The Master Detective: Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher QuarlesBrebner, Percy James
General
The Master Detective: Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles
Brebner, Percy James
Detective and mystery stories
I hunted up one or two points which occurred to me, and then went to
Austin Friars to call upon Mr. Delverton.
He was out of town, yachting, but his partner came into the clerks'
office to see me. I told him that my business with Mr. Delverton
was private.
This partner, I discovered, was Kellner, who had formerly been a clerk in
the firm. He was the man who, with the junior, had been the last to leave
the office on the night of the tragedy. He was worth a little attention,
and I spent two days making inquiries about him. He was as smart a man of
business as could be found within a mile radius of the Royal Exchange, I
was informed, a wonderful linguist, with a profound knowledge of
financial matters. Now he was a wealthy man, but three years ago he had
been in very low water.
This discovery sent me to Twickenham again. I said nothing about Kellner
having become a partner in Delverton Brothers'; I merely asked Southey
whether he had satisfactorily accounted for his time on the fatal night.
"Didn't I tell you?" said Southey. "Oh, yes, he had an absolute alibi; so
had the youth Small. I made them my first business."
I did not call on Dr. Morrison, but I went to his neighborhood, and asked
a few questions. Everybody spoke well of the doctor, which, of course,
might mean much or little, and I was fortunate enough to see him with his
wife in a motor. He looked like a doctor, a forceful and self-reliant
man, not one to lose his head or give himself away. He would be likely to
carry through any enterprise he set his mind to. His wife, without being
beautiful, was attractive, the kind of woman you begin to call pretty
after you have known her a little while.
That night I wrote a full report to Christopher Quarles with my own
comments in the margin, and three days later I had a wire from Zena,
saying they were returning to Chelsea at once.
There was no need to ask the professor whether the case interested him or
not. He began by being complimentary about my report, praised my
astuteness in not calling upon the doctor, and he made me give him a
verbal description of Morrison and his wife.
"Of course, Wigan, looks count for nothing, but they are often misleading
evidence, and we are told to beware of that man of whom every one speaks
well. The most saintly individual I ever knew had a strong likeness to a
notorious criminal I once saw, and on a slight acquaintance you and I
would probably have trusted Cleopatra or Helen of Troy, neither of them
very estimable women, I take it. Now apparently this doctor and his wife
are near the center of this mystery."
"It seems so, but--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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