Murder in the Maze

Murder in the Maze

By J. J. Connington.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. I: The Hackleton Case
4. II: The Affair in the Maze
5. III: The Immediate Results
6. IV: The Chief Constable
7. V: The Evidence in the Case
8. VI: The Toxicologist
9. VII: The Pot of Curare
10. VIII: Opportunity, Method, and Motive
11. IX: The Burglary at Whistlefield
12. X: The Third Attack in the Maze
13. XI: The Squire’s Theories
14. XII: The Fourth Attack
15. XIII: The Dart
16. XIV: The Forged Cheque
17. XV: The Secretary’s Affairs
18. XVI: The Last Attack in the Maze
19. XVII: The Siege in the Maze
20. XVIII: The Truth of the Matter
21. Colophon
22. Uncopyright

Imprint

This ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain.

This particular ebook is based on a transcription from Project Gutenberg and on digital scans from the Internet Archive.

The source text and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the United States public domain; that is, they are believed to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. They may still be copyrighted in other countries, so users located outside of the United States must check their local laws before using this ebook. The creators of, and contributors to, this ebook dedicate their contributions to the worldwide public domain via the terms in the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. For full license information, see the Uncopyright at the end of this ebook.

Standard Ebooks is a volunteer-driven project that produces ebook editions of public domain literature using modern typography, technology, and editorial standards, and distributes them free of cost. You can download this and other ebooks carefully produced for true book lovers at standardebooks.org.

I

The Hackleton Case

Neville Shandon stood at the window of his brother’s study gazing contentedly out over the Whistlefield grounds. This was a good place to recuperate in, he reflected, especially when one could only snatch a couple of days at a time from the grinding pressure of a barrister’s practice. His eye travelled slowly over the prospect of greenery which lay before him, lawn beyond lawn, down to where a glint of silver showed where the river cut across the estate. Beyond that came the stretches of the Low Meadows, intersected here and there by the darker green of the hedges; then the long curve of the main road; and at last, closing the horizon, the gentle slope of Longshoot Hill surmounted by its church spire. A bee hummed lazily at the open window; then, startled by a movement, it shot away, the note of its wings growing higher and fainter as it receded in the sunlight. The King’s Counsel let his attention wander for a moment to the rooks sailing, in their effortless flight around the tree-crests by the river; then, with something more than apparent reluctance, he turned away from the landscape.

“You did pretty well when you bought Whistlefield, Roger,” he commented as he moved back into the room. “It’s as restful a place as I know. If it weren’t that I can get down here from time to time, I’d be hard put to it to keep fit for my work. Think of the Law Courts on a day like this! And that Hackleton case has been a bit of a strain, a bigger business than usual.”

His twin brother nodded a general assent, but made no audible reply. There was more than the normal family resemblance between the two men. In height and build they were much alike; both were grey-haired and clean-shaven; and even the hard lines at the corners of the barrister’s mouth found their counterparts in the deeply-chiselled curves which made Roger Shandon’s face a slightly forbidding one. Whether deliberately or not, the twins accentuated their physical resemblance by a similarity in their dress.

“We have the same tailor,” Roger once explained. “When I go to him, I say: ‘Make me a suit like my brother’s last one.’ I believe Neville says the same. The fellow has our measurements, so there’s no more needed on that visit. Neville and I have much the same taste in shades, so it generally comes out all right.”

The likeness between the twins went even deeper than the surface. Both owed their success in life to a certain hardness of character coupled with an abundance of energy. Neville, going to the Bar, had made himself feared from the first as a brutal and domineering cross-examiner; and his criminal practice had done little to soften his professional manners. Roger’s rise to prosperity had been more mysterious. It was vaguely known that he had made money in South Africa and South America; but the exact methods which had led to his fortune were never discussed by him. He had come home at the age of forty-five to find his brother one of the leading lights of the Bar. The purchase of the little Whistlefield estate had followed, and Roger had apparently been content to settle down in the countryside and make a clean break with the interests of his past.

The third brother, Ernest, seemed hardly to belong to the same family as the twins. Though five years younger, he had none of the vitality and energy which were so manifest in his elders; and the contrast was accentuated by the weakness of his eyes, which gazed incuriously at the world from behind the concave lenses of his pince-nez. Left to fend for himself by the time he was twenty, and with a couple of hundred a year of his own, he had simply vegetated without even attempting to go into any business; and when his brothers had made their fortunes, he had