The Red Redmaynes

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The Red Redmaynes

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Title: The Red Redmaynes
Author: Eden Phillpotts
Release Date: November 26, 2004 [eBook #14167]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED
REDMAYNES***
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THE RED REDMAYNES

by
EDEN PHILLPOTTS
New York The MacMillan Company 1922

BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS
EUDOCIA EVANDER PLAIN SONG GREEN ALLEYS ORPHAN
DINAH MISER'S MONEY THE GREY ROOM CHILDREN OF
MEN A SHADOW PASSES STORM IN A TEACUP PAN AND THE
TWINS THE BANKS OF COLNE CHRONICLES OF SAINT TID
THE HUMAN BOY AND THE WAR

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
THE RUMOUR II. THE PROBLEM STATED III. THE MYSTERY
IV. A CLUE V. ROBERT REDMAYNE IS SEEN VI. ROBERT
REDMAYNE IS HEARD VII. THE COMPACT VIII. DEATH IN
THE CAVE IX. A PIECE OF WEDDING CAKE X. ON GRIANTE
XI. MR. PETER GANNS XII. PETER TAKES THE HELM XIII. THE
SUDDEN RETURN TO ENGLAND XIV. REVOLVER AND
PICKAXE XV. A GHOST XVI. THE LAST OF THE REDMAYNES
XVII. THE METHODS OF PETER GANNS XVIII. CONFESSION
XIX. A LEGACY FOR PETER GANNS
CHAPTER I
THE RUMOUR
Every man has a right to be conceited until he is famous--so it is said;
and perhaps unconsciously, Mark Brendon shared that opinion.

His self-esteem was not, however, conspicuous, although he held that
only a second-rate man is diffident. At thirty-five years of age he
already stood high in the criminal investigation department of the
police. He was indeed about to receive an inspectorship, well earned by
those qualities of imagination and intuition which, added to the
necessary endowment of courage, resource, and industry, had created
his present solid success.
A substantial record already stood behind him, and during the war
certain international achievements were added to his credit. He felt
complete assurance that in ten years he would retire from government
employ and open that private and personal practice which it was his
ambition to establish.
And now Mark was taking holiday on Dartmoor, devoting himself to
his hobby of trout fishing and accepting the opportunity to survey his
own life from a bird's-eye point of view, measure his achievement, and
consider impartially his future, not only as a detective but as a man.
Mark had reached a turning point, or rather a point from which new
interests and new personal plans were likely to present themselves upon
the theatre of a life hitherto devoted to one drama alone. Until now he
had existed for his work only. Since the war he had been again
occupied with routine labour on cases of darkness, doubt, and crime,
once more living only that he might resolve these mysteries, with no
personal interest at all outside his grim occupation. He had been a
machine as innocent of any inner life, any spiritual ambition or selfish
aim, as a pair of handcuffs.
This assiduity and single-hearted devotion had brought their temporal
reward. He was now at last in position to enlarge his outlook, consider
higher aspects of life, and determine to be a man as well as a machine.
He found himself with five thousand pounds saved as a result of some
special grants during the war and a large honorarium from the French
Government. He was also in possession of a handsome salary and the
prospect of promotion, when a senior man retired at no distant date.
Too intelligent to find all that life had to offer in his work alone, he

now began to think of culture, of human pleasures, and those added
interests and responsibilities that a wife and family would offer.
He knew very few women--none who awakened any emotion of
affection. Indeed at five-and-twenty he had told himself that marriage
must be ruled out of his calculations, since his business made life
precarious and was also of a nature to be unduly complicated if a
woman shared it with him. Love, he had reasoned, might lessen his
powers of concentration, blunt his extraordinary special faculties,
perhaps even introduce an element of calculation and actual cowardice
before great alternatives, and so shadow his powers and modify his
future success. But now, ten years later, he thought otherwise, found
himself willing to receive impressions, ready even to woo and wed if
the right girl should present herself. He dreamed of some well-educated
woman who would lighten his own ignorance of many branches