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       The Borough Press

The Borough Press

       Copyright

      Published by COLLINS CRIME CLUB

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by Wm Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1924

      Copyright © Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts 1924

      Introduction © Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts 1937

      Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

      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: 9780008190583

      Ebook Edition © November 2016 ISBN: 9780008190590

      Version: 2018-08-17

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       6. The Hotel in Barcelona

       7. Concerning a Wedding

       8. Sylvia and Harrington

       9. Mrs Root of Pittsburg

       10. Some Pairs of Blankets

       11. A Deal in Jewellery

       12. The Elusive Mrs X

       13. Mrs French Takes a Notion

       14. Tragedy

       15. The House in St John’s Wood

       16. A Hot Scent

       17. A Deal in Stocks

       18. The S.S. ‘Enoch’

       19. French Propounds a Riddle

       20. Conclusion

       About the Author

       Also in this Series

       About the Publisher

       INTRODUCTION

       Meet Chief-Inspector French

      I have been asked to tell you something about Chief-Inspector Joseph French of the Criminal Investigation Department of New Scotland Yard. I shall do my best, but I thought it would give you a better idea of him if I were to bring the man himself to the microphone. So with a good deal of trouble I have persuaded him to come, and he’ll speak to you himself. But I have put him in the next room for the moment, lest his ears should burn from my introduction.

      As he’s not here, then, I may say that he’s really quite a good fellow at heart. He’s decent and he’s straight and he’s as kindly as his job will allow. He believes that if you treat people decently—you’ll be able to get more out of them; and he acts on his belief. Politeness is an obsession with him, and he has well earned his nickname of ‘Soapy Joe.’ He’s far from perfect, but I have known him now for many years, and I don’t wish for a better friend.

      But I have to admit that he’s not very brilliant: in fact, many people call him dull. And here I’ll let you into secret history. Anyone about to perpetrate a detective novel must first decide whether his detective is to be brilliant and a ‘character,’ or a mere ordinary humdrum personality. When French came into being there seemed two good reasons for making him the second of these. One was that it represented a new departure; there were already plenty of ‘character’ detectives, the lineal descendants, most of them, of the great Sherlock. The other reason was much more important. Striking characteristics, consistently depicted, are very hard to do.

      I tried therefore to make French a perfectly ordinary man, without peculiarities or mannerisms. Of course he had to have some qualities, but they were to be the ordinary qualities of ordinary fairly successful men. He was to have thoroughness and perseverance as well as a reasonable amount of intelligence: just the qualities which make for moderate success in any walk of life.

      From this it follows that he does not leap to his conclusions by brilliant intuition. He begins a case by going and looking for information in those places

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