E. Phillips Oppenheim

“ I settled myself down in my corner, adjusted my horn-rimmed spectacles, and drew from the pocket of the car a new half-crown book on the principles of golf, written by a late beginner. So we traveled until we reached the inn where we stayed for the night, and late on the afternoon of the following day we arrived at our destination. There was just a bare white house, a lodge, the gate of which was held open by a great, raw-boned gillie, miles of what seemed to be interminable moor land, and below, the sea. ”

“ I looked out across the heather-clad moor to where rolling masses of yellow gorse seemed to melt into the blue haze. It was a very wonderful day and a very wonderful country into which we were speeding
“Norman Greyes has made life inconvenient for us for several years,” I said. “One of our best men has had to devote the whole of his time to watching him. We have been obliged to stay away from places which I very much wanted to visit. He has that absurd gift—he always had—of being able to connect a particular undertaking with a particular person. ”

“ I told her. “The heart would probably have been safer, but the blinds of the bank were all drawn to keep out the sun, and my Panama was as good as a mask. His clerk was almost dead from fear before I touched him. I didn't have to waste a bullet there.”
“And how much?” she inquired.
“Only just over seven thousand pounds,” I admitted. “It seems a pitiful amount for so much planning and risk. Still, something had to be done.”
We were up on a stretch of moorland now, well away from curious eves. Janet and I were busy for some ten minutes making three parcels of my stock of notes. ”

“ His excuse for changing his clothes was that he put on older things in which to clean the car, and his account of his morning was that he had driven straight up to Bailey's stores for some groceries, and straight back again. Two witnesses are ready to swear that they saw him get out of the Ford and go toward the bank; the grocer's clerk, who served him, is absolutely certain that he was in the shop within thirty seconds of the Ford's pulling up outside, and that when he left he drove straight away.”
“What sort of man is this Roberson?” I asked.
“A man of bad character,” was the prompt reply. ”

“ He knew the neighborhood well, and has once been heard to remark upon the isolated position of the bank. In every respect he is just the man to have done it, and yet there are all my witnesses swearing to different things. Furthermore, he had scarcely a shilling in his pocket, and he confessed that he was going to try and sell the car that afternoon to raise a little money.”
“It seems to me,” I admitted, “that you have been a little premature in framing your case against Mr. Ralph Roberson.”
“So the magistrates thought,” Rimmington rejoined dryly. “We managed to get two remands. ”

“ Rimmington went on. “Two fairly credible witnesses deposed to seeing a man in a gray flannel suit, with a Panama hat pushed over his eyes, drive up in a Ford car, leave it outside Bailey's grocery stores, walk down the street and turn into the Boulevard where the bank is situated, exactly at the time that the robbery took place. ”

“ Thereafter Janet, a girl of strange beauty, became Sayers' accomplice. The forces of the law also received important reinforcement when Sir Norman Greyes, formerly of Scotland Yard, went back to his old calling and sought to pick up the trail of Sayers, whom he had known under the alias of Stanfield. How he accomplished this is told in this story, related at first in Sayers' own words:
IT had taken months to collect all the necessary information and make the preliminary arrangements, but the moment had arrived at last. ”

“ He has been in prison for obtaining goods by false pretenses, and there are half a dozen summonses for debt out against him at the present moment. The only little money he earns, nowadays, seems to be by acting as a bookmaker's tout. ”

“ He shot both his guards with an automatic pistol fixed in the sole of one shoe and worked with the toe of the other. Mr. Gorman, from Scotland Yard, is seriously wounded, and one of the others is shot in the leg. Stanfield then threatened the driver until he released him from the handcuffs and took him to within a mile of a railway station. There he tied the man up, drove the car on himself and disappeared. So far we have no news.”
I COULD make no intelligible reply. I muttered something to the effect that Rimmington and I would come on to the police station the first thing in the morning. ”

“ Harding, our butler-chauffeur and confederate, has taken the car—where, you can guess. Our gillie broke his leg this morning and has gone to hospital. I am not afraid of burglars, but I am terrified of mice, and the place is overrun with them. ”