Explore "The Cheyne Mystery" by Freeman Wills Crofts on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
For several days after the attempted burglary events in the Cheyne household pursued the even tenor of their way. Cheyne went back to Plymouth on the following morning and interviewed the manager of the Edgecombe, and the day after a quiet, despondent-looking man with the air of a small shopkeeper arrived at Warren Lodge and was closeted with Cheyne for a couple of hours. Mr. Speedwell, of Horton and Lavender's Private Detective Agency, listened with attention to the tales of the drugging and the burglary, thenceforward appearing at intervals and making mysterious inquiries on his own account.
On one of these visits he brought with him the report of the analyst relative to the dishes of which Cheyne had partaken at lunch, but this document only increased the mystification the affair had caused. No trace of drugs was discernible in any of the food or drink in question, and as the soiled plates or glasses or cups of all the courses were available for examination, the question of how the drug had been administered -- or alternatively whether it really had been administered -- began to seem almost insoluble. The cocktail taken with Parkes before lunch was the only item of which a portion could not be analyzed, but the evidence of the barmaid proved conclusively that Parkes could not have tampered with it.