R. Septimus Salter pressed the bell on his table for the third time and uttered a soft growl. He was a stout, elderly man, and with his big red face and white side-whiskers, looked more like a prosper...

Mr. Salter glanced up with a humorous glint in his eye. “Yes,” he said with a nod, and then to Jim as he was about to make a hurried exit, “you can wait, Steele. Mr. Groat wrote in his letter that he ...

That afternoon Jim Steele went into Mr. Salter’s office. “I’m going to tea now, sir,” he said. Mr. Salter glanced up at the solemn-faced clock that ticked audibly on the opposite wall. “All right,” he...

“I’m sick to death of hearing your views on the subject, mother,” said Mr. Digby Groat, as he helped himself to a glass of port. “It is sufficient for you that I want the girl to act as your secretary...

Jim came stumbling to his feet, staring in blank amazement at the unexpected apparition, and for a moment thus they stood, facing one another, the girl stricken dumb with fear and surprise. She though...

In the cheerful sunlight of the morning all Eunice’s fear had vanished and she felt heartily ashamed of herself that she had made such a commotion in the night. And yet there was the card. She took it...

The first few days of her engagement were very trying to Eunice Weldon. Mrs. Groat did not overwork her, indeed Eunice’s complaint was that the old woman refused to give her any work at all. On the th...

The story of the scar and the queer effect it had produced on Mrs. Groat puzzled Jim almost as much as it had worried the girl. He offered his wild theory again and she laughed. “Of course I shall lea...

“I shall not be in the office today, sir. I have several appointments which may keep me occupied,” said Jim Steele, and Mr. Salter sniffed. “Business, Steele?” he asked politely. “Not all of them, sir...

Eunice Weldon was rapidly settling down in her new surroundings. The illness of her employer, so far from depriving her of occupation, gave her more work than she had ever expected. It was true, as Di...

The door of Digby Groat’s study was ajar, and he caught a glimpse of Eunice as she came in and made her way up to her room. She had occupied a considerable amount of his thoughts that afternoon, and h...

Eunice gazed at the hand spellbound, but she was now more curious than alarmed. Opening the window again she felt gingerly at the impression. It was wet, and her fingertip was stained a deep greasy bl...

“Mr. Groat will not be down to breakfast. He was working very late, miss.” Eunice nodded. She preferred the conversation of Digby Groat to the veiled familiarity of his shrewd-faced servant. It would ...

Jim had never seen the girl in evening clothes, and he was smitten dumb by her ethereal beauty. She wore a simple dress of cream charmeuse, innocent of colour, except for the touch of gold at her wais...

Jim continued his journey to the flat, so enveloped in the rosy clouds which had descended upon him that he was unconscious of time or space, and it seemed that he had only stepped into the cab when i...

Eunice woke in the morning with a queer little sense of disappointment. It was not until she was thoroughly awake, sitting up in bed and sipping the fragrant tea which the maid had brought her, that s...

Jim loved London, the noise and the smell of it. He loved its gentle thunders, its ineradicable good-humour, its sublime muddle. Paris depressed him, with its air of gaiety and the underlying fiercene...

At twelve o’clock that night Eunice heard a car draw up in front of the house. She had not yet retired, and she stepped out on to the balcony as Digby Groat ascended the steps. Eunice closed the door ...

“Who are you, and what do you want?” she asked. He saw her hand drop to the fold of her dress, then: “Mr. Steele,” she said as she recognized him. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” said Jim as he closed the...

Early the next morning a district messenger arrived at the flat with a letter from Eunice, and he groaned before he opened it. She had written it in the hurt of her discovery and there were phrases wh...

Eunice could only stare at the old woman. “Get on with your book,” grumbled Mrs. Groat pettishly, and the girl, looking up through her lashes, saw the suspicious eyes fixed on her and the tremulous mo...

Outside the door in the darkened passage a man was listening intentive. He had trailed Digby Groat all that evening, and had followed him into the house. Hearing a movement of footsteps within, he sli...

There is little that is romantic about a Police Station, and Digby Groat, who came in a towering rage to release his servants, was so furious that he could not even see the humorous side of the situat...

“Jim!” Eunice came running across the grass with outstretched hands, oblivious to the fact that it was broad daylight and that she was being watched by at least a hundred idle loungers in the park. Ji...

Jim read the cablegram again, scarcely believing his eyes or his understanding. “Buried at the age of twelve months,” he said incredulously, “but how absurd. She is here, alive, besides which, I recen...

When his alarm clock turned him out at six in the morning, Jim was both sleepy and inclined to be pessimistic. But as his mind cleared and he realized what results the day’s investigations might bring...

Eunice was Lady Mary’s daughter! There was no doubt of it, no possible doubt. His instinct had proved to be right. How had she got to South Africa? He had yet to find a solution to the mystery. Mrs. W...

The end was coming. Digby Groat took too sane a view of things to mistake the signs. For two years he had been in negotiation with a land agent in San Paulo and had practically completed the purchase ...

They stood confronting one another, two men with murder in their hearts. “It is a lie!” repeated Jim. “Miss Weldon is either here or she has been taken to that hell house of yours in Somerset!” For th...

Digby Groat made an unexpected journey to the west. A good general, even in the hour of his victory, prepares the way for retreat, and the possibility of Kennett Hall had long appealed to Digby as a l...

Digby Groat returned to town by car and reached Grosvenor Square in time for dinner. He had a hasty meal and then went up to his room and changed. He passed the room that Eunice occupied and found Jac...

Eunice was sitting in the shuttered room trying to read when Digby Groat came in. All the colour left her face as she rose to meet him. “Good evening, Miss Weldon,” he said in his usual manner. “I hop...

A minute later he appeared in Eunice Weldon’s room. “I want you,” he said, and there was a sinister look in his eye that made the girl cower back from him in fear that she could not master. “My dear,”...

“Dead! Jane Groat dead?” To Lady Mary the news came as a shock. Jim, gaunt and hollow-eyed, sitting listlessly by the window of Mr. Salter’s office, nodded. “The doctors think it was an overdose of mo...

Eunice woke and, opening her eyes, tried hard to remember what had happened. Her last clear recollection was of her room in Grosvenor Square. The last person⁠—she shivered as she recalled the moment⁠—...

That afternoon he had a visitor. He was, apparently, a gentleman who was anxious to rent a garage, and he made one or two inquiries in the mews before he called at Digby Groat’s temporary home. Those ...

The recognition had been mutual. Lady Mary had seen that white face, those staring eyes, for a second, and then the train had rolled quickly past her, leaving her momentarily paralysed. “There, there!...

She breathed more freely when she saw the little black case dropped into the bag, and then the speed of the train suddenly slackened and stopped with such a violent jerk that she was almost thrown fro...

Jim Steele had had as narrow an escape from death as he had experienced in the whole course of his adventurous life. It was not a river into which he tumbled, but a deep pool, the bottom of which was ...

Under menace of Jim Steele’s pistol, Mr. Bronson stripped and shivered. The morning was raw, and the clothes that Jim in his mercy handed to the man to change were not very dry. Bronson said as much, ...

Whilst Jim had been making his search of the deserted house, Eunice had strolled to the edge of the terrace, and, leaning on the broken balustrade, was drinking in the beauty of the scene. Thin wraith...

The room into which Jim was thrust differed little from those chambers he had already seen, save that it was smaller. The floorboards were broken, and there were holes in the wainscot which he underst...

Her heart sank, and it came to her, with terrifying force, that her great trial was near at hand. She had taunted Digby with his cowardice, but she knew that he would show no mercy to her, and unwilli...

The lawyer explained his presence without preliminary, and Jim listened moodily. “I came with them myself because I know the place,” said Mr. Salter, looking at Jim anxiously. “You look ghastly, Steel...

Bronson had killed him, that was the comforting defence. Bronson, who was now guiding him to safety, and who would, if necessary, give his life for him. Bronson should bear the onus of that act. They ...

Eunice stared at the door. There was no mistake. The bolts had recently been removed and the raw wood showed where the screws had been taken out. The Pealigo was rolling now, and she had a difficulty ...

She had heard the tap of her first visitor at one o’clock in the morning. It had come when Digby Groat was sitting in his cabin turning over the possibilities of misfortune which the future held, and ...

White and breathless he leant against the bulwark glowering at the Brazilian, who had come between him and the woman whose ruin he had planned. “Now,” he said, “you will tell me what you mean by this,...

A little smudge of smoke far away to the south sent Jim Steele racing away on a fool’s errand, for the ship proved to be nothing more interesting than a fruit-boat which had ignored his wireless inqui...