About this story
An old servant's unexplained fright at the sight of him is barely smoothed over before an evening at a public billiard match ends in murder: a small Frenchman is found stabbed in the smoking room, a man Longcluse admits speaking with only hours before. Longcluse doubles the reward for the killer and leaves in a cab, the room's suspicion still unsettled.
How it opens
Evening found Mortlake Hall beautiful enough to conceal its neglect and your family's debts.
Alice ArdenLady May means to take me into town, Richard, unless Father ends the quarrel.
Lady May complained that Alice needed company and Longcluse had been shamefully absent.
Every old family possesses a beauty, a ghost, and at least one murder.
You claim you were in Paris then; perhaps you know why the suspected man escaped.
I knew only that a fellow named Mace fled before police could take him.