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       Copyright

      Published by COLLINS CRIME CLUB

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street,

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by Eveleigh Nash 1915

      Published by The Detective Story Club for Wm Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1929

      Introduction © David Brawn 2016

      Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1929, 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: 9780008137335

      Ebook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780008137342

      Version: 2016-04-28

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Introduction

       Chapter I: The Crime Club

       Chapter II: The Red-Haired Pickpocket

       Chapter III: The Man With the Pale-Blue Eyes

       Chapter IV: The Maker of Diamonds

      

       Chapter V: Creeping Jimmie

      

       Chapter VI: The Mayor’s Daughter

      

       Chapter VII: A Meeting of Greeks

      

       Chapter VIII: The Seven of Hearts

      

       Chapter IX: The Goat

      

       Chapter X: Pink-Edged Notepaper

      

       Chapter XI: The String of Pearls

      

       Chapter XII: The ‘Con’ Man

      

       Chapter XIII: Crossed Trails

      

       Chapter XIV: The Dagger

      

       Chapter XV: Found—a Pearl

      

       The Crime Club

      

       The Detective Story Club

      

       About the Publisher

       INTRODUCTION

      WHEN The Crime Club was first published by Eveleigh Nash in 1915, little did the authors—both of them ex-policemen—know that the book’s title would become synonymous with detective publishing for the next 100 years.

      Frank Froëst had risen through the ranks of the Metropolitan Police, attaining the position of Superintendent of the CID in 1906. He had become famous for his involvement in a number of high-profile international incidents, including the mass arrest in South Africa of more than 400 of the Jameson Raiders in 1896—the biggest mass arrest in British history—and for bringing high-profile villains such as society jewel-thief ‘Harry the Valet’ and the notorious Dr Crippen to justice. (More of Froëst’s exploits are discussed in Tony Medawar’s introduction to The Grell Mystery, also in this series.) Froëst retired in 1912, moving to Somerset where he joined the County Council and became a magistrate. Putting his 33-year experience in the police service to good use, he also turned to writing, and his detective novel The Grell Mystery (1913) proved popular with readers, who felt that its author was giving them an authentic insight into the detail of real police work—a genre that would become referred to as the ‘police procedural’.

      Speculation that Froëst had help from a professional writer to produce a debut novel as fine as The Grell Mystery is given some credence by his sharing the byline on his two subsequent books with writer George Dilnot. Turning to journalism after six years in the army and subsequent service in the police, Dilnot’s first major book, Scotland Yard: The Methods and Organisation of the Metropolitan Police (1915), owed a great deal for its detailed content to the recently retired Froëst. The book was one of the earliest attempts to make public the inside workings of ‘the finest police force in the world’, which at that time employed 20,000, and must have been an invaluable resource for early detective writers. Froëst himself is name-checked numerous times, and comes across as the epitome of determination, organisation and innovation.

      Whether or not Dilnot did ghost-write The Grell Mystery as a favour to his former boss, by the time Froëst’s other detective novel was published, The Rogues’

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