1
The Game Played in the Dark
by Ernest Bramah
from Max Carrados, Methuen (1914), London.
"It's a funny thing, sir," said Inspector Beedel, regarding Mr. Carrados with the pensive respect that he always extended towards the blind amateur, "it's a funny thing, but nothing seems to go on abroad now but what you'll find some trace of it here in London if you take the trouble to look."
"In the right quarter," contributed Carrados.
"Why, yes," agreed the inspector. "But nothing comes of it nine times out of ten, because it's no one's particular business to look here or the thing's been taken up and finished from the other end. I don't mean ordinary murders or single-handed burglaries, of course, but"--a modest ring of professional pride betrayed the quiet enthusiast--"real First-Class Crimes."
"The State Antonio Five per cent. Bond Coupons?" suggested Carrados.
"Ah, you are right, Mr. Carrados." Beedel shook his head sadly, as though perhaps on that occasion some one ought to have looked. "A man has a fit in the inquiry office of the Agent-General for British Equatoria, and two hundred and fifty thousand pounds' worth of faked securities is the result in Mexico. Then look at that jade fylfot charm pawned for one-and-three down at the Basin and the use that could have been made of it in the Kharkov 'ritual murder' trial."
"The West Hampstead Lost Memory puzzle and the Baripur bomb conspiracy that might have been smothered if one had known."
"Quite true, sir. And the three children of that Chicago millionaire--Cyrus V. Bunting, wasn't it?--kidnapped in broad daylight outside the New York Lyric and here, three w