Fred M. White

“ You see, we've got a big gang of men working there, and as one of them was seriously injured a little time ago, we had to pull up the trains this side of the tunnel for two or three minutes, and whistle so that those chaps could get out of the way. It often happens in foggy weather."
Fadden said nothing; he was too busy with his own thoughts. Then he turned to the man on the platform and asked a question.
"Look here," he said, "I have got an idea that might help me. Where is the carriage now in which the body of Jabez Thornton was found? ”

“ But it was quite another matter now, and it was more than possible that an inspection of those papers would lead Fadden a long way down the road which he had begun to travel since he had heard that for several nights during the past week the Northern Express had been pulled up at the entrance to Foxhill Tunnel. That the authorities had not informed Fadden of this, the latter regarded as a piece of incredible stupidity; but, on the other hand, the average railway official is not exactly a good judge of the value of criminal evidence. ”

“ It isn't in the safe, because there was no money found there at all, so that the fiver in question was probably stolen with the other notes, or possibly all that money was on Thornton at the time he was killed! Here, stop a minute. Now, I wouldn't mind making a small bet that these pencilled figures on the blotting-pad represent the number of that five-pound note. It's just what a careful man in a hurry would do. It's no clue, of course, but one never knows when these things are likely to prove useful. There are no trivial details in our business. ”

“ But he is not entirely bad, and there was a time when he was as good a husband as any woman might wish. He has been very unfortunate lately, and for a long time has been unable to procure an engagement on the music-hall stage. You know how clever a lightning artist he is, and he cannot be out of work for long. He hopes to get an engagement in Newcastle next week, when he has promised to send me some money. As soon as he does, I will forward you the whole of it. I implore you not to be hard upon me, for the sake of the child.
"Yours truly,⁠ ”

“ He was a man who lived by line and rule, with one object in life, and that the piling up of money. His business as a money-lender appeared to be somewhat extensive, but that branch of the concern bad been carried on entirely by the dead man at his cottage, through the medium of the post office. ”