Author Description

The Old Man in the Corner (1908) introduces one of the mystery genre's first armchair detectives, and he's a peculiar case himself. He comes out of his corner on page one to intrude on a young woman journalist, Miss Burton of the Evening Observer, at her table in a tea shop. "There is no such thing as a mystery," the Old Man insists, no matter what people read in the penny press. To prove it, he sets about solving a number of crimes the police couldn't. His deductions are based mostly on accounts in the news. The book's inventive premise is the work of the Hungarian Baroness Emmuska Orczy, best-known for her creation of The Scarlet Pimpernel. Her masked hero saved aristocrats, and she gives the Old Man a touch of the upper crust as well. He claims to be "only an amateur," but his disdain for the police is like the king to the commoner. He has a rich man's -- or crazy man's -- eccentricities. He admires a clever crook, and his nervous fingers tie elaborate knots in a piece of string while he mulls the clues. "Now, follow my reasoning point by point..." he challenges Miss Burton, and off he goes to out-smart the sharpest criminals in London -- all without leaving the table.