The Crime Doctor

Оглавление

Hornung Ernest William. The Crime Doctor

I. THE PHYSICIAN WHO HEALED HIMSELF

II. THE LIFE-PRESERVER

III. A HOPELESS CASE

IV. THE GOLDEN KEY

V. A SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD

VI. ONE POSSESSED

VII. THE DOCTOR'S ASSISTANT

VIII. THE SECOND MURDERER

Отрывок из книги

The Lady Vera Moyle had made herself notorious in a cause that scored some points through her allegiance. She it was who cajoled the Home Secretary outside Palace Yard, and sent him about his weighty business with the colors of a hated Union pinned to his unconscious back. It is true that some of her excesses had less to redeem them, but all were committed with a pious zest which recalled the saying that the Moyles were a race of Irish rebels who had intermarried with the saints. It was reserved for Lady Vera to combine the truculence of her forefathers with the serene solemnity of their wives, and to enact her devilments, as she took their consequences, with a buxom austerity all her own.

But she was not at her best when she went to see Doctor Dollar on Christmas Eve; for it was just two months after the autumn raid, which had caused the retirement of Lady Vera Moyle, and some of her political friends, for precisely that period. Otherwise, the autumn raid had been a triumph for the raiders, thanks to a fog of providential density, which had fought on their side as the stars in their courses fought against Sisera for the earliest militant. Never had private property been destroyed on so generous a scale, with fewer casualties on the side of the destroying angels; and yet there had been one unnecessary blot on the proceedings, which they were the first to repudiate and condemn.

.....

"When does it go?"

"Not for some time. There's only one more; we debated which he should take. But you mustn't take the other, Lady Vera; you must leave that to me. I want you to leave the whole thing to me – from this very moment till you hear from me again."

.....