Edgar Wallace

“ No word was spoken, and Lydia was too bewildered to ask questions until the car was on its way. Then the younger man chuckled.
"Clever, Rennett!" he said. "I tell you, those people are super-humanly brilliant!"
"I'm not a great admirer of villainy," said the other gruffly, and the younger man, who was sitting opposite the girl, laughed.
"You must take a detached interest, my dear chap. Personally, I admire them. I admit they gave me a fright when I realised that Miss Beale had not called the cab, but that it had been carefully planted for her, but still I can admire them." ”

“ Meredith has a twenty-years sentence to serve."
"Then how——" began Lydia.
"Let me tell this story more or less understandably," said Glover with that little smile of his. "Believe me, Miss Beale, I'm not so keen upon the scheme as I was. If by chance," he spoke deliberately, "we could get James Meredith into this house to-morrow morning, would you marry him?"
"Me?" she gasped. "Marry a man I've not seen—a murderer?"
"Not a murderer," he said gently. ”

“ We know that you are not engaged to be married, we know that you have a fairly heavy burden of debts, and we know, too, that you are unencumbered by relations or friends. What we offer you, Miss Beale, and believe me I feel rather a cad in being the medium through which the offer is made, is five thousand pounds a year for the rest of your life, a sum of twenty thousand pounds down, and the assurance that you will not be troubled by your husband from the moment you are married."
Lydia listened like one in a dream. ”