Jerramy, thirty years’ stage door keeper at the Theatre Royal, Norcaster, had come to regard each successive Monday morning as a time for the renewal of old acquaintance. For at any rate forty-six wee...

The three men stood for a while silently looking at each other. Copplestone, as a stranger, secretly wondered why the two managers seemed so concerned; to him a delay of half an hour in keeping an app...

It was not from any idle curiosity that Copplestone made up his mind to await the girl’s nearer approach. There was no other human being in view, and he was anxious to get some information about the r...

Copplestone had kept a sharp watch on Marston Greyle and his cousin when they walked off, and he had seen that they had parted at a point a little farther along the shore road⁠—the man turning up into...

If Copplestone had followed his first natural impulse, he would have laughed aloud at this solemnly propounded question: as it was, he found it difficult to content himself with a smile. “Isn’t it a l...

Copplestone looked up with interest as the door of the private parlour was thrown open, and a tall, handsome young woman burst in with a briskness of movement which betokened unusual energy and vivaci...

Stafford was back at Scarhaven before breakfast time next morning, bringing with him a roll of copies of the Norcaster Daily Chronicle, one of which he immediately displayed to Copplestone and Mrs. Wo...

The look of blank astonishment which spread over Copplestone’s face on hearing this announcement seemed to afford his companion great amusement, and she laughed merrily as she signed to him to turn ba...

Copplestone carried the queer-looking missive into his private sitting room and carefully examined it, back and front, before slitting it open. The envelope was of the cheapest kind, the big splotch o...

Spurge and his visitor sat staring at each other in silence for a few minutes; the silence was eventually broken by Copplestone. “Of course,” he said reflectively, “if Mr. Oliver was looking round tho...

By the time Copplestone and the pseudocurate had reached the plateau of open ground surrounding the ruins it seemed as if half the population of Scarhaven had gathered there. Men, women and children w...

Copplestone saw little of his bed that night. At seven o’clock in the evening came a telegram from Sir Cresswell Oliver, saying that he and Petherton were leaving at once, would reach Norcaster soon a...

Amongst the little group of actors and actresses who had come over from Norcaster to hear all that was to be told concerning their late manager, sat an old gentleman who, hands folded on the head of h...

There was little need for the three deeply interested listeners to look long at the letters⁠—one glance was sufficient to show even a careless eye that the hand which had written one of them had certa...

The two younger men received this announcement with no more than looks of astonished inquiry, but the elder one coughed significantly, had further recourse to his snuffbox and turned to Mrs. Greyle wi...

Sir Cresswell Oliver took the cablegram from Petherton and read it over slowly, muttering the precise and plain wording to himself. “Don’t you think, Petherton, that we had better get a clear notion o...

Gilling’s cheerful optimism was the sort of desirable quality that is a good thing to have, but all the optimism in the world is valueless in face of impregnable difficulty. And the difficulty of trac...

Gilling’s glance at his companion was quiet enough, but it spoke volumes. Here, by sheer chance, was such a revelation as they had never dreamed of hearing!⁠—here was the probable explanation of at le...

Copplestone had seen and learned enough of Audrey Greyle during his brief stay at Scarhaven to make him assured that she would not have sent for him save for very good and grave reasons. It had been w...

Vickers sprang back at that door as the sharp click of the turning key caught his ear, and Copplestone, preceding him and following Audrey, who had advanced fearlessly into the cabin, pulled himself u...

To each of these three young people this was the most surprising moment which life had yet afforded. It was an astonishing thing to find a fellow mortal there at all, but to find that mortal was the S...

Half an hour later, when Vickers regained the top of the cliff and once more looked across the island towards the far-off point, the figure which he had previously seen making for it had turned back, ...

Chatfield, his arms filled with masses of dried bracken and coarse grass, turned sharply on hearing Vickers’s call and stared hard and long in the direction which the young solicitor pointed out. His ...

Before Vickers and his companions had recovered from the surprise which this extraordinary cool message had given them, the men had bundled Chatfield across the beach and into the boat and were pullin...

Such of the folk of the Angel hotel⁠—a night porter, a waiter, a chambermaid⁠—as were up and about that grey morning, wondered why the two old gentlemen who had arrived from London the day before shou...

Zachary Spurge, presently ushered in by Gilling, who carefully closed the door behind himself and his companion, looked as if his recent lodging had been of an even rougher nature than that in which C...

Gilling took the message from Sir Cresswell and thoughtfully read it over. Then he handed it back and motioned the old seaman to look at Spurge. “I think you ought to know what this man has just told ...

The man was lying face downwards in the grass and weeds which clustered thickly at the foot of the hedgerow, and on the line of rough, weatherbeaten neck which showed between his fur cap and his turne...

The quiet place was a narrow alley, which opening out of the Market Square in which the car had come to a halt, suddenly twisted away into a labyrinth of ancient buildings that lay between the centre ...

Spurge led Copplestone a little way up the narrow alley from the mouth of which they had observed the recent proceedings, suddenly turned off into a still narrower passage, and emerged at the rear of ...

If Copplestone had never seen Addie Chatfield before, if he had not known that she was an actress of some acknowledged ability, her entrance into that suddenly silent room would have convinced him tha...