THE ASHIEL MYSTERY
A DETECTIVE STORY


BY MRS. CHARLES BRYCE




_"It is the difficulty of the Police Romance, that the reader is always a
man of such vastly greater ingenuity than the writer._"

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.




CHAPTER I


When Sir Arthur Byrne fell ill, after three summers at his post in the
little consulate that overlooked the lonely waters of the Black Sea, he
applied for sick leave. Having obtained it, he hurried home to scatter
guineas in Harley Street; for he felt all the uneasy doubts as to his
future which a strong man who has never in his life known what it is to
have a headache is apt to experience at the first symptom that all is not
well. Outwardly, he pretended to make light of the matter.

"Drains, that's what it is," he would say to some of the passengers to
whom he confided the altered state of his health on board the boat which