Detective Anthology

"On l'appelait dans le monde: le "beau Signoles". Il se nommait le vicomte Gontran-Joseph de Signoles. Orphelin et maître d'une fortune suffisante, il faisait figure, comme on dit. Il avait de la tournure et de l'allure, assez de parole pour faire croire à de l'esprit, une certaine grâce naturelle, un air de noblesse et de fierté, la moustache brave et l'œil doux, ce qui plaît aux femmes." "Un lâche" est une nouvelle de Guy de Maupassant publié pour la première fois dans Le Gaulois le 27 janvier 1884, puis dans "Contes du jour et de la nuit" en 1885.

New faces don’t go unnoticed in small Cornish fishing villages, but when two strangers turn up in Pendennick, they soon make their presence known when they attempt to steal a boat, holding a local at gunpoint....

Jarred is haunted by a mask in his mirror, visions of a past he doesn't remember, and love for a woman he can't recognize. As he feels he is about to crack from the stress, the mask in the mirror begins to crack as well. Jarred wonders if he is haunted, insane, or is he perhaps the only sane person left in the world.

A second marriage after the first ended in tragedy is bound to have its challenges. In the case of DI Peter Johns, his new wife, "Our Bernie", is very different from Angie, the love of his life. This short story plots the path of their friendship from first encounters to final commitment.

In Agatha Christie’s short story “The Kidnapped Prime Minister”, Poirot investigates the mysterious disappearance of the British prime minister during wartime. Apparently carjacked on the way to a peace conference, Poirot must overcome subterfuge and misdirection to solve the mystery.

Bullion! is the ultimate locked-room mystery. A ship transporting gold bullion is travelling from Melbourne to London. The gold is packed into chests and stored in a separate locked and sealed room. But mysterious whispering is heard in the night and chests seemingly disappear and return, leading the crew to think they’re losing their minds. Can the second mate get to the bottom of the mystery?

The story is a double play: is it the story of a woman going mad, or a woman possessed by something evil? We begin to suspect that the narrator’s apparently caring husband John may not be as caring as she thinks. Is he trying to control her? We know that Charlotte was much concerned with the emancipation of women and them achieving financial independence, so is the character of John an echo of this?

"The Adventure of the Norwood Builder" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was the second tale published in The Return of Sherlock Holmes in 1903.

James has found himself at the fashionable resort Kimpton-on-Sea, all due to the persuasion of his girlfriend, Grace, who during the last few months of their courtship has become more difficult to deal with. Among the upper echelons of society, including the Rajah of Maraputna, James feels disgruntled and out of place. Eager to both irritate and win over Grace, James bypasses the queue to the changing rooms and ducks into the private huts on the beach so that he can be the first into the sea. It is only later that he realizes he has accidentally come into possession of a very valuable and sought-after object.

"The Adventure of the Abbey Grange" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and is one of 13 stories in the collection The Return of Sherlock Holmes.

In "The Invisible Man", a murderer manages to get in and out of a house, even though it is under constant observation. In some ways, the story parallels Poe's "The Purloined Letter" but adds its own unique touches, particularly in the character and methods of priest-sleuth Father Brown.

"The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was originally published as part of The Return of Sherlock Holmes in 1903.

Professor Van Dusen solves a variety of different mysteries together with his friend, Hutchinson Hatch, a reporter for a fictional newspaper called The Daily New Yorker. The professor is known as the "Thinking Machine", and he solves problems by the remorseless application of logic. In this story, he thinks his way out of a maximum-security prison.

Holmes is confronted with the disappearance of the bride of a nobleman - just minutes after the ceremony. "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor" is one of the 56 original Sherlock Holmes stories and was first published in Strand Magazine in April 1892. It served as the (loose) basis for The Eligible Bachelor, a film starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes, Edward Hardwicke as Watson, and Simon Williams as Lord St. Simon.

This is a story from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes II collection. In this collection are four of the finest cases of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, narrated by his faithful friend and admirer Dr. Watson. What was the mystery of the engineer's thumb? What was behind the disappearance of the race horse? Why did masked royalty walk up to see Holmes in Baker Street? These and other puzzles are solved in this collection by this bloodhound of a genius.

Watson visits Sherlock Holmes at Christmastime and finds him contemplating a battered old hat, brought to him by the commissionaire Peterson after it and a Christmas goose had been dropped by a man in a scuffle with some street ruffians. Peterson takes the goose home to eat it, but comes back later with a precious carbuncle that his wife found in the bird's crop.

Arthur Conan Doyle ranked "The Red-Headed League" second in his list of his 12 favorite Sherlock Holmes stories. It is one of Holmes' most intriguing cases, in which he has to solve a problem caused by a strange society in which the only criteria for admission is bright red hair!

"A Scandal in Bohemia" was the first of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories to be published in The Strand magazine. Doyle ranked "A Scandal in Bohemia" fifth in his list of 12 favorite Holmes stories. It was first published on June 25, 1891, and was later the first of the stories collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 1892.

When civilian life proves too dull for Major Wilbrahams, he contacts Parker Pyne to escape his boredom. Pyne's assistant arranges a chance meeting with the beautiful Freda Clegg and the two join forces, but on leaving for Africa they encounter more than they had bargained for.

A Case of Identity is one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is the third story in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The story revolves around the case of Miss Mary Sutherland, a woman with a large income due to the interest from a fund set up for her. She is engaged to a quiet Londoner who has mysteriously disappeared. Sherlock Holmes's solves the case rather easily, much as it puzzles Watson.