The Lone House Mystery by Edgar Wallace — Read

I TOOK the letter into his study and examined it carefully, and then, with Mr. Voss's permission, I sent for his steward, or butler, or whatever he was called. I had seen a telephone in the cottage, and I had meant to ask before whether that 'phone was fixed up to the house exchange. When the steward told me it was not, a lot of light was thrown on the mystery of Veddle's death.

I got through to the local telephone supervisor and asked a few questions. Naturally he couldn't answer, because he'd only just come on duty; but an hour later, when I was having breakfast, I was called for. The supervisor had got all the data I wanted. A message had come through at about ten o'clock on the previous night from the cottage 'phone, obviously from Veddle, who had asked for a London number. They had talked for six minutes, and the operator had no idea to whom he was speaking. There was a record of the call, and I got straight through to the number and found it was a small hotel near Paddington Station. Nobody named Wills was staying there, but the night porter had left a record that a "Mr. Staines" had been rung up at something after ten, and that it was a toll call. "Mr. Staines" himself was not in the hotel at the moment I 'phoned. I took no risks, but got through to the Yard immediately and sent a couple of officers to pick up "Mr. Staines" and see how much like Mr. Wills he looked. When I came back I found Mr. Voss had hatched out a brand-new theory, and it was so very much like my own that I wondered if I'd been talking aloud to myself.