Read "The Man of Death" by Arthur Gask online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
WE are for ever being told by many worthy people that criminals are made and not born, yet, for all that, no plant can flourish unless it be in a fertile soil, and in the annals of dark crime this soil has many times been found in most unexpected places, places, too, where one would have imagined there could be no possible encouragement for the making of a criminal.
Ramon Anthony Ellister, to give him his full names, though born almost in the precincts of a cathedral and coming from an excellent family and educated in most respectable, conventional surroundings, had never been anything else than criminally inclined. It was certainly rather surprising, for his father had been an archdeacon and his mother, the daughter of a bishop, a woman of most kindly and gentle disposition. His many brothers and sisters, too, of whom there were eight, all grew up to be most respected members of the community, with seemingly no vice at all in them.