Edgar Wallace

“ You probably know something about my early life, how I went before the mast as a common sailor and travelled all over the world. It was the kind of life which satisfied me more than any, other, for I got to know people and places and to know them from an angle which I should never have understood in any other way. ”

“ After which you will marry your Mrs. Prothero in your own name," said Gonsalez.
"Leon," said Manfred after Fearnside had gone back to the room above, the room he had taken in the hope of discovering how much Gonsalez knew, "I think you are a thoroughly unmoral person. Suppose Lady Pertham does not divorce his lordship?"
Leon laughed.
"There is really no need for her to divorce Lord Pertham," he said, "for his lordship told us a little lie. He married his Martha first, deserted her and went back to her. ”

“ He was not usually allowed to see the workings of any of Leon's schemes until the dramatic dénouement, which was meat and drink to him, was near at hand.
"I want you, with your wide knowledge of human nature, to tell me whether she is the type of woman for whom a bald-headed man would commit murder," he said simply, and Manfred stared at him in amazement.
"The victim being——?"
"Me!" replied Gonsalez, and doubled up with silent laughter at the blank look on Manfred's face.
It was four minutes to eleven exactly when Manfred saw Mrs. Prothero. ”

“ Manfred nodded.
"That is the official description of this type of criminal," he agreed.
Leon shook his head.
"No, Mr. Prothero is interesting," he said. "Interesting for quite another reason. In the first place, he is a bald-headed criminal, or potential criminal, and as you know, my dear George, criminals are rarely bald. They are coarse-haired, and they are thin-haired: they have such personal eccentricities as parting their hair on the wrong side, but they are seldom bald. The dome of Mr. Prothero's head is wholly innocent of hair of any kind. ”

“ Her face was white and her thin lips were trembling.
"Pertham," she said rapidly, "I'm sure there's a man in my dressing-room."
"In your dressing-room?" said Lord Pertham, and ran out quickly.
The two men would have followed him, but he stopped half-way up the stairs and waved them back.
"You had better wait with her ladyship," he said. "Ring for Thomas, my love," he said.
Standing at the foot of the stairs they heard him moving about. Presently they heard a cry and the sound of a struggle. Manfred was half-way up the stairs when a door slammed above. ”

“ He has a very pretty girl for a wife and, curiously enough, a ladder larcenist for a brother-in-law, and I have excited his suspicion quite unwittingly. Incidentally," he added as though it were a careless afterthought, "he knows that I am one of the Four Just Men."
Manfred was silent. Then:
"How does he know that?" he asked quietly.
Leon had taken off his coat and had slipped his arms into a faded alpaca jacket; he did not reply until he had rolled and lit an untidy Spanish cigarette. ”

“ He spoke haltingly, made several obvious slips, but Leon did not correct him. He mentioned casually that he had an additional interest in criminals because his own life had been threatened.
"Let us go up and join my lady," he said after a long and blundering exposition of some phase of criminology which Manfred could have sworn he had read up for the occasion.
They went up the broad stairs into a little drawing-room on the first floor. It was empty. His lordship was evidently surprised.
"I wonder——" he began, when the door opened and Lady Pertham ran in. ”