The Markenmore MysteryFletcher, J. S. (Joseph Smith)
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The Markenmore Mystery
Fletcher, J. S. (Joseph Smith)
Detective and mystery stories; Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction
So much for these matters—Blick now turned to a third. Grimsdale had
said that when the three men left his house at a quarter-past three
on Tuesday morning, he saw them walk up the road in the direction of
Greycloister and Mitbourne; Blick directed his attention to this
road. Immediately in front of the Sceptre, flanking on its front
garden, in fact, was the main road of the village; at the corner of
the garden it divided; one branch, to the right, turning off, direct,
to Selcaster; the other, on the left, turning to Mitbourne, and, at
about three hundred yards from the Sceptre, passing the entrance
gates of Greycloister. Now according to Grimsdale, the three men took
this road and disappeared along it. But Guy Markenmore, if the
medical evidence was reliable, was shot dead, about four o’clock, at
Markenmore Hollow, about a mile northward of this road. How had he
come there? The Ordnance Map and its meticulously careful markings,
showed that. Two hundred yards from the Sceptre Inn, on the Mitbourne
road, there were two footpaths, one on either side of the way. One,
on the south, or right-hand side, went across the meadows in the
directions of Selcaster; the other, on the north, or left-hand side,
turned up to the downs, between Greycloister and Woodland Cottage.
Near Markenmore Hollow—in fact, at the very spot whereat Guy
Markenmore’s dead body had been found by the ploughman, Hobbs, this
path struck into another, which led direct to Mitbourne Station. And
on seeing this, Blick came to a conclusion: When the three men came
to these footpaths, they separated. One man either turned back to the
village (unlikely, thought Blick) or took the right-hand footpath to
Selcaster (very probable, Blick considered); the other two men, of
whom Guy Markenmore was certainly one, took the left-hand path, and
climbed the hill-side to Markenmore Hollow. There Guy Markenmore was
suddenly murdered, and whichever man it was who was with him, whether
the presumed American who had come to the Sceptre at nine o’clock on
Monday night, or the man who had been given admittance at two o’clock
on Tuesday morning, was the murderer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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