Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Masterpieces of Mystery in Four Volumes: Detective StoriesThe Project Gutenberg eBook of Masterpieces of Mystery in Four Volumes: Detective Stories This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Masterpieces of Mystery in Four Volumes: Detective Stories Editor: Joseph Lewis French Release date: December 13, 2008 [eBook #27523] Most recently updated: January 4, 2021 Language: English Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27523 Credits: Produced by David Clarke, Carla Foust, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MASTERPIECES OF MYSTERY IN FOUR VOLUMES: DETECTIVE STORIES *** Produced by David Clarke, Carla Foust, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Transcriber's note Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without notice. Typographical errors have been corrected, and they are listed at the end of this book. MASTERPIECES OF MYSTERY Masterpieces of Mystery _In Four Volumes_ DETECTIVE STORIES Edited by Joseph Lewis French Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1922 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. NOTE The Editor desires especially to acknowledge assistance in granting the use of original material, and for helpful advice and suggestion, to Professor Brander Matthews of Columbia University, to Mrs. Anna Katherine Green Rohlfs, to Cleveland Moffett, to Arthur Reeve, creator of "Craig Kennedy," to Wilbur Daniel Steele, to Ralph Adams Cram, to Chester Bailey Fernald, to Brian Brown, to Mrs. Lillian M. Robins of the publisher's office, and to Charles E. Farrington of the Brooklyn Public Library. FOREWORD The honour of founding the modern detective story belongs to an American writer. Such tales as "The Purloined Letter" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" still stand unrivalled. We in America no more than the world of letters at large, did not readily realize what Poe had done when he created Auguste Dupin--the prototype of Sherlock Holmes _et genus omnes_, up to the present hour. On Poe's work is built the whole school of French detective story writers. Conan Doyle derived his inspiration from them in turn, and our American writers of to-day are helped from both French and English sources. It is rare enough to find the detective in fiction even to-day, however, who is not lacking in one supreme quality,--scientific imagination. Auguste Dupin had it. Dickens, had he lived a short time longer, might have turned his genius in this direction. The last thing he wrote was the "Mystery of Edwin Drood," the mystery of which is still unravelled. I have heard the opinion expressed by an eminent living writer that had Dickens' life been prolonged he would probably have become the greatest master of the detective story, except Poe. The detective story heretofore has been based upon one of two methods: analysis or deduction. The former was Poe's, to take the typical example; the latter is Conan Doyle's. Of late the discoveries of science have been brought into play in this field of fiction with notable results. The most prominent of such innovators, indeed the first one, is Arthur Reeve, an American writer, whose "Black Hand" will be found in this collection; which has endeavoured within its limited space to cover the field from the start--the detective story--wholly the outgrowth of the more highly developed police methods which have sprung into being within little more than half a century, being only so old. JOSEPH LEWIS FRENCH. CONTENTS PAGE I. THE PURLOINED LETTER 3 _Edgar Allan Poe_ II. THE BLACK HAND 33 _Arthur B. Reeve_ III. THE BITER BIT 64 _Wilkie Collins_ IV. MISSING: PAGE THIRTEEN 108 _Anna Katherine Green_ V. A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA 164 _A. Conan Doyle_ VI. THE ROPE OF FEAR 200 _Mary E. and Thomas W. Hanshew_ VII. THE SAFETY MATCH 229 _Anton Chekhov_ VIII. SOME SCOTLAND YARD STORIES 261 _Sir Robert Anderson_ MASTERPIECES OF MYSTERY Masterpieces of Mystery _DETECTIVE STORIES_ THE PURLOINED LETTER EDGAR ALLAN POE Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio.--SENECA. At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18--, I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and meerschaum, in company with my friend, C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library, or book-closet, _au troisieme_, No. 33 Rue Dunot, Faubourg St. Germain. For one hour at least we had maintained a profound silence; while each, to any casual observer, might have seemed intently and exclusively occupied with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere of the chamber. For myself, however, I was mentally discussing certain topics which had formed matter for conversation between us at an earlier period of the evening; I mean the affair of the Rue Morgue and the mystery attending the murder of Marie Roget. I looked upon it, therefore, as something of a coincidence, when the door of our apartment was thrown open and admitted our old acquaintance, Monsieur G----, the Prefect of the Parisian police. We gave him a hearty welcome; for there was nearly half as much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man, and we had not seen him for several years. We had been sitting in the dark, and Dupin now arose for the purpose of lighting a lamp, but sat down again, without doing so, upon G----'s saying that he had called to consult us, or rather to ask the opinion of my friend, about some official business which had occasioned a great deal of trouble. "If it is any point requiring reflection," observed Dupin, as he forbore to enkindle the wick, "we shall examine it to better purpose in the dark." "That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had the fashion of calling everything "odd" that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of "oddities." "Very true," said Dupin, as he supplied his visitor with a pipe and rolled toward him a comfortable chair. "And what is the difficulty now?" I asked. "Nothing more in the assassination way, I hope?" "Oh, no; nothing of that nature. The fact is, the business is very simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can |