Sir Clinton smiled with a tingle of sardonic amusement.
“I wonder what they’d have made of it if they’d known all about our methods! Perhaps I wasn’t quite orthodox. Perhaps I ought to have got him nicely hanged—and incidentally run the public in for a big bill for his prosecution. I can only say that my conscience is quite clear; it doesn’t give me a twinge. Consciences are weird things.”
He glanced across at Stenness with a glint of humour in his eye which the rest failed to see.
“And now, what about some bridge?”
The End
Transcriber’s Notes
This transcription follows the text of the 1927 edition, as reprinted by Penguin Books, with the exception of the chapter names, which were omitted in that edition. The ebook reprint by Orion House was consulted to restore the original chapter names.
The following alterations have been made to correct what are believed to be unambiguous errors in the Penguin Books edition:
- “two laces at once” to “two places at once” (Chapter IV)
- “may seen strange” to “may seem strange” (Chapter VII)
- “a tract almost grazing” to “a track almost grazing” (Chapter X)
- “dissapeared” to “disappeared” (Chapter XI)
- “In easy visions” to “In uneasy visions” (Chapter XIII)
- “Arthur Shandon” to “Arthur Hawkhurst” (Chapter XIII)
- “Your afraid” to “You’re afraid” (Chapter XIII)
- “polished then” to “polished them” (Chapter XVI)
- “slighty” to “slightly” (Chapter XVI)
- “fron” to “from” (Chapter XVI, three occurrences)
- “as he did do” to “as he did so” (Chapter XVII)
- “didn’t you makes” to “didn’t you make” (Chapter XVIII)
Additionally, several occurrences of unpaired quotation marks have been corrected. Lastly, in Chapter IV a single line of dialogue (“Can you guess what poison was used?”) was erroneously omitted. It has been reinstated here (obtained by consulting the Orion House ebook).