The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective by Catherine Louisa Pirkis

Author:Catherine Louisa Pirkis
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: victorian, detective, woman, sleuth, agatha christie
Publisher: Wildside Press
Published: 2012-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

DRAWN DAGGERS

“I admit that the dagger business is something of a puzzle to me, but as for the lost necklace—well, I should have thought a child would have understood that,” said Mr. Dyer irritably. “When a young lady loses a valuable article of jewellery and wishes to hush the matter up, the explanation is obvious.”

“Sometimes,” answered Miss Brooke calmly, “the explanation that is obvious is the one to be rejected, not accepted.”

Off and on these two had been, so to speak, “jangling” a good deal that morning. Perhaps the fact was in part to be attributed to the biting east wind which had set Loveday’s eyes watering with the gritty dust, as she had made her way to Lynch Court, and which was, at the present moment, sending the smoke, in aggravating gusts, down the chimney into Mr. Dyer’s face. Thus it was, however. On the various topics that had chanced to come up for discussion that morning between Mr. Dyer and his colleague, they had each taken up, as if by design, diametrically opposite points of view.

His temper altogether gave way now.

“If,” he said, bringing his hand down with emphasis on his writing table, “you lay it down as a principle that the obvious is to be rejected in favour of the abstruse, you’ll soon find yourself launched in the predicament of having to prove that two apples added to two other apples do not make four. But there, if you don’t choose to see things from my point of view, that is no reason why you should lose your temper!”

“Mr. Hawke wishes to see you, sir,” said a clerk, at that moment entering the room.

It was a fortunate diversion. Whatever might be the differences of opinion in which these two might indulge in private, they were careful never to parade those differences before their clients.

Mr. Dyer’s irritability vanished in a moment.

“Show the gentleman in,” he said to the clerk. Then he turned to Loveday. “This is the Rev. Anthony Hawke, the gentleman at whose house I told you that Miss Monroe is staying temporarily. He is a clergyman of the Church of England, but gave up his living some twenty years ago when he married a wealthy lady. Miss Monroe has been sent over to his guardianship from Pekin by her father, Sir George Monroe, in order to get her out of the way of a troublesome and undesirable suitor.”

The last sentence was added in a low and hurried tone, for Mr. Hawke was at that moment entering the room.

He was a man close upon sixty years of age, white-haired, clean shaven, with a full, round face, to which a small nose imparted a somewhat infantine expression. His manner of greeting was urbane but slightly flurried and nervous. He gave Loveday the impression of being an easy-going, happy-tempered man who, for the moment, was unusually disturbed and perplexed.

He glanced uneasily at Loveday. Mr. Dyer hastened to explain that this was the lady by whose aid he hoped to get to the bottom of the matter now under consideration.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.