The establishment of Yeh Ling was just between the desert of Reed Street, and the sown of that great and glittering thoroughfare which is theatreland. The desert graduated down from the respectable, i...

Mr. Trasmere walked steadily and at one pace, keeping to the more populous streets. Then at exactly 8:25 he turned into Peak Avenue, that wide and pleasant thoroughfare where his house was situated. A...

Mr. Jesse Trasmere sat at the end of a long, and, except in his immediate vicinity, bare table. At his end it was laid and Mr. Trasmere was slowly and deliberately enjoying a lean cutlet. The room gav...

At nine o’clock that night the bell of Tab Holland’s flat rang long and noisily. “Who the dickens is that?” he growled. He was in his shirtsleeves, writing for dear life and the table was strewn with ...

“Ursula Ardfern,” Tab woke with the words on his lips. The hour was eleven and Rex had been out and was back again. “L’ami de mon oncle has been⁠—did you hear him?” asked Rex, stopping his towel-encom...

Tab gave way to the detective and waited whilst Carver looked. “There’s no sign of a weapon⁠—but by the smell there has been some shooting,” he said. “What is that on the table?” Tab peered through th...

From where he stood the light caught it and sent up a thread of silvery reflection. He stooped mechanically and picked it up. “What is that?” asked the detective curiously. “It looks to me like a pin,...

“Ursula Ardfern! She is not the kind of person who would mislay her jewels for the sake of a few lines of advertising,” he said. “Where did she lose them?” “It is rather a curious story,” said the edi...

Rex was in his own room when Carver called. “I have had a talk with some of the High Ones,” he said, “and put it up to them that you might be of assistance to me. First of all they were horrified at t...

Ursula had only arrived a few minutes before Tab reached the Central Hotel, and the ban against reporters must have been lifted, because Ursula saw him immediately. She took the case from his hand slo...

A murder lends to the locality in which it is perpetrated, a certain left-handed fame which those of its inhabitants who appear most disgusted, most enjoy. Human nature being what it is, trouble and m...

“Ursula Ardfern is leaving the stage and is going to live in the country.” Tab made the announcement one evening when he came home from the office. Rex scarcely seemed interested. “Oh?” said Rex. That...

Mr. Stott combined the implacable qualities of the feudal lord with an amiable leaning toward the society and approval of his fellow men. There was a café near his office which was extensively patroni...

Early in the morning Tab paid a fruitless visit to Stone Cottage. The woman who acted as caretaker told him that the young lady had returned to town, and it was at the Central Hotel that he saw her. N...

In the course of his professional duties Tab Holland had been brought into contact with the master of the Golden Roof on two occasions. The first followed a small scandal, which only remotely touched ...

Tab smiled to himself. He who had investigated so many burglaries had never imagined that he would be favoured by the attention of those midnight adventurers. He went into Rex’s room, turned the switc...

It was a delicate matter broaching the subject of police espionage to Carver. In the first place, he did not want to give the inspector the slightest hint that Ursula Ardfern expected to be watched. H...

The Chinaman was unconscious and Carver looked around for the second visitant. He rushed to the gate, the road was deserted. Flinging himself upon the roadway to secure an artificial skyline, he peere...

Mr. Wellington Brown woke one morning feeling extraordinarily refreshed. Usually he woke with a clouded brain and a parched mouth, with no other desire than to satisfy that craving for opium which all...

“There is the statement,” said Carver. “Not a line must be used; only the fact that the statement has been made can be published. What do you think of it?” “It reads fairly honest to me,” said Tab, an...

Mr. John Stott had discovered to his gratification that the association of his name with the Trasmere case had enhanced, rather than detracted from his social standing. It is true that the newspapers,...

“At what again?” asked Carver quickly. “Mayfield,” gurgled Mr. Stott, “two men!” “Two men have gone into Mayfield? When?” “I don’t know how long ago I saw them. One was Brown.” “Wellington Brown? Are ...

The noise of the roaring presses came up to Tab as he worked in his office. The building shook and trembled, for every machine was running with the story of the mystery of Mayfield. Slip by slip his c...

To the left of the vermillion door of Yeh Ling’s new house was a tablet set into the brick buttress inscribed with those words, which to the old Chinese represent the beginning and end of philosophica...

Rex was home! His telegram handed in at the docks preceded him only by half-an-hour, and his thunderous knock at the door and his long and continuous peal on the bell told Tab the identity of the impa...

Tab gasped. “You’re not joking?” “I am not joking,” said Yeh Ling quietly. “I repeat I know the murderer. He has been within reach of me many times.” “Is he a Chinaman?” “I repeat he has been within r...

He leapt to his feet. “What?” he gasped. “I killed Jesse Trasmere,” she repeated, “not directly, with my own hands, but I am responsible for his death, almost as assuredly as if I had shot him.” She c...

There came to police headquarters a tall, ruddy-skinned man of middle age. He wore a suit which was evidently not made for him, and he seemed a little depressed by his surroundings. “I have an appoint...

“Good Lord, Yeh Ling, you gave me a fright! What a creeping old devil you are.” “I came to see whether the dinner was successful,” said Yeh Ling softly. His hands were covered in his wide sleeves, a l...

He woke with a start. There was a rush of feet in the sitting-room and then⁠—crash! He was out of bed in a second and into the sitting-room. Carver was nowhere to be seen and he felt by the draught th...

She came to Doughty Street and picked him up and they were at Stone Cottage in time for lunch. The weather was still unsettled, but Tab had passed the stage where weather made any difference to him. T...

He awoke to consciousness with a sense of dull pain at the back of his neck and a feeling of restriction. He was sitting against the wall propped up, and when he tried to bring up a hand to rub his ac...

Tab’s brain was clearing now; he was taking a cold survey of the position. Rex Lander was mad⁠—up to a point. Mad as men of abnormal vanity are mad. Vanity inspired the bravado which made him leave in...

“No answer,” said Exchange. Mr. Carver rubbed his nose irritably and glanced up at the clock. Then he lifted the instrument again. “Give me Hertford 906,” he said. In five minutes the call was signall...

Eline Simpson with a large handkerchief tied round her face, turned on her bed and groaned. It was unfortunate for all concerned that Eline’s bedroom was immediately above that occupied by Mr. John St...

“We must warn Miss Ardfern at once. I have been on the telephone with her this evening. I was enquiring about you, and the chances are that I so thoroughly alarmed her, that she is awake. I only hope ...

Rex Lander was smiling as he drove through the rain, for it seemed to him that a great trouble had passed from his mind. The solution of all his difficulties had appeared miraculously. He did not hurr...

“There are bloodstains on the stairs,” said Carver, “and on the garden path outside. There is also the mark of car wheels which have evidently been backed from the lane where Lander usually kept his c...

Yeh Ling wrote: “Dear Miss Ardfern: I am giving what you call a housewarming on Monday next. Will you not come? And please if you can, will you persuade Mr. Carver and Mr. Holland also to be my guests...

“Nose”⁠—informer. Either one who betrays or who supplies information to a criminal. ↩...