The Man Who Passed by Edgar Wallace

MR. REEDER'S views on the deplorable state of his mind were familiar to most people, but he was never quite so much a criminal as he was in the twelve hours which followed the disappearance of Ena Panton.

He had suspicions amounting almost to certainty. But Scotland Yard is a very cautious machine, not easily set in motion. "Maybe's" and "Very likely's" do not send the wheels grinding. More important, it is very careful to hide from those on whom suspicion falls that they are suspect, and this care often arrests too close inquiries. But Mr. Reeder was not at Scotland Yard. He was an extraneous force that moved sometimes independently of, and sometimes in conjunction with, that establishment, but he was not entirely bound by the methods and formula of Scotland Yard.