Baroness Orczy

“ We know who murdered him all right enough, though we don't know where the murderer may be at the present moment."
"The personality of the deceased is no mystery to me. He was a young man named Stockton, a platelayer by trade, and an inhabitant of this village," said Skin o' my Tooth, making this extraordinary announcement as if he were stating the most obvious and commonplace fact. ”

“ Why, nothing in the world could be more easy than for an arch-scoundrel like that man Lake to ostensibly leave for town in the evening;, carrying his bag, and, walking through his field, to spend the night in the tool-shed, and emerge therefrom in the very early morning as Prince Sierotka; then to repeat this performance whenever the foreign adventurer had to resume his original part of Mr. Percival Lake, Miss Calvert's stern guardian. ”

“ Stockton's cottage," explained Mason, in answer to Skin o' my Tooth's inquiry. Quite close to the gate there was a tool-shed, which seemed to interest Skin o' my Tooth immensely, for he lighted match after match in order to examine it inside and out. However, he expressed no desire to view the interior of the cottage, and at last, when I was quite numb with fatigue and cold, he turned to Mason and said quietly: "I am quite ready to go to the station now and have a look at the body." ”

“ The grim tragedy immediately assumed the appearance of complete mystery. Though Swanborough is but a tiny, straggling village, and this part of Buckinghamshire but scantily populated, no one seemed to have missed a relative or friend, or to recognise the clothes and sundry small articles of jewellery, etc., found upon the mutilated body. The police had published a description of these clothes and articles, and of the body, as far as this could be done. The unfortunate man seemed to be about thirty-five years of age, five feet nine inches in height, and of slight build. ”

“ This man could not have had these gloves on at all; and every time he wore these boots, which are not new, he must have endured positive tortures, yet he has no corns on his feet."
"The clothes might have been a scratch lot, bought at a second-hand clothes shop," suggested Mason.
"A man does not buy second-hand boots that are much too small for him."
"What is your idea, then?"
"That they are another man's clothes," said Skin o' my Tooth quietly.
"But——"
"Note one thing more. The suit of clothes are good, such as a gentleman might wear; boots, gloves, hat, all are of an expensive kind ”

“ The Swanborough tragedy was filling all London and provincial papers with its gruesome mysteries. Early on Tuesday morning, March 18th, the body of a man, shockingly mutilated, was found on the level crossing, just below the Swanborough station of the London and North-Western Railway. It is always difficult to dwell on the grim details which are the usual accompaniment to this type of drama ”

“ Mason pointed this out to us.
"It is supposed that Stockton enticed his victim into the field under some pretence or other, and rendered him unconscious there, then he dragged him on to the metals. This gap, Mr. Lake tells me, used to be quite a small one. It has obviously been broken and widened quite recently."
"Mr. Lake?" queried Skin o' my Tooth.
"Mr. Percival Lake. This field is his property; his house and grounds are at the opposite end of it."
"Oh! All, yes! I am glad to hear that, as I should like to call on Mr. Lake before I leave Swanborough to-day." ”

“ It was a lovely young girl, scarcely out of her teens, dressed in deep black, who asked me if she could speak to Mr. Mulligan immediately. It is such an unusual thing for us to receive the visits of charming young ladies that for the moment I quite forgot to ask for her name. ”

“ He meant to settle what small accounts he had in the village, and stay in London until our marriage. I was sitting quietly at tea at a shop yesterday, when I heard someone close to me read aloud from a newspaper the account of the mysterious tragedy at Swanborough. A man had been found killed on the level crossing, his body and head shockingly mutilated. A description of his clothes followed—one or two articles found near the body. Oh! It was terrible, Mr. Mulligan! From those descriptions I knew that the murdered man must be my fiancé, Prince Sierotka. ”