Explore "The Lone House Mystery" by Edgar Wallace on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
THE disappearance of Wills rattled me. And I'm not a man easily rattled. Now and again you meet a crook detective, but mostly in books. I knew just what they'd say at Scotland Yard-they'd blame me for it. If a chimney catches fire, or a gas main blows up, the chief constable says to the deputy: "Why isn't the Sooper more careful?"
Wills hadn't done anything dramatic: he'd just walked to the station, taken a ticket to London and had gone. I got on to the Yard by 'phone, but of course he hadn't turned up then, and I placed the chief constable in full possession of all the facts; and from the way he said: "How did that come to happen, Minter? " I knew that I was half-way to a kick. If I wasn't one of the most efficient officers in the service, and didn't catch every man I was sent after, I should be blamed for their crimes.