Baroness Orczy

“ Spender-Cole spoke the truth—and I had no reason to doubt it—surely no woman would allow a man to remain under a false accusation for the sake of her own social reputation, however highly she might prize it. I suppose that Skin o' my Tooth's estimate of human nature was not so optimistic as mine, for he did not discuss the point with the young man ”

“ Skin o' my Tooth touched him lightly on the arm.
"She is very beautiful, isn't she, James?" he asked with that kindly sympathy which he knows so well how to impart to his voice.
James Pecover sighed and then looked inquiringly at my chief, as if wondering whence came all the sympathy.
"No wonder you love her so much," added Skin o' my Tooth.
The young man did not speak; his eyes expressed all that he would have said.
"Suppose you let me come into the lodge, and give me and my friends some tea? We have come all the way from Bletchwick to see Miss Earnslaw ”

“ Spender-Cole as to call for his arrest, that his relatives should place the unfortunate young man's case in the hands of the ablest lawyer in the British Isles. The Spender-Coles are very wealthy county people, "Bletchwick Towers" being one of the show places in Somersetshire. Skin o' my Tooth knew that money would be no object, and that his own interests as well as his professional enthusiasm would allow him to throw himself heart and soul in the mazes of the exciting case. ”

“ He was taken to the county asylum the next day, by order of the magistrate, as he was certified hopelessly insane.
The next day, Skin o' my Tooth placed before the magistrate the proofs of James Pecover's guilt, and Mr. Spender-Cole was, of course, exonerated from all blame in connection with the murder of Mr. Earnslaw.
I once asked my esteemed employer what had originally made him think of the idiot as the probable culprit. ”

“ Earnslaw's injuries proved to be mortal. He had been stabbed with terrific violence, with some large clasp-knife or other weapon of that description, and only lived long enough to state that in the darkness, and also in the suddenness of the attack, he had not been able to recognise his assailant. ”

“ The fact that she was peculiarly good-looking may have had something to do with this sympathy—at any rate, on the part of the male members of those same county families. One or two rumours, even, had been lately current in the immediate neighbourhood of Murton-Braby, of an impending marriage between Miss Barbara Earnslaw, daughter of Mr. Earnslaw, of Murton Farm, and one or the other of the eligible county bachelors, foremost among these supposed aspirants being the young Earl of Alderdale and Mr. Spender-Cole. ”

“ Spender-Cole ever to set foot inside his house again.
This quarrel occurred precisely in the morning of August the 14th, and it was the evening of the same day that Mr. Earnslaw was murdered.
II. The police were, of course, severely criticised for bringing forward a witness of the mental calibre of James Pecover. But how it happened was this: It seemed at first quite impossible to obtain the slightest clue with regard to the murderer of Mr. Earnslaw. In the country, at eleven o'clock at night, most servants have already gone to bed ”