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Masterpieces of Mystery in Four Volumes: Detective Stories

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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

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*** 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 sapientiæ 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 troisième_, No. 33 Rue Dunôt, 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 ca

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