Edgar Wallace

“ That and a green-shaded reading lamp supplied the illumination to their comfortable Jermyn Street flat at the moment.
"And what," said George, stretching himself, "what does our excellent friend Poiccart have to say?"
"A blight has come upon his onions," said Leon solemnly and Manfred chuckled and then was suddenly grave. ”

“ Gonsalez shook his head.
"I am a solicitor who, twenty years ago, was struck off the rolls and ruined because I helped a man to escape the processes of the law. An ever so much more sympathetic rôle, George. Moreover, it brings people to me for advice. One of these nights you must come down to the public bar of the 'Cow and Compasses' and hear me discourse upon the Married Woman's Property Act."
"I never asked you what you were before," said George. "Good hunting, Leon, and my respectful salutations to Amelia Jones!" ”

“ Gonsalez was silent.
"Does your husband know?"
"He knows I spent the money," said the woman staring blankly out of the window. "He knows that the girl is at a good school. He'll find out," she spoke almost in a whisper. "He'll find out!"
So that was the tragedy! Leon was struck dumb by the beauty of this woman's sacrifice. When he found his voice again, he asked:
"Why do you think he will kill you? These kind of people threaten."
"Bash doesn't threaten as a rule," she interrupted him. "It's the questions he's been asking people who know me. People from Deptford who he's met in prison. ”

“ Is anything known against the man?"
"Nothing, sir," said the gaoler regretfully.
"You will pay a fine of twenty shillings or go to prison for twenty-one days."
"I would much rather go to prison than pay," said Leon truthfully.
So they committed him to the local gaol as he had expected. Twenty-one days later, looking very brown and fit, he burst into the flat and Manfred turned with outstretched hands.
"I heard you were back," said Leon joyously. "I've had a great time! They rather upset my calculations by giving me three weeks instead of a month, and I was afraid that I'd get back before you." ”

“ Leon Gonsalez stepped from his place of concealment and the dying man staring up saw two enormous glass eyes and the snout-like nozzle of the respirator and went bewildered to his death.
Leon collected the broken glass and carefully wrapped the pieces in his bag. He replaced the clothes with the most extraordinary care and put away the wig and tidied the room before he opened the window and the door. Then he went to the front of the house and opened those windows too. A south-wester was blowing and by the morning the house would be free from gas. ”

“ Bash Jones does not kill his wife. If he kills her then the grisly truth is out. No, I think we had better settle this Mr. Bash Jones."
"I agree," said Manfred, puffing thoughtfully at his cigar, and Leon Gonsalez sat down at the table with Browning's poems open before him and read, pausing now and again to look thoughtfully into space as he elaborated the method by which Bash Jones should die.
On the afternoon of the third, Mrs. Amelia Jones was called away by telegram. She met Leon Gonsalez at Paddington Station. ”

“ There are usually two young men lodgers who are railwaymen and these do duty until three in the morning on the third of every month."
"Is this the truth or are you making it up?" asked Manfred.
"I did make it up," admitted Gonsalez. "But this is the story I told and he swallowed it eagerly. The young men have no key, so they come in by the kitchen door which is left unlocked. The kitchen door is reached by a narrow passage which runs the length of Little Mill Street and parallel with the houses. ”

“ It was the first time he had done so, and she took it in her big limp palm and shook it feebly.
"Very few people have shaken hands with Amelia Jones," thought Gonsalez, and he went back to the flat in Jermyn Street to find Manfred asleep before the fire. ”

“ He had always been a brute and I think he'd been under the eyes of the police since he was a bit of a kid. I didn't know this when I married him. I was nursemaid in a house that he'd burgled and I was discharged because I'd left the kitchen door ajar for him, not knowing that he was a thief. He did one long lagging and when he came out he swore he wouldn't go back to prison again, and the next time if there was any danger of an alarm being raised, he would make it a case of murder. He and another man got into touch with a rich bookmaker on Blackheath. ”

“ Leon rolled a cigarette with deft fingers, licked down the paper and lit the ragged end before he replied.
"At Scotland Yard, they have, let us say, one hundred thousand finger-prints. In Britain there are fifty million inhabitants. One hundred thousand is exactly one five-hundredth of fifty millions. Suppose you were a police officer and you were called to the Albert Hall where five hundred people were assembled and told that one of these had in his possession stolen property and you received permission to search them. ”

“ I'm certain. If they had he wouldn't be still asking. Why, Toby Brown came up from Devizes a month ago and told me Bash was there and was still asking questions about me. He'd told Toby that he'd never do another lagging and that he reckoned he'd be alive up to Midsummer Day if they caught him. ”