R. Austin Freeman

Dr. Thorndyke’s Case-Book

Warsaw 2022

Contents

I. THE CASE OF THE WHITE FOOTPRINTS

II. THE BLUE SCARAB

III. THE NEW JERSEY SPHINX

IV. THE TOUCHSTONE

V. A FISHER OF MEN

VI. THE STOLEN INGOTS

VII. THE FUNERAL PYRE

I. THE CASE OF THE WHITE FOOTPRINTS

“Well,” said my friend Foxton, pursuing a familiar and apparently inexhaustible topic, “I’d sooner have your job than my own.”

“I’ve no doubt you would,” was my unsympathetic reply. “I never met a man who wouldn’t. We all tend to consider other men’s jobs in terms of their advantages and our own in terms of their drawbacks. It is human nature.”

“Oh, it’s all very well for you to be so beastly philosophical,” retorted Foxton. “You wouldn’t be if you were in my place. Here, in Margate, it’s measles, chicken-pox and scarlatina all the summer, and bronchitis, colds and rheumatism an the winter. A deadly monotony. Whereas you and Thorndyke sit there in your chambers and let your clients feed you up with the raw material of romance. Why, your life is a sort of everlasting Adelphi drama.”

“You exaggerate, Foxton,” said I. “We, like you, have our routine work, only it is never heard of outside the Law Courts; and you, like every other doctor, must run up against mystery and romance from time to time.”

Foxton shook his head as he held out his hand for my cup. “I don’t,” said be. “My practice yields nothing but an endless round of dull routine.”

And then, as if in commentary on this last statement, the housemaid burst into the room and, with hardly dissembled agitation, exclaimed:

“If you please, sir, the page from Beddingfield’s Boarding-house says that a lady has been found dead in her bed and would you go round there immediately.”

“Very well, Jane,” said Foxton, and as the maid retired, he deliberately helped himself to another fried egg and, looking across the table at me, exclaimed: “Isn’t that always the way? Come immediately–now–this very instant, although the patient may have been considering for a day or two whether he’ll send for you or not. But directly he decides you must spring out of bed, or jump up from your breakfast, and run.”

“That’s quite true,” I agreed; “but this really does seem to be an urgent case.”

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This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.

This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.

This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.

This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.

This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.

This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.