Mystery & Detective Books

THE KNAVE OF CLUBS They picked up the young man called "Snow" Gregory from a Lambeth gutter, and he was dead before the policeman on point duty in Waterloo Road, who had heard the shots, came upon the scene. He had been shot in his tracks on a night of snow and storm and none saw the murder. When they got him to the mortuary and searched his clothes they found nothing except a little tin box of... more...

It was in the spring when I at last found time from the hospital work to visit my friend, the old folk-lorist, in his country isolation, and I rather chuckled to myself, because in my bag I was taking down a book that utterly refuted all his tiresome pet theories of magic and the powers of the soul. These theories were many and various, and had often troubled me. In the first place, I scorned them for... more...

WAS it a specter? For days I could not answer this question. I am no believer in spiritual manifestations, yet—But let me tell my story. I was lodging with my wife on the first floor of a house in Twenty-seventh street. I had taken the apartments for three months, and we had already lived in them two and found them sufficiently comfortable. The back room we used as a bedroom, and while it... more...

CHAPTER I. DESPAIR AND INTEREST They stood upon the roof of a London boarding-house in the neighborhood of Russell Square—one of those grim shelters, the refuge of Transatlantic curiosity and British penury. The girl—she represented the former race was leaning against the frail palisading, with gloomy expression and eyes set as though in fixed contemplation of the uninspiring panorama. The young... more...

CHAPTER I Mefiez-Vous! Taisez-Vous! Les Oreilles Ennemies Vous Ecoutent! The usual little crowd was waiting in the lobby of a fashionable London restaurant a few minutes before the popular luncheon hour. Pamela Van Teyl, a very beautiful American girl, dressed in the extreme of fashion, which she seemed somehow to justify, directed the attention of her companions to the notice affixed to the wall... more...

CHAPTER I A man stood irresolutely before the imposing portals of Cainbury House, a large office building let out to numerous small tenants, and harbouring, as the indicator on the tiled wall of the vestibule testified, some thirty different professions. The man was evidently poor, for his clothes were shabby and his boots were down at heel. He was as evidently a foreigner. His clean-shaven eagle face... more...

CHAPTER I. TWO SKILLFUL YOUNG DETECTIVES OVERMATCH A BRACE OF VILLAINS AND PROVE WHAT NERVE AND COURAGE CAN DO. "Let's duck him and steal the girl." A young lady and gentleman were walking on the sands at Coney Island beach. The lady was very handsomely attired, and by her side walked a young man, a perfect type in appearance of an effeminate dude. Three rough-looking men had been... more...

CHAPTER I. [Colonel Annesley's Story] The crossing from Dover to Calais had been rough; a drizzling rain fell all the time, and most of the passengers had remained below. Strange to say, they were few enough, as I saw on landing. It was a Sunday in late July, and there ought to have been a strong stream setting towards Central Europe. I hardly expected to find much room in the train; not that it... more...

ONE — The Absence of Mr Glass THE consulting-rooms of Dr Orion Hood, the eminent criminologist and specialist in certain moral disorders, lay along the sea-front at Scarborough, in a series of very large and well-lighted french windows, which showed the North Sea like one endless outer wall of blue-green marble. In such a place the sea had something of the monotony of a blue-green dado: for the... more...

CHAPTER I "A GENTLEMAN to see you, Doctor." From across the common a clock sounded the half-hour. "Ten-thirty!" I said. "A late visitor. Show him up, if you please." I pushed my writing aside and tilted the lamp-shade, as footsteps sounded on the landing. The next moment I had jumped to my feet, for a tall, lean man, with his square-cut, clean-shaven face sun-baked to the hue of... more...