The Big Bow Mystery

Mrs. Drabdump has overslept, the December fog is thick over Bow, and her lodger will not answer his door. She fetches the retired detective from across the street, who puts his shoulder to the door until the bolt tears from its staple — and finds Arthur Constant in bed with his throat cut, hands clasped under his head. The windows are fastened, the chimney is too narrow to climb, and no razor is anywhere in the room. A purse of gold sits untouched on the dressing table.

What follows is a duel. Grodman, the celebrated man-hunter, and Edward Wimp of Scotland Yard read the same impossible facts to opposite conclusions, while a labor leader stands in the dock and a young woman cannot be found. The locked-room novel begins here.