The Paddington Mystery
A special release of the very first crime novel by John Rhode, introducing Dr Priestley, the genius detective who would go on to appear in more than 70 bestselling crime novels during the Golden Age.When Harold Merefield returned home in the early hours of a winter morning from a festive little party at that popular nightclub, the ‘Naxos’, he was startled by a gruesome discovery. On his bed was a corpse.There was nothing to show the identity of the dead man or the cause of his death. At the inquest, the jury found a verdict of ‘Death from Natural Causes’ – perhaps they were right, but yet . . . ?Harold determined to investigate the matter for himself and sought the help of Professor Priestley, who, by the simple but unusual method of logical reasoning, succeeded in throwing light upon what proved to be a very curious affair indeed.This Detective Club classic is introduced by crime writing historian and expert Tony Medawar, who looks at how John Rhode, who also wrote as Miles Burton and as Cecil Waye, became one of the best-selling and most popular British authors of the Golden Age.
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THE PADDINGTON MYSTERY
A STORY OF CRIME
BY
JOHN RHODE
PLUS
‘THE PURPLE LINE’
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
TONY MEDAWAR
COLLINS CRIME CLUB
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by Geoffrey Bles 1925
‘The Purple Line’ first published in the Evening Standard 1950
Copyright © Estate of John Rhode 1925, 1950
Introduction © Tony Medawar 2018
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
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: 9780008268848
Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9780008268855
Version: 2018-02-06
Table of Contents
‘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.
THE writer best known as ‘John Rhode’ was born Cecil John Charles Street on 3 May 1884 in the British territory of Gibraltar. His mother was descended from a wealthy Yorkshire family and his father was a distinguished Commander in the British Army who—at the time of his son’s birth—was serving in Gibraltar as Colonel-in-Chief of the Second Battalion of Scottish Rifles.
Shortly after his birth John Street’s parents returned to England where, not long after John’s fifth birthday, his father died unexpectedly. John and his widowed mother went to live with her father, and in 1895 John was sent to Wellington College in Berkshire. John did well in his academic studies and, perhaps unsurprisingly given the approach he took to detective stories, he excelled in the sciences. At the age of 16, John left school to attend the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich and, on the outbreak of the Great War, as it was then called, he enlisted, rising to the rank of Major by March 1918. While he was wounded three times, John Street’s main contribution to the war effort concerned the promulgation of allied propaganda, for which he was awarded the Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honours List for 1918 and also the prestigious Military Cross. As the war came to an end John Street moved to a new propaganda role in Dublin Castle in Ireland, where he would be responsible for countering the campaigning of the Irish nationalists during the so-called war of Irish independence. But the winds of change were blowing across Ireland and the resolution—or rather the partial resolution—of the ‘Irish Question’ would soon come in the form of a treaty and the partition of the island of Ireland. As history was made, Street was its chronicler, at least from the British perspective.
During the 1920s, other than making headlines for falling down a lift shaft, John Street spent most of his time at a typewriter, producing a fictionalised memoir of the war and political studies of France, Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, as well as two biographies. He also wrote a few short stories and articles on an eclectic range of subjects including piracy, camouflage and concealment, Slovakian railways, the value of physical exercise, peasant art, telephony, and the challenges of post-war reconstruction. He even found time to enter crossword competitions and, reflecting his keen interest in what is now known as ‘true crime’, he published the first full-length study of the trial of Constance Kent, who was convicted for one of the most gruesome murders of the nineteenth century at Road House in Kent. John also found time to write three thrillers and a wartime romance. However, while his early books found some success, the Golden Age of detective stories had arrived, and he decided to try
