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Web Site Showcases
American Detective Fiction

Posting all Detective Fiction
Prior to Conan Doyle

Fully Searchable

The mission of the Westminster Detective Library to catalog and make available online all the short fiction dealing with detectives and detection published in the United States before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia” (1891).

This site grew out of research for the anthology Early American Detective Stories (McFarland 2008) that I edited with my mentor and colleague LeRoy Lad Panek (1943-2021), winner of two Edgar awards for his contributions to the scholarly field of detective criticism. We uncovered a treasure-trove of forgotten and previously unavailable detective stories, many more than could be included in a single anthology. And so this on-going project was born.

The site includes a working bibliography; full-text copy of entries are added as they are prepared. A few stories that were published in Britain but which appear to have been previously published in America have also been included and are indicated by an asterisk in the bibliography. I welcome comments and solicit both additional bibliographical entries and texts.

Mary M. Bendel-Simso, editor

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The Scarlet Cross

by Austyn W. Granville

All Paris was ringing with the news of a horrible murder.

In theatrical circles, especially, the excitement was intense, when it was known that Mlle. Croizette, the most popular danseuse on the boards of the Varieties, had fallen beneath the knife of a cowardly assassin.

Two hideous and gaping wounds had been inflicted upon the unfortunate woman either of which would have caused her death. But beyond this, all the circumstances connected with the atrocious crime remained shrouded in mystery—the motive as well as the chief actor in the terrible tragedy. There was positively no clew of any kind. The weapon even, with which the murder had been committed, had been inflicted with some sharp instrument.

After minute investigation, the first theory that Mlle. Croizette had met her death at the hands of some jealous lover was reluctantly abandoned. Whilst only a dancer, the strict morality of her conduct during her engagement at the Theater de Varieties precluded any suspicion being thrown upon her numerous admirers. The search for the murderer would undoubtedly have been given up if a curious circumstance had not happened.

Mons. Pierre Morel, an artist, called at police headquarters and stated that he resided at 62 Rue de Petits Champs, and occupied apartments directly opposite those of the murdered woman. Shortly after midnight on the day of the murder he had arisen, being unable to sleep, and going to his sitting-room window. Whilst seated there he had noticed the shadows of two persons, those of a man and a woman, thrown against the window shade in the upper story of a house opposite him… Read More

Miscellany

The Detective of the Present -- Finn and Jourdan

Time was when a detective was a man who detected things. A detective is still that in some European countries; and he still detects things—in novels. There's Buckett in “Bleak House” who detects Lady Dedlook, and there's that detective in Collin’s story of the “Moon Stone,” quite a detector. New York used to have Old Hayes, who could detect a thing or two; Paris has had Vidocq, and Bow street has had Forster.* But the race has died out entirely in America, and is dying out in England.

Commissioner Jourdan, of Brooklyn, has been making an effort to raise up a detective or two and has actually produced Corr and Bill. Corr and Bill were raised to the Vidocquian task of tracing a mystic murder. Finnan is a hatter; and Finnan has been in States Prison. That ought to be enough for any detective such as Corr to concluded that Finnan did the deed. Edgar A. Poe could not reason out a conclusion clearer than that. So Corr went to where Finnan was making hats.

Is Finnan here? Yes—want to see him?