Here, without doubt, was murder, and Viner's thoughts immediately turned to two things -- one the hurrying young man whose face he thought he had remembered in some vague fashion; the other the fact that a policeman was slowly pacing up the terrace close by. He turned and ran swiftly up the still deserted passage. And there was the policeman, twenty yards away, coming along with the leisureliness of one who knows that he has a certain area to patrol. He pulled himself to an attitude of watchful attention as Viner ran up to him; then suddenly recognizing Viner as a well-known inhabitant of the Square, touched the rim of his helmet. "I say!" said Viner in the hushed voice of one who imparts strange and confidential tidings. "There's a man lying dead in the passage round here. And without doubt murdered! There's blood all over his shirt-front." The policeman stood stock still for the fraction of a second...

Author Biography

Joseph Smith Fletcher (1863 - 1935) was an English journalist and author. He wrote more than 230 books on a wide variety of subjects, both fiction and non-fiction and was one of the most prolific English writers of detective fiction. At age 20, Fletcher began working in journalism, as a sub-editor in London. He subsequently returned to his native Yorkshire, where he worked first on the Leeds Mercury using the pseudonym A Son of the Soil and then as a special correspondent for the Yorkshire Post covering Edward VII's coronation in 1902. Fletcher's first books published were poetry. He then moved on to write numerous works of historical fiction and history, many dealing with Yorkshire, which led to his selection as a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.