The Hidden Door by Arthur Gask — Read

"And it is an entirely mistaken idea, as no one will of course know better than yourself, Mr. Larose," said the Chief Commissioner of Scotland Yard, "that crime, as we understand it, finds its most fertile soil in great cities, and where people are gathered together in large numbers. " He shook his head slowly. "The lonely places of the land, in proportion to the dwellers there, have just as many dark and sinister secrets to hide. " He smiled sadly. "The little, sleepy village tucked away in some quiet corner of the country-side, the almost desolate coast about some lonely stretch of sea, or the moor that shelters only some isolated shepherd's hut, may all hug, if we only knew it, their secrets of dark and undiscovered crime."

Gilbert Larose nodded. He was a boyish-looking man, still under thirty, and no one would have imagined, from a cursory glance at his frank and open features, that he was a detective of international reputation, and in his own country was responsible for many an unmarked grave within the prison walls of the cities of the great Commonwealth of Australia.