The Phantom Car by Fred M. White — Read

The follow afternoon Manthon found himself in the midst of a crowd of other people attending the inquest on the unfortunate Everard in the Burlington Rooms. The coroner opened the proceedings in the usual formal manner and went on to give some account of the deceased.

-"Mr Everard," he said, "was an elderly gentleman who lived alone in his own house in Burlington Square, he being a bachelor of quiet and sedentary habits. He had few friends, and practically no one ever called at Burlington Square, all his business being conducted in his office in Hatton Garden. His usual mode of procedure was to go down to his place of business each morning shortly after ten in his car, and stay there until about four o'clock in the afternoon, taking his lunch with him and subsequently returning to Burlington Square, after which he seldom went out. He was known to be a man of considerable wealth and a collector of antique gems, as well as a dealer in precious stones. This collection was one of the finest in the kingdom, though, curiously enough, it was not kept on the premises at Burlington Square, but either deposited with his bankers or lent to some public gallery for exhibition. At the time of his death, most of those historic gems were on loan to the Corporation of Liverpool.