Other editions of book The Clue: A Resurrected Press Enhanced Edition

Example in this ebookITHE VAN NORMANSThe old Van Norman mansion was the finest house in Mapleton. Well back from the road, it sat proudly among its finely kept lawns and gardens, as if with a dignified sense of its own importance, and its white, Colonial columns gleamed through the trees, like sentinels guarding the entrance to the stately hall.All Mapleton was proud of the picturesque old place, and it was shown to visiting strangers with the same pride that the native villagers pointed out the Memorial Library and the new church.More than a half-century old, the patrician white house seemed to glance coldly on the upstart cottages, whose inadequate pillars supported beetling second stories, and whose spacious, filigreed verandas left wofully small area for rooms inside the house.The Van Norman mansion was not like that. It was a long rectangle, and each of its four stories was a series of commodious, well-shaped apartments.And its owner, the beautiful Madeleine Van Norman, was the most envied as well as the most admired young woman in the town.Magnificent Madeleine, as she was sometimes called, was of the haughty, imperious type which inspires admiration and respect rather than love. An orphan and an heiress, she had lived all of her twenty-two years of life in the old house, and since the death of her uncle, two years before, had continued as mistress of the place, ably assisted by a pleasant, motherly chaperon, a clever social secretary, and a corps of capable servants.The mansion itself and an income amply sufficient to maintain it were already legally her own, but by the terms of her uncle’s will she was soon to come into possession of the bulk of the great fortune he had left.Madeleine was the only living descendant of old Richard Van Norman, save for one distant cousin, a young man of a scapegrace and ne’er-do-weel sort, who of late years had lived abroad.This young man’s early life had been spent in Mapleton, but, his fiery temper having brought about a serious quarrel with his uncle, he had wisely concluded to take himself out of the way.And yet Tom Willard was not of a quarrelsome disposition. His bad temper was of the impulsive sort, roused suddenly, and as quickly suppressed. Nor was it often in evidence. Good-natured, easy-going Tom would put up with his uncle’s criticism and fault-finding for weeks at a time, and then, perhaps goaded beyond endurance, he would fly into a rage and express himself in fluent if rather vigorous English.For Richard Van Norman had been by no means an easy man to live with. And it was Tom’s general amiability that had made him the usual scapegoat for his uncle’s ill temper. Miss Madeleine would have none of it. Quite as dictatorial as the old man himself she allowed no interference with her own plans and no criticism of her own actions.This had proved the right way to manage Mr. Van Norman, and he had always acceded to Madeleine’s requests or submitted to her decrees without objection, though there had never been any demonstration of affection between the two.But demonstration was quite foreign to the nature of both uncle and niece, and in truth they were really fond of each other in their quiet, reserved way. Tom Willard was different. His affection was of the honest and outspoken sort, and he made friends easily, though he often lost them with equal rapidity.On account, then, of his devotion to Madeleine, and his enmity toward young Tom Willard, Richard Van Norman had willed the old place to his niece, and had further directed that the whole of his large fortune should be unrestrictedly bestowed upon her on her wedding-day, or on her twenty-third birthday, should she reach that age unmarried. In event of her death before her marriage, and also before her twenty-third birthday, the whole estate would go to Tom Willard.To be continue in this ebook...

On the eve of her wedding, a beautiful heiress is found stabbed to death in the library of her mansion. A suicide note is found next to her body, but the evidence points to murder. The house had been securely locked with no sign of a break in. Suspicion falls by turns to the groom who loved another, the cousin who stands to inherit her fortune, the woman the groom loves, the murdered woman’s secretary, and the former lover of the murdered woman’s uncle who will inherit the mansion. The authorities can come to no solution of the mystery. They call on the services of the famed detective Fleming Stone to resolve the case. In the end, his solution rests on a single tiny clue.

On the eve of her wedding, stunning heiress Madeleine Van Norman is found stabbed to death in the library of her palatial country mansion, killed by a single thrust from her Venetian letter opener. Suspicion falls by turns to the groom who loved another, the cousin who stands to inherit her fortune, the woman the groom loves, the murdered woman's secretary, and the former lover of the murdered woman's uncle who will inherit the mansion. A suicide note is found next to her body, but the evidence points to murder. The house had been securely locked with no sign of a break in. The local authorities are mystified. With pressure mounting, they call on the services of the famed detective Fleming Stone to resolve the case. In the end, his solution rests on a single tiny clue.

The Clue is the 1909 novel by the famous author Carolyn Wells. The novel is the first in Wells’ Fleming Stone mystery series. Odin’s Library Classics is dedicated to bringing the world the best of humankind’s literature from throughout the ages. Carefully selected, each work is unabridged from classic works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or drama.

Carolyn Wells (June 18, 1862 – March 26, 1942) was an American writer and poe Among the most famous of Carolyn Wells' novels were the Fleming Stone Detective Stories which—according to Allen J. Hubin's Crime Fiction IV: A Comprehensive Bibliography, 1749–2000 (2003)—number 61 titles. Wells's The Clue (1909) is on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list of essential mysteries.

An heiress has been murdered, and only Fleming Stone can see the vital evidence. Madeleine Van Norman is the most eligible young woman in the state, a beautiful young lady who is soon to come into her fortune. From her countless suitors, she makes a peculiar choice, agreeing to marry a stuffy man who loves someone else. On the eve of the wedding, Madeleine shuts herself away in a locked room to think about what she is about to do—and in the morning, she is found gruesomely murdered. Every member of the household is a suspect, but no one understands how the killer could have slipped through the locked doors of Madeleine’s bedroom. As the town whirls into a tailspin of suspicion and fear, it falls to the brilliant detective Fleming Stone to pick out the person who stabbed Madeleine to death—a baffling mystery that hinges on the discovery of a single, all-important clue

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ <title> The Clue<author> Carolyn Wells<publisher> A. L. Burt company, 1909

On the eve of her wedding day, Madeleine Van Norman, a beautiful young lady who is soon to come into her family fortune is found dead, apparently stabbed with an ominous blood-stained letter opener found nearby. Who killed her – the cousin who loved her but had been rejected; her fiancé, who was in love with another woman; her secretary, who loved the fiancé; the eccentric spinster who stood to inherit her property? "The Clue", published in 1909, is the first book in the Detective Fleming Stone series. It falls squarely in the tradition of two favorite mystery sub-genres – the Big House Mystery and the Locked Room Mystery. Detective Fleming Stone is cool and methodical, not unlike his more famous fictional contemporaries, Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes. The twist is that he doesn't appear until the second half of the story.