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- Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
A series of stories telling about the graceful crimes of a high class robber, a forger, a robber, a murderer. Stories in each of which are the same criminal, but under different names travels around the world, assuming new identities, avoiding militias and theft of fate. In one story, he helps the British intelligence in restoring critical documents from a foreign state. In another, he uses his skills to help a servant in trouble. In general, stories are of average quality, but they cover interesting situations. One in Jamaica, several others in Paris and London.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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Contents
FOREWORD
I. OH, FAIR DELILAH!
II. THE PHANTOM THIEF
III. AN INEXPENSIVE KISS
IV. SHOCKING BAD LUCK ON THE BARON
V. PHILANTHROPY SOMETIMES PAYS
VI. THE MURDER TRIANGLE
VII. THE PRICE OF FELICITY
MISS FISKE, SIR SOMERVELL GLYDE AND TWO MIRACLES
IX. MY HUNCH WASN’T SO BAD AFTER ALL
THE PRINCESS OF HEBOR AND THE MAN FROM SMITH’S
FOREWORD
THE four men, shaken from the dignified composure of their day-by-day life, too nervous even to remain seated, were grouped together at the end of the long table in the board-room of the famous publishing house. Henderson, the general manager, a dour Scotsman, cautious, but a man of brains, was the first to speak.
“I would take a chance,” he declared, banging the table with his fist, “I would publish the man’s stuff just as you have read it to us, Steele. I wouldna’ hesitate the fraction of a second, even if it were the devil himself who had dropped the manuscripts down on our counter. Wrong he may have done, and that he admits, but he is repentant and that is the great thing, after all.”
Fairfax, sandy-haired, youthful, with an almost uncanny reputation for recognising with unerring judgment exactly what the world of fiction-readers demanded, screwed up his eyes. He was a big man with an unexpectedly gentle voice.
“We should be mad, Steele, if we let that stuff go,” he pronounced. “The style may be rotten, the stories may sound commonplace, but, my God, the man who tells them has been through it! They get you just in the place we want to get our readers.”
“What do you say, sir?” Steele, the editor-in-chief of the world-renowned magazine, asked Sir James Brusson, the chairman of the board.
Sir James, portly, dignified, genial, a man of presence and very nearly a peer, hesitated for several moments.
“I should like, Steele,” he said, “to have you read again the message which accompanied these stories.”
Steele took up the square sheet of notepaper which had already been passed round to each member of the little assembly and read the typewritten words slowly and distinctly. There was no address–only the date:
“The accompanying manuscripts are for publication in the ‘Piccadilly Magazine,’ if the editor should find them suitable. It has occurred to the sender that readers of modern magazines must be weary of the cut-and-dried detective story of the present day, in which the Scotland Yard man or the amateur sleuth is inevitably successful.
“These stories are criminal records written from a different angle. They are a true account of ten events in the life of one who here makes sorrowful and ashamed confession that he has devoted his career to crime and has never yet had his finger-prints taken, or entered a police court. In the ten stories, you will find the solution of at least two undiscovered murders and the truth about four of the most famous jewel robberies of recent days.
“I, the narrator, am leading at the present moment a life seemly and dignified in the eyes of all my acquaintances and neighbours. I am truly repentant. I am rapidly earning the reputation of being a good citizen, interested in good works and charitable to the full extent of my means. I continue to be, as I always was, a model husband and an excellent father to my children. I am aware that I run a certain risk in addressing you. You will probably give Scotland Yard an opportunity of studying the finger-prints upon this parcel, the string with which it was secured, the paper itself and the typing. Do so, by all means. My career of crime is ended and with that ingenuity which sometimes I am inclined to bitterly regret, I have destroyed completely every shred of evidence which could connect me with my past misdemeanours.
“The matter or payment presents no difficulty. Wherever it has been possible to do so safely, I have repaid the victims of my various exploits to the last farthing. To do so has cost me a large fortune but it has brought me peace of mind and it has cleared my conscience. Provided you use the stories, I shall ask that great philanthropist who presides over your destinies to select the hospital in London which he considers to be the most deserving and the most in need, and to pay over to them the full amount of their indebtedness to me.
“In case you decide not to publish the stories, kindly destroy the manus class=“typewriter”cripts. You will understand the reason for my adopting a pseudonym and I shall sign myself simply
“LESTER GROVES.”
Sir James stroked his beard thoughtfully.
“This appears to me,” he observed, “to be a queer position for the editor and proprietors of a famous periodical to find themselves in, but so far as I am concerned, I am in favour of publishing.”
Steele, an elderly man with a fine face–heavy, almost leonine in type–drew a breath of relief. An ample conscientiousness, however, forced him to add a few words.
“You understand what we shall be doing, sir,” he pointed out, gripping the manuscripts a little tighter in his hands. “These stories were left in our reception bureau by a person who simply laid them on the counter and disappeared. There’s not a soul in the place who could identify him. If we publish them we shall be dealing with a man whose words ring most terribly and fearfully like the truth, and who has been probably, if he is to be believed, the greatest undetected criminal Scotland Yard has ever had upon its books. Are we justified in having dealings with such a person?”
Sir James Brusson tapped a cigarette upon the table and lit it.
“So far as we are concerned,” he pronounced, “I consider that the complete repentance of the criminal and the restitution which he has made to his victims and the fact that the money we shall pay over is to go to charity, completely absolves us. So far as regards the matter between the law and ourselves,” he went on, “you must preserve the letter and the manuscripts and every scrap of communication which we ever receive from the soi-disant Lester Groves. Every word we receive from him, direct or indirect, must be imparted, if they desire it, to the police. It is their job to hunt the fellow down if they can–not ours. Following scrupulously along these lines, I can only repeat that you have my permission to publish the stories.”
The word of James Brusson, as the word of a millionaire usually does, prevailed. The first story contained in the manuscripts which Steele was still gripping, appeared in a forthcoming number of the magazine for which these men were responsible.
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!
