case, it only remains
to say that as yet neither Dorrington, Hicks, nor the Croftings have
been caught. They played in the end for a high stake (they might have
made six figures of me if they had killed me, and the first figure
would not have been a one) and they lost by a mere accident. But I have
often wondered how many of the bodies which the coroners' juries of
London have returned to be "Found Drowned" were drowned, not where they
were picked up, but in that horrible tank at Highgate. What the drug
was that gave Mrs. Crofting's coffee its value in Dorrington's eyes I
do not know, but plainly it had not been sufficient in my case to keep
me unconscious against the shock of cold water till I could be drowned
altogether. Months have passed since my adventure, but even now I sweat
at the sight of an iron tank.
_THE CASE OF JANISSARY_
II
The Case of Janissary
I
In this case (and indeed in most of the others) the notes and other
documents found in the dockets would, by themselves, give but a faint
outline of the facts, and, indeed, might easily be unintelligible
to many people, especially as for much of my information I have
been indebted to outside inquiries. Therefore I offer no excuse for
presenting the whole thing digested into plain narrative form, with
little reference to my authorities. Though I knew none of the actors
in it, with the exception of the astute Dorrington, the case was
especially interesting to me, as will be gathered from the narrative
itself.
The only paper in the bundle which I shall particularly allude to was
a newspaper cutting, of a date anterior by nine or ten months to the
events I am to write of. It had evidently been cut at the time it
appeared, and saved, in case it might be useful, in a box in the form
of a book, containing many hundreds of others. From this receptacle it
had been taken, and attached to the bundle during the progress of the
case. I may say at once that the facts recorded had no direct concern
with the case of the horse Janissary, but had been useful in affording
a suggestion to Dorrington in connection therewith. The matter is the
short report of an ordinary sort of inquest, and I here transcribe it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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