The News

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

Select Story

A Detective’s Story

by Leopold Davis

The firm of Chapelleaux Freres & Co., Importers of watches and jewelry, formerly of No.–, Maiden Lane, New York, on taking account of stock in the early part of January, 1858, found that a large number of fine gold watches, whose value was estimated at over eighteen thousand dollars, were missing.

Suspicion immediately fell upon one of their confidential clerks, one Robert Lasalle, a Frenchman, who, while receiving a salary of only one thousand dollars per annum, was known to live in an extravagant manner. At the time above stated, he had been married about a year, his wife belonging to a Quaker family in Philadelphia. On the day when the discovery was made, Lasalle was absent from the office on a collecting tour through the upper part of the city, a duty devolving on him upon the last day of each week. The discovery was made by the senior member of the firm, who, being an experienced businessman, deemed it advisable to confide his secret to nobody except his two partners; and, after a short consultation with them, he started for police headquarters. Having stated his grievances and suspicions to the chief of police, and having offered a reward of two thousand dollars for the detection of the thief, he gave a full description of Lasalle’s person and dress, in substance as follows:—

Age, about thirty; height, about five feet eight; complexion, healthy; face, oval and prepossessing; nose, straight and well-shaped; eyes, hair, and moustache, black; weight, about one hundred and sixty; movements, quick and graceful; language, select, with a foreign accent when speaking English. Dress as follows: Black diagonal-cloth coat and vest, black and gray striped pants, blue beaver overcoat, polka dotted black satin scarf, with scarfpin representing a gold hand holding a large pearl, fur cap, and fur gloves.

Mr. Chapelleaux also stated that… 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?