J. S. Fletcher

“ I'm telling you, Middlebrook, that this was no common murder any more than the murder of the man's own brother down yonder at Saltash, which is a Cornish riverside place, and a good four or five hundred miles away, was a common, ordinary crime! Man! we're living in the very midst of a mystery—and that there's bloody-minded, aye, and bloody-handed men, maybe within our gates, but surely close by us, is as certain to me as that I'm looking at you! ”

“ I exclaimed. "Impossible!"
"There's very few impossibilities in this world, Middlebrook," he answered. "I'm not saying that any of the gang were present in Raven's outhouse yonder, where they carried the poor fellow's body, but there were a dozen or more men heard what I said to the police-inspector, like the old fool I was, and saw me taking my photograph. And men talk—no matter of what degree they are." ”

“ And when I'd got myself dressed, I went back and took it, and put it in a stout envelope into my pocket—and then you came along, Middlebrook, with your story of the murder, and I saw then that before saying a word to anybody, I'd keep my own counsel and examine that thing more carefully. And man alive! I've no doubt whatever that the man who left the handkerchief behind him was the man who knifed Salter Quick. ”