Read "The Markenmore Mystery" by J.S. Fletcher online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
A period of tense silence followed on this bold declaration, ended at last by a shuffling of feet and a succession of dry, deprecating coughs. Then a voice came out of the smoke-laden depths of a far corner.
"Tis all very well to say as how this here is a free country," remarked the voice, "but I do allow as 'tain't so free as that a man may call murder agin a woman! That there be what they call libel and slander, what folks goes to 'sizes for-it be a punishable matter that. I count as how you'll git yourself into sore tribulation, Bill Carver, if so be as you do go up and down a-saying that Mistress Braxfield her did murder pore young Muster Guy-so you will!"