Hollis is a retired soap manufacturer, obsessed with amassing precious stones and bullion, He chooses a strong room to deposit his dazzling hoard. But when he discovers that he’s the victim of a robbery, even though the room was never broken into, Dr Thorndyke is summoned to bring his unrivalled knowledge to bear on a remarkable mystery.

Dr. John Thorndyke is a medical jurispractitioner, originally a medical doctor, he turned to the bar and became one of the first, in modern parlance, forensic scientists. His solutions are based on his method of collecting all possible data (including dust and pond weed) and making inferences from them before looking at any of the protagonists and motives in the crimes. Table of Contents: Introduction Meet Dr. Thorndyke Novels The Red Thumb Mark The Eye of Osiris The Mystery of 31 New Inn A Silent Witness Helen Vardon's Confession The Cat's Eye The Mystery of Angelina Frood The Shadow of the Wolf The D'Arblay Mystery A Certain Dr. Thorndyke As a Thief in the Night Mr. Pottermack's Oversight Pontifex, Son and Thorndyke When Rogues Fall Out Dr. Thorndyke Intervenes For the Defence: Dr. Thorndyke The Penrose Mystery Felo De Se? The Stoneware Monkey Mr. Polton Explains The Jacob Street Mystery Short Stories Percival Bland's Proxy The Missing Mortgagee The Man with the Nailed Shoes The Stranger's Latchkey The Anthropologist at Large The Blue Sequin The Moabite Cipher The Mandarin's Pearl The Aluminium Dagger A Message from the Deep Sea The Case of Oscar Brodski A Case of Premeditation The Echo of a Mutiny A Wastrel's Romance The Old Lag The Case of the White Footprints The Blue Scarab The New Jersey Sphinx The Touchstone A Fisher of Men The Stolen Ingots The Funeral Pyre The Puzzle Lock The Green Check Jacket The Seal of Nebuchadnezzar Phyllis Annesley's Peril A Sower of Pestilence Rex v. Burnaby A Mystery of the Sand-Hills The Apparition of Burling Court The Mysterious Visitor The Magic Casket The Contents of a Mare's Nest The Stalking Horse The Naturalist at Law Mr. Ponting's Alibi Pandora's Box The Trail of Behemoth ...

Explores the interrelations between the development of detective novels and the codification of scientific methods from the mid- 19th to the mid-20th centuries. Shows how fictional detectives increasingly drew on science and helped raise its esteem among the public. Focuses on Edgar Allen Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, R. Austin Freeman, and Arthur B. Reeve, but also notes other writers. Paper edition (unseen), $16.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR