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Authors: Dorothy L. Sayers
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beginning of the descent he glanced back once; she waved her hand with a quick gesture.
Half-way down the rugged climb Trent stopped. Far above a wonderful voice was singing to the glory of the Norse land, whose mountains (it sang) not even the storm that should rive the globe itself would be able to shake.
“Ja! Herligt er mit Fodeland,
Der ewig trodser Tidens Tand,”
sang the voice.
Trent looked out upon the wild landscape.
“Her Fatherland!” he soliloquised. “Well, well! They say the strictest parents have the most devoted children.”
THE BITER BIT
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE, OF THE
DETECTIVE POLICE, TO SERGEANT BULMER OF
THE SAME FORCE
L ONDON , 4th July, 18—.
S ERGEANT B ULMER ,—
This is to inform you that you are wanted to assist in looking up a ease of importance, which will require all the attention of an experienced member of the force. The matter of the robbery on which you are now engaged, you will please to shift over to the young man who brings you this letter. You will tell him all the circumstances of the case, just as they stand; you will put him up to the progress you have made (if any) towards detecting the person or persons by whom the money has been stolen; and you will leave him to make the best he can of the matter now in your hands. He is to have the whole responsibility of the case, and the whole credit of his success, if he brings it to a proper issue.
So much for the orders that I am desired to communicate to you.
A word in your ear, next, about this new man who is to take your place. His name is Matthew Sharpin; and he is to have the chance given him of dashing into our office at a jump—supposing he turns out strong enough to take it. You will naturally ask me how he comes by this privilege. I can only tell you that he has some uncommonly strong interest to back him in certain high quarters which you and I had better not mention except under our breaths. He has been a lawyer’s clerk; and he is wonderfully conceited in his opinion of himself, as well as mean and underhand to look at. According to his own account, he leaves his old trade, and joins ours, of his own free will and preference. You will no more believe that than I do. My notion is, that he has managed to ferret out some private information in connexion with the affairs of one of his master’s clients, which makes him rather an awkward customer to keep in the office for the future, and which, at the same time, gives him hold enough over his employer to make it dangerous to drive him into a corner by turning him away. I think the giving him this unheard-of chance among us, is, in plain words, pretty much like giving him hush-money to keep him quiet. However that may be, Mr. Matthew Sharpin is to have the case now in your hands; and if he succeeds with it, he pokes his ugly nose into our office, as sure as fate. I put you up to this, Sergeant, so that you may not stand in your own light by giving the new man any cause to complain of you at headquarters, and remain yours,
F RANCIS T HEAKSTONE .
FROM MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN TO CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE
L ONDON , 5th July, 18—.
D EAR S IR ,—
Having now been favoured with the necessary instructions from Sergeant Bulmer, I beg to remind you of certain directions which I have received, relating to the report of my future proceedings which I am to prepare for examination at headquarters.
The object of my writing, and of your examining what I have written, before you send it in to the higher authorities, is, I am informed, to give me, as an untried hand, the benefit of your advice, in case I want it (which I venture to think I shall not) at any stage of my proceedings. As the extraordinary circumstances of the case on which I am now engaged, make it impossible for me to absent myself from the place where the robbery was committed, until I have made some progress towards discovering the thief, I am necessarily precluded from consulting
Half-way down the rugged climb Trent stopped. Far above a wonderful voice was singing to the glory of the Norse land, whose mountains (it sang) not even the storm that should rive the globe itself would be able to shake.
“Ja! Herligt er mit Fodeland,
Der ewig trodser Tidens Tand,”
sang the voice.
Trent looked out upon the wild landscape.
“Her Fatherland!” he soliloquised. “Well, well! They say the strictest parents have the most devoted children.”
THE BITER BIT
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS
FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE, OF THE
DETECTIVE POLICE, TO SERGEANT BULMER OF
THE SAME FORCE
L ONDON , 4th July, 18—.
S ERGEANT B ULMER ,—
This is to inform you that you are wanted to assist in looking up a ease of importance, which will require all the attention of an experienced member of the force. The matter of the robbery on which you are now engaged, you will please to shift over to the young man who brings you this letter. You will tell him all the circumstances of the case, just as they stand; you will put him up to the progress you have made (if any) towards detecting the person or persons by whom the money has been stolen; and you will leave him to make the best he can of the matter now in your hands. He is to have the whole responsibility of the case, and the whole credit of his success, if he brings it to a proper issue.
So much for the orders that I am desired to communicate to you.
A word in your ear, next, about this new man who is to take your place. His name is Matthew Sharpin; and he is to have the chance given him of dashing into our office at a jump—supposing he turns out strong enough to take it. You will naturally ask me how he comes by this privilege. I can only tell you that he has some uncommonly strong interest to back him in certain high quarters which you and I had better not mention except under our breaths. He has been a lawyer’s clerk; and he is wonderfully conceited in his opinion of himself, as well as mean and underhand to look at. According to his own account, he leaves his old trade, and joins ours, of his own free will and preference. You will no more believe that than I do. My notion is, that he has managed to ferret out some private information in connexion with the affairs of one of his master’s clients, which makes him rather an awkward customer to keep in the office for the future, and which, at the same time, gives him hold enough over his employer to make it dangerous to drive him into a corner by turning him away. I think the giving him this unheard-of chance among us, is, in plain words, pretty much like giving him hush-money to keep him quiet. However that may be, Mr. Matthew Sharpin is to have the case now in your hands; and if he succeeds with it, he pokes his ugly nose into our office, as sure as fate. I put you up to this, Sergeant, so that you may not stand in your own light by giving the new man any cause to complain of you at headquarters, and remain yours,
F RANCIS T HEAKSTONE .
FROM MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN TO CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE
L ONDON , 5th July, 18—.
D EAR S IR ,—
Having now been favoured with the necessary instructions from Sergeant Bulmer, I beg to remind you of certain directions which I have received, relating to the report of my future proceedings which I am to prepare for examination at headquarters.
The object of my writing, and of your examining what I have written, before you send it in to the higher authorities, is, I am informed, to give me, as an untried hand, the benefit of your advice, in case I want it (which I venture to think I shall not) at any stage of my proceedings. As the extraordinary circumstances of the case on which I am now engaged, make it impossible for me to absent myself from the place where the robbery was committed, until I have made some progress towards discovering the thief, I am necessarily precluded from consulting
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