Edgar Wallace

“ Dash it all, old thing, be reasonable.”
“Huxley said,” quoted Jimmy severely, “that the greatest tragedy in science is to see a beautiful hypothesis killed by an ugly fact. She is not my fiancée.”
“I wouldn't call you ugly,” murmured Ferdinand, somewhat at sea, “and who's Huxley?”
“That's beside the point,” said Jimmy. “What I want to know is, will you stand in with me, if I make an attempt to enter this lodge and discover what was behind the killing of poor Jerry and the suicide of Kendrick?”
“I'm with you all the time,” said Ferdie, and solemnly shook hands. ”

“ Though no student, Ferdie was a reader and an admirer of literature in which mysteries abound, and where the villain of the piece is always the last person to be suspected by the reader. Therefore, Ferdie cast his eyes and his mind around for those who had the best credentials of innocence, and he suspected in turn the prime minister, Stephens, the butler, old Mr. Sennett, and he was on the point of naming Delia when Jimmy fixed him with a steely eye. ”

“ Jimmy hesitated and yet, why should he, he thought. All this boredom and lack of interest in life which Mr. Ponter expressed with every gesture and word, was a pose. Ferdie Ponter had been Jimmy's observer in the days when Jimmy drove a D.H.7. A cool child, who shot with deadly precision and never, under any circumstances, lost his nerve. ”