Other editions of book The Amateur

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Austin Ford, on his way to London, meets a young lady who is going in the same route to find her missing spouse. However, there is a mystery about the lady and her story. Ford, on a steamer went to England to act as the London correspondent of the New York Republic. For three years of the most popular New York dailies he was the star man, the chief muckraker, the chief sleuth. He was interested in crimes against law and society. He is a detective and he does not like to be called an amateur sleuth. He sat down drinking hot gin with Doctor Sparrow, the ship’s doctor and the young lady with them who keeps on turning over her new wedding ring as if she was not used to it. Doctor Sparrow told Ford that maybe he could help the young lady to find her husband. She thinks that he has been killed or he is ill and lying in a hospital. She, herself, is sickly. She has a child and left him at home, she’s worried that something might happen to him. The woman handed him photos of her husband. Ford said he will help her find him, he will search in hotels and other places in London. He told her that his husband might look different and might have change his name. He thought, how could his husband leave this pretty, young wife and their baby. This man is irresponsible or something else came up and he must attend to it without notice. The ship’s doctor told Fold about the lady’s story that she does not care about the baby but crosses the ocean to find her husband because she is in love with him. Will the amateur sleuth solve the case? Knowing that the young lady’s husband has deserted her and their baby and has no plans of returning home.

The Amateur I It was February off the Banks, and so thick was the weather that, on the upper decks, one could have driven a sleigh. Inside the smoking-room Austin Ford, as securely sheltered from the blizzard as though he had been sitting in front of a wood fire at his club, ordered hot gin for himself and the ship’s doctor. The ship’s doctor had gone below on another “hurry call” from the widow. At the first luncheon on board the widow had sat on the right of Doctor Sparrow, with Austin Ford facing her. But since then, except to the doctor, she had been invisible. So, at frequent intervals, the ill health of the widow had deprived Ford of the society of the doctor. That it deprived him, also, of the society of the widow did not concern him. HER life had not been spent upon ocean liners; she could not remember when state-rooms were named after the States of the Union. She could not tell him of shipwrecks and salvage, of smugglers and of the modern pirates who found their victims in the smoking-room. Ford was on his way to England to act as the London correspondent of the New York Republic. For three years on that most sensational of the New York dailies he had been the star man, the chief muckraker, the chief sleuth. His interest was in crime. Not in crimes committed in passion or inspired by drink, but in such offences against law and society as are perpetrated with nice intelligence. The murderer, the burglar, the strong-arm men who, in side streets, waylay respectable citizens did not appeal to him. The man he studied, pursued, and exposed was the cashier who evolved a new method of covering up his peculations, the dishonest president of an insurance company, the confidence man who used no concealed weapon other than his wit. Toward the criminals h

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.