To David in memory of the Uncas...

It is an undeniable but a mystifying fact of natural ethics that a man has the right to dispose of his own property at death. They can do him no good now, those ancestral acres, those hard-won thousan...

The morning sun shone on the upper reaches of the Thames with the hazy glow that recalls a night of rain and presages a day of baking heat. It was early July, and the time of day conspired with the se...

In spite of the computations mentioned in the last chapter, Nigel found himself without a ticket on Oxford platform. He had to accost the collector, to be waved back until the collector had dealt with...

When I said that no human soul mourned Derek dead or cared whether Derek lived I spoke too hastily; I should have excepted the Indescribable. To a Company with such vast assets, the sum needed to cove...

The Gudgeon Inn proved to be empty of visitors, its management at once hospitable to strangers and incurious as to their errand. They secured a quite tolerable bedroom, whose windows looked down over ...

The Gudgeon Inn is the sort of institution that only exists for the sake of people who see life in inverted commas. Externally it is just like a thousand other inns; the creaking signboard, the modest...

Angela brought out six prints. She laid them before her husband one by one, tantalizing his curiosity by insisting that he should have a good look at each as it came. The first print represented a boa...

By the next afternoon the prints were dry and ready for inspection. Bredon, however, delayed his visit to Oxford until after teatime, to be more certain of finding his man in. He was punished for his ...

Angela came down to breakfast to find her husband bending over a map, on which he seemed to be underlining in pencil various inns or villages along the river, and measuring the distances between them ...

The Burtell sensation was still making good copy in the newspapers. It was part of Leyland’s technique, perhaps a fault in it, that he never put a suspected man on his guard; consequently, although th...

“It’s no good,” said Leyland; “it doesn’t make the least little bit of sense. Don’t say that the second wallet didn’t really belong to Derek Burtell; that his card was put inside it for a ruse. That n...

Bredon did not expand until he and Leyland were alone together. “I’m going to leave it to you,” he said, “how much you take Mr. Quirk into your confidence. Meanwhile, I must tell you that I’ve got Nig...

Leyland had determined to devote the next day to making inquiries about the man in the punt. Bredon, who had decided to take things easily, contented himself with looking through Leyland’s notes of hi...

Leyland did not come back till early on Monday morning; and when he came out to the Gudgeon he found Angela already returned. He was plainly despondent. “There’s simply nothing right about this case,”...

On the Saturday before the interview recorded in the last chapter, Mrs. Coolman, sister of the late Sir John Burtell, died quietly in her sleep. I am sorry that so many characters in this story should...

Leyland hurried back after luncheon to catch the three-twelve. It was essential for him, he said, to see the solicitors; possible that he would have to break his journey at Wallingford on the way back...

There are few more humiliating sensations than that of the man who comes into a room bursting with stale news. When Leyland returned he was plainly full of important secrets. He did not even hesitate ...

For perhaps a quarter of a minute the whole company stared at one another. Then the family weakness of the Burtells saved the situation, and Nigel fainted. It was when he had been carried up to his ro...

Nigel’s trouble proved to be something more serious than a common fainting-fit. It was a heart attack, which demanded a visit from the doctor, and its inevitable sequel⁠—the prescription of “a few day...

“No,” said Bredon as he and Leyland paddled up, it seemed for the fiftieth time, to Shipcote Lock. “I don’t find Nigel Burtell’s story incredible in the least. I was never at a University, but I can q...

Bredon made no great pace up the river; he was exhausted by his twenty-five minutes of variety performance at the lock, and there was, besides, no need for haste. If the unknown took his punt downstre...

Mr. Edward Farris, for all his vigorous physique, somewhat recalled in his speech and manner that legendary person who was said to be “descended from a long line of maiden aunts.” His voice was carefu...

“Would you be shocked,” asked Nigel, “if you thought I’d done it?” He was sitting up, for the first time, in a costume as nearly approaching full dress as Leyland would permit. Angela sat opposite him...

Angela came in before anybody had time to add further comment. “France, Belgium,” she said. “A good way up the river, near Ditcham Martin, just after breakfast. Yes, each took three of the other⁠—Dere...

It was very kind of you to write and ask after me, and I hope it wasn’t mere curiosity that prompted you to do it, as you suggest. I’ve been here, of course, in this rather delightful Belgian country ...