Chess

Chess

Within six months Mirko had mastered all the technical mysteries of chess, although with one curious reservation, which was frequently observed and mocked in chess-playing circles later. For Czentovic never managed to play a single game of chess from memory – or...
Scoop

Scoop

That evening, sometime after the advertised hour, Mr. Salter alighted at Boot Magna Halt. An hour earlier, at Taunton, he had left the express, and changed into a train such as he did not know existed outside the imagination of his Balkan correspondents; a single...
Scoop

Scoop

After an early luncheon, William went to say goodbye to his grandmother. She looked at him with doleful, mad eyes. Going to London, eh? Well I hardly suppose I shall be alive when you return. Wrap up warm, dear.’ It was eternal winter in Mrs Boot’s sunny bedroom. All...
You Shall Know Our Velocity

You Shall Know Our Velocity

“I want to marry this country,” I said. “It’s a good country,” Hand said. “I want to spend a lifetime here.” “Yeah.” “I could do it.” “Right.” And my mind leaped ahead, skipping and whistling. In...
The Third Policeman

The Third Policeman

‘See that you regularize your irregularity instantaneously,’ he called as his good-bye, ‘and set right your irrectitude and put the murderer in the cage before he rips the bag out of the whole countryside.’ After that he was gone. Sounds came...