The Crime of the French Café and Other Stories

Nick Carter, the legendary private eye of late‑19th‑century America, finds himself in the shadowy back‑alley of a bustling French café in New York’s Tenderloin district. While tailing a petty thief, he witnesses a harried waiter dash into a carriage and vanish, sparking a mystery that feels far more tangled than the simple robbery he was pursuing. The café’s dim side entrance, its elegant private dining rooms, and the quiet hum of the kitchen set the stage for a puzzling crime that beckons Carter’s keen instincts.

Inside, Carter’s inquiry leads him to the nervous head waiter, Gaspard, and a roster of discreetly booked rooms whose occupants may hold the key to the strange occurrence. As the detective pieces together fleeting clues—a fleeting glimpse of a thin, black‑haired man and a sudden, terror‑stricken reaction from Gaspard—the atmosphere thickens with intrigue. Listeners will be drawn into Carter’s methodical sleuthing as he begins to untangle the web of secrets hidden behind the café’s polished façade.