
A hurried stranger bursts from a downtown office, thrusting a sealed letter and a curious key into the hands of an unsuspecting man who shares his name. The brief exchange is charged with urgency—there’s a sick child, a desperate need to leave, and a lingering doubt that the wrong Edgar Q. Bartholomew has just been handed someone else’s business. Intrigued and uneasy, the protagonist decides to linger, watching the building’s occupants for any sign of the true recipient.
From the bustling streets of the city to the shadowed corridors of a law office, he becomes both observer and participant in a quiet mystery. The mysterious key hints at hidden doors, and the letter promises secrets that could upend ordinary life. As he balances courtesy with curiosity, listeners are drawn into a tense, early‑act puzzle that asks: how far will a gentleman go to correct a mistake before the consequences catch up?
Language
en
Duration
~9 hours (565K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
United States: Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc.,1923.
Credits
Charlene Taylor, Shaun Mudd and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
Release date
2022-05-23
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1846–1935
Often called one of the pioneers of detective fiction, she helped shape the mystery novel long before the genre was fully established. Her stories introduced careful plotting, memorable investigators, and the kind of clue-based suspense that later became a hallmark of crime writing.
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