Mystery & Detective Books

CHAPTER I.Geneva—The Robbery—Search for the Burglars—My Agency Notified.Geneva is one of the prettiest and most thriving little towns in the west. Situated, as it is, in the midst of one of the finest agricultural districts in the country, its growth has been rapid beyond expectation, while its social progress has been almost phenomenal. Stretching for miles in all directions, over a country... more...

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...

CHAPTER I According to an entry in my book of engagements, I left London for Ravensdene Court on March 8th, 1912. Until about a fortnight earlier I had never heard of the place, but there was nothing remarkable in my ignorance of it, seeing that it stands on a remote part of the Northumbrian coast, and at least three hundred miles from my usual haunts. But then, towards the end of February, I received... more...

Chapter I SANFORD QUEST, CRIMINOLOGIST   The young man from the west had arrived in New York only that afternoon, and his cousin, town born and bred, had already embarked upon the task of showing him the great city. They occupied a table in a somewhat insignificant corner of one of New York’s most famous roof-garden restaurants. The place was crowded with diners. There were many notabilities to be... 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...

IS ABOUT MYSELF The whole circumstances of the Stretton Street Affair were so complicated and so amazing from start to finish that, had the facts been related to me, I confess I should never have for a moment given them credence. That they were hard, undeniable facts, presenting a problem both startling and sensational, the reader will quickly learn from this straightforward narrative—an open... 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...