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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

Select Story

Written for the Advocate

A Detective’s Story

by J. Weldon Cubb, Jr.

PATTER-8X31-43-12.-PATTERRE

CAVASSA

I looked up from the paper I held in my hand, and glanced curiously at the man before me.

“The money, mister,” he said, slouching his hat down over his eyes, and evading my keen glance.

“And how do I know but you are playing a game on me with a view to obtain the reward?”

“You can either give me back my paper, or the money,” he said, resolutely.

I opened a drawer in my secretary and took out a roll of bills, watching the man furtively. I saw his eyes glisten with a look indescribable, and thought I detected a motion of his hand towards the money. I paid him one hundred dollars, however, and saw his form slide from the room, when I threw myself back in my chair, and sat with the little piece of paper in my hand, engaged in deep thought.

“Eight plus thirty-one, minus forty-three, minus twelve, patter patterre.”

What could it mean?

I thought over all the incidents connected with the “job” I was working up ever since I had been engaged as detective upon it by Mr. John [Bartelme], two weeks before. I thought of the vastness of the sum taken, and of the great number of jewels, as well as of their immense value. No clue could be found which would lead to the detection of the… 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?