The Middle Temple Murder. Nigel Moss

      

      ‘THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB is a clearing house for the best detective and mystery stories chosen for you by a select committee of experts. Only the most ingenious crime stories will be published under the THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB imprint. A special distinguishing stamp appears on the wrapper and title page of every THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB book—the Man with the Gun. Always look for the Man with the Gun when buying a Crime book.’

       Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1929

      Now the Man with the Gun is back in this series of COLLINS CRIME CLUB reprints, and with him the chance to experience the classic books that influenced the Golden Age of crime fiction.

       Copyright

      COLLINS CRIME CLUB

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      This Detective Club edition published 2019

      First published in Great Britain by Ward Lock 1919

      ‘The Contents of the Coffin’ published in The Adventures of Archer Dawe (Sleuth-Hound) by Digby, Long & Co. 1909

      Introduction © Nigel Moss 2019

      Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

      J.S. Fletcher asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008283049

      Ebook Edition © January 2019 ISBN: 9780008283056

      Version: 2018-11-28

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Introduction

      I. THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER

      II. HIS FIRST BRIEF

      III. THE CLUE OF THE CAP

IV. THE ANGLO-ORIENT HOTEL

V. SPARGO WISHES TO SPECIALISE

VI. WITNESS TO A MEETING

VII. MR AYLMORE

VIII. THE MAN FROM THE SAFE DEPOSIT

       IX. THE DEALER IN RARE STAMPS

       X. THE LEATHER BOX

       XI. MR AYLMORE IS QUESTIONED

       XII. THE NEW WITNESS

       XIII. UNDER SUSPICION

       XIV. THE SILVER TICKET

       XV. MARKET MILCASTER

       XVI. THE ‘YELLOW DRAGON’

       XVII. MR QUARTERPAGE HARKS BACK

       XVIII. AN OLD NEWSPAPER

       XIX. THE CHAMBERLAYNE STORY

       XX. MAITLAND alias MARBURY

       XXI. ARRESTED

       XXII. THE BLANK PAST

       XXIII. MISS BAYLIS

       XXIV. MOTHER GUTCH

       XXV. REVELATIONS

       XXVI. STILL SILENT

       XXVII. MR ELPHICK’S CHAMBERS

       XXVIII. OF PROVED IDENTITY

       XXIX. THE CLOSED DOORS

       XXX. REVELATION

       XXXI. THE PENITENT WINDOW-CLEANER

       XXXII. THE CONTENTS OF THE COFFIN

       XXXIII. FORESTALLED

       XXXIV. THE WHIP HAND

       XXXV. MYERST EXPLAINS

       XXXVI. THE FINAL TELEGRAM

       THE CONTENTS OF THE COFFIN

       Keep Reading …

       The Detective Story Club

       About the Publisher

       INTRODUCTION

      THE year 2019 marks the centenary of The Middle Temple Murder by J.S. Fletcher (1863–1935), first published in 1919 in the UK (Ward Lock) and US (Knopf). Well received by literary critics on both continents, it attracted lavish praise from US President Woodrow Wilson as the best detective story he had read. The book quickly became a bestseller, especially in the US, where Fletcher was even heralded as the literary successor to Arthur Conan Doyle, and it later entered the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list of landmark mysteries. Though Fletcher was already an established author, he was now propelled to literary fame and commercial success, and during the 1920s and early 1930s his vast output was rivalled only by Edgar Wallace and E. Phillips Oppenheim. His influence contributed significantly to the growth in popularity, social acceptance and respectability of crime fiction and was of historical importance to the genre.

      Joseph Smith Fletcher was born in 1863 in Halifax. His father, a clergyman and keen bibliophile, died when Fletcher was still a baby, and he was raised by his maternal grandmother on her farm in Yorkshire. A semi-invalid for much of his youth, Fletcher’s formal education did not begin until his mid-teens. However, he developed a passionate enjoyment for reading prose and poetry at a young age, particularly the great adventure stories of Fenimore Cooper, Captain Marryat, Walter Scott and Jules Verne, and by age 16 claimed to have read over two thousand books. This was reflected in the hugely fertile imagination and wordsmith skills displayed in Fletcher’s fictional writings. Before turning age 17, Fletcher had published his first collection of poetry.

      After completing his schooling in Wakefield, Fletcher moved to London to study law. He attended fraud and murder trials and gained an in-depth knowledge of criminal law, useful for his later detective fiction. But plans to become a barrister were abandoned in favour of journalism, and by age 20 he was