Inspector Joseph French, of the Criminal Investigation Department of New Scotland Yard, sat writing in his room in the great building on Victoria Embankment. Before him on his desk lay sheet after she...

If Thurza Darke had surprised French by her dramatic declaration, he surprised her even more by his reply. “Miss Darke,” he said gravely, though the irrepressible twinkle showed in his eye, “you’re a ...

The problem with which Dr. Hills had presented French was not so difficult as it appeared at first sight. There could indeed be only one solution, but that solution carried with it the proof of what F...

“I should like to introduce you to Major Bentley, our chief constable,” said Sergeant Golightly to French as they left the courthouse. The major was a small dark man with a rather Jewish cast of count...

When French woke next morning he found a brilliant sun pouring in through his window. A good omen, he thought, as he gazed out on a sea just as blue and sparkling as the Mediterranean had looked from ...

Though self-congratulation is not precisely the same as pride, common experience teaches us that it is usually followed, if not by a fall, at least by a disappointment. French’s satisfaction at his ra...

Once he had decided his course of action, French was not the man to let the grass grow under his feet. On that very same evening on which he had learnt of the existence of the three box office girls, ...

The remainder of that day came to French as a sort of anticlimax. He put in a wearisome afternoon’s work with, so far as he could see, no result whatever. After some half hour in the clump of trees he...

About ten o’clock the next day French knocked at the door of No. 27 Nelson Street, and sending in a card inscribed “Mr. Joseph French,” asked if he could see Miss Molly Moran. He sat waiting in the pl...

The first step which French took to meet his new problem was to make a reconnaissance of the enemy’s country. He went early next morning to Tate’s Lane, so as to get the job over before Welland should...

Some fifteen minutes later he sent once more for Sergeant Ormsby. “You have a son, haven’t you, Ormsby?” he asked. “A nipper of about ten?” “That’s right, sir.” “A smart lad, able to put through a bit...

At nine o’clock next morning French rang up the number he had noted on the Nelson Street boarding house telephone, and asked for Miss Molly Moran. “It’s in connection with our previous conversation, M...

Inspector French continued his stroll along the Embankment until he reached the Yard. There, after an interview with his chief, he got a cheque for ten pounds, and going to the nearest bank, asked for...

The two men halted when they had relocked the door behind them, looking around and listening. The night was intensely dark. There was no moon and a thick pall of cloud cut off even the meagre light of...

French was profoundly worried by the disappearance of Molly Moran. He could not get out of his mind the thought that if anything happened to her he was by no means free from responsibility. There coul...

French’s conversation with Molly Moran had given that young lady very seriously to think. From the beginning she had realized that the undertaking in which she was assisting was unlawful, if not actua...

For a few minutes after she had been left alone Molly lay motionless, too full of horror even to think. She felt herself near death, and with all the intensity of her being she longed to live. Never h...

It was shortly after eleven o’clock on that same night that news came to Inspector French. Fed up with the whole business and tired out, he was actually on his way upstairs when his telephone rang. “N...

Little more remains to be told. When Gwen Lestrange, to give her the name by which she had been known to French⁠—she was really Mrs. James Sibley⁠—saw from the cabin the turn affairs had taken, she su...

The Starvel Hollow Tragedy, published 1927, in which Inspector French uncovered a crime of extraordinary brutality from a little heap of ashes. ↩ The Sea Mystery, published 1928, in which Inspector Fr...