Edgar Wallace

“ Lexman nodded.
"Anything further?" he asked.
"The smaller candle was twisted into a sort of corkscrew shape."
"The Clue of the Twisted Candle," mused John Lexman "that's a very good title—Kara hated candles."
"Why?"
Lexman leant back in his chair, selected a cigarette from a silver case.
"In my wanderings," he said, "I have been to many strange places. I have been to the country which you probably do not know, and which the traveller who writes books about countries seldom visits. There are queer little villages perched on the spurs of the bleakest hills you ever saw. ”

“ It is quite impossible to raise the steel latch because once it is dropped it cannot be raised again except by means of the knob, the pulling of which releases the catch which holds the bar securely in its place. Try another one, John."
John Lexman threw back his head in a noiseless laugh.
"Why I should be helping you to discover the murderer of Kara is beyond my understanding," he said, "but I will give you another theory, at the same time warning you that I may be putting you off the track. For God knows I have more reason to murder Kara than any man in the world." ”

“ Yes, I know him, rather an eccentric man with an artificial arm."
"That's the cove," said T. X. with a little sigh; "he's one of the few men I want to meet just now."
"Why?"
"Because he was apparently the last man to see Kara alive."
John Lexman looked at the other with an impatient jerk of his shoulders.
"You don't suspect Gathercole, do you?" he asked.
"Hardly," said the other drily; "in the first place the man that committed this murder had two hands and needed them both. No, I only want to ask that gentleman the subject of his conversation. ”

“ In my early days, I must confess, I was rather keen upon that sort of thing, but age has brought experience and I have discovered the impossibility of bringing an architect to one's way of thinking even in so commonplace a matter as the position of a scullery. ”

“ I have lived with communities which acknowledge no king and no government. These have their laws handed down to them from father to son—it is a nation without a written language. They administer their laws rigidly and drastically. The punishments they award are cruel—inhuman. ”

“ I also want to know who was in the room with Kara when Gathercole went in."
"H'm," said John Lexman.
"Even if I found who the third person was, I am still puzzled as to how they got out and fastened the heavy latch behind them. Now in the old days, Lexman," he said good humouredly, "you would have made a fine mystery story out of this. How would you have made your man escape?" ”

“ He might keep a rope ladder stored inside, open the back door, throw out his ladder to a friend and by some trick arrangement could detach the ladder and allow the door to swing to again."
"A very ingenious idea," said T. X., "but unfortunately it doesn't work in this case. I have seen the makers of the safe and there is nothing very eccentric about it except the fact that it is mounted as it is. Can you offer another suggestion?"
John Lexman thought again. ”

“ It would be much more difficult to induce him to construct a house with double walls and secret chambers."
T. X. waited patiently.
"There is a possibility, of course," said Lexman slowly, "that the steel latch may have been raised by somebody outside by some ingenious magnetic arrangement and lowered in a similar manner." ”