Agatha Webb

In the quiet seaport town of Sutherlandtown, a glittering evening at the Sutherland house ends in terror when Frederick Sutherland is seen acting strangely and a cry of murder rises from the darkness. The first shock is Agatha Webb's death, but the night's horror only deepens at the Webb house, where the townspeople discover the body of old Batsy, a bewildered Philemon Webb asleep at the table, and a bedroom scene arranged with eerie, almost tender care. As Mr. Sutherland and Constable Fenton struggle to make sense of the crime, Miss Page's bold, enigmatic presence adds another layer of tension to a mystery already charged with class divisions, romance, and reputation. A coroner's inquiry uncovers hints of hidden money, a missing drawer, and a key clenched in Agatha's hand, suggesting robbery may have been involved. Yet the case grows stranger still as Philemon, childlike and half-conscious, offers incoherent fragments about "the p***y cat," and a report surfaces of a fleeing, long-bearded man carrying something glittering. In the aftermath, grief spreads through the town, Sweetwater arrives with a painful confession, and Mr. Sutherland is forced to confront the possibility that his son is entangled in a devastating secret. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.