Jean Stine - The Legendary Detectives II: 8 Classic Novelettes Featuring the World

Copyright 2002 by Renaissance E Books

Here is a real treat for aficionados of classic detective fiction: Eight tales of the legendary fictional sleuths who prowled in search of murder and mystery through the era of gaslight and hansom cabs. Included is the last adventure of the world's greatest detective, "His Last Bow: An Episode from the War Service of Sherlock Holmes." The aging sleuth is dragged from retirement to match wits with the Huns master-spy in the darkest days of World War I, in this story recorded by his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. However, even grander treats await inside. To wit: the rarest adventure of that legendary blind detective, Max Carrados, "The Bunch of Violets," never reprinted in any Carrados collection. Then for lovers of the exotic, Mr. Commissioner Sanders untangles a web of intrigue along the remote outposts of the Congo River, in "The Ghost Walker." The exotic, as well as the scientific, is in display in "The Silent Bullet," the very first story to feature that Golden Age scientific sleuth, Craig Kennedy. The exotic is also on display in "The Headless Mummies," an adventure of Fu Manchu creator Sax Rohmer's extraordinary detective Moris Klaw. Next is a pair of tales featuring the two most famous brains among gaslight detectives: the Man in the Corner in "The York Mystery," and The Thinking Machine in "The Great Auto Mystery." Finally, that inimitable, priest-detective, Father Brown, tackles the case of "The Head of Caesar." There are hours of mystery reading pleasure in this exclusive e-book collection of The Legendary Detectives II.

Jean Marie Stine

The Baroness Emmuska Magdalena Rosalia Maria Josefa Barbara Orczy (1865-1947) created many memorable characters during her long and productive career as a writer. They include the celebrated Lady Molly of Scotland Yard; Monsieur Fernand, a secret agent of the Napoleonic Era; Patrick Mulligan, the grotesque master detective known as "Skin o My Tooth"; the swashbuckling Leathermask; and others. But she is best known as the creator of her two celebrated contributions to the historical-adventure and the detective story: Sir Percy Blakeney, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and the nameless crime-solver known simply as "the Old Man in the Corner," respectively. The adventures of this anonymous sleuth, who solved all his cases without leaving his comfortable chair in the corner of his local tea shop, filled three volumes - The Case of Miss Elliott (1905), The Old Man in the Corner (1909) and Unraveled Knots (1925). The Old Man even starred in a series of silent British short films in the 1920s.

The man in the corner looked quite cheerful that morning; he had had two glasses of milk and had even gone to the extravagance of an extra cheesecake. Polly knew that he was itching to talk police and murders, for he cast furtive glances at her from time to time, produced a bit of string, tied and untied it into scores of complicated knots, and finally, bringing out his pocketbook, he placed two or three photographs before her.

"Do you know who that is?" he asked, pointing to one of these.

The girl looked at the face on the picture. It was that of a woman, not exactly pretty, but very gentle and childlike, with a strange pathetic look in the large eyes, which was wonderfully appealing.

"That was Lady Arthur Skelmerton," he said, and in a flash there flitted before Polly's mind the weird and tragic history, which had broken this loving woman's heart. Lady Arthur Skelmerton! That name recalled one of the most bewildering, most mysterious passages in the annals of undiscovered crimes.

"Yes. It was sad, wasn't it?" he commented, in answer to Polly's thoughts." Another case which but for idiotic blunders on the part of the police must have stood clear as daylight before the public and satisfied general anxiety. Would you object to my recapitulating its preliminary details?"

She said nothing, so he continued without waiting further for a reply.

"It all occurred during the York racing week, a time which brings to the quiet cathedral city its quota of shady characters, who congregate wherever money and wits happen to fly away from their owners. Lord Arthur Skelmerton, a very well known figure in London society and in racing circles, had rented one of the fine houses, which overlook the racecourse. He had entered Peppercorn, by St. Armand-Notre Dame, for the Great Ebor Handicap. Peppercorn was the winner of the Newmarket, and his chances for the Ebor were considered a practical certainty.

"If you have ever been to York you will have noticed the fine houses which have their drive and front entrances in the road called 'The Mount,' and the gardens of which extend as far as the racecourse, commanding a lovely view over the entire track. It was one of these houses, called 'The Elms,' which Lord Arthur Skelmerton had rented for the summer.

"Lady Arthur came down some little time before the racing week with her servants she had no children; but she had many relatives and friends in York, since she was the daughter of old Sir John Etty, the cocoa manufacturer, a rigid Quaker, who, it was generally said, kept the tightest possible hold on his own pursestrings and looked with marked disfavor upon his aristocratic son-in-law's fondness for gaming tables and betting books.

"As a matter of fact, Maud Etty had married the handsome young lieutenant in the 9th Hussars, quite against her father's wishes. But she was an only child, and after a good deal of demur and grumbling, Sir John, who idolized his daughter, gave way to her whim, and a reluctant consent to the marriage was wrung from him.

"But, as a Yorkshireman, he was far too shrewd a man of the world not to know that love played but a very small part in persuading a Duke's son to marry the daughter of a cocoa manufacturer, and as long as he lived he determined that since his daughter was being wed because of her wealth, that wealth should at least secure her own happiness. He refused to give Lady Arthur any capital, which, in spite of the most carefully worded settlements, would inevitably, sooner or later, have found its way into the pockets of Lord Arthur's racing friends. But he made his daughter a very handsome allowance, amounting to over 3,000 pounds a year, which enabled her to keep up an establishment befitting her new rank.

"A great many of these facts, intimate enough as they are, leaked out, you see, during that period of intense excitement which followed the murder of Charles Lavender, and when the public eye was fixed searchingly upon Lord Arthur Skelmerton, probing all the inner details of his idle, useless life.

"It soon became a matter of common gossip that poor little Lady Arthur continued to worship her handsome husband in spite of his obvious neglect, and not having as yet presented him with an heir, she settled herself down into a life of humble apology for her plebeian existence, atoning for it by condoning all his faults and forgiving all his vices, even to the extent of cloaking them before the prying eyes of Sir John, who was persuaded to look upon his son-in-law as a paragon of all the domestic virtues and a perfect model of a husband.

"Among Lord Arthur Skelmerton's many expensive tastes there was certainly that for horseflesh and cards. After some successful betting at the beginning of his married life, he had started a racing-stable, which it was generally believed as he was very lucky was a regular source of income to him.