In the following pages you will find some interesting experiences taken from the Professor’s case book. They illustrate forcibly his contention that crime is simple and that most criminals are caught, not by any superhuman qualities of the detective, but by their own ignorance, stupidity, or carelessness.
In these accounts every fact, every clue necessary to the solution is given. The answer is in the story itself. You need look nowhere else but there. Each problem has only one possible solution.
Written in less than two hundred and sixty words, these little stories can be read in a minute.
Here is your chance to work on an absolute equality with the Professor; to match your wits with his and the criminal’s. You know as much as the Professor does. Now you have an opportunity of proving just how good a detective you are and what poor detectives your friends are.
The author hopes you will find them as fascinating reading as they were in the telling by the Professor.
H. A. Ripley
CONTENTS
[Foreword by Lewis E. Lawes] vii [Author’s Preface] ix [It Stands to Reason! A New National Game] xix [1. A Crack Shot] 1 [2. On the Scent] 3 [3. Fatal Error] 5 [4. The Poison Murder Case] 7 [5. A Strange ‘Kidnaping’] 9 [6. A Valuable Formula] 11 [7. Strangled] 13 [8. Death in the Office] 15 [9. They Usually Forget Something] 17 [10. The Professor Gives a Lesson] 19 [11. Upstairs and Down] 21 [12. Class Day] 23 [13. A Hot Pursuit] 25 [14. A Question of Identity] 27 [15. A Yachtsman’s Alibi] 29 [16. Murder at Coney Island] 31 [17. Too Clever] 33 [18. Bloody Murder] 35 [19. Death Back-Stage] 37 [20. An Easy Combination] 39 [21. A Modern Knight] 41 [22. The Jewel Robbery] 43 [23. Before the Coroner’s Inquest] 45 [24. The Fifth Avenue Hold-Up] 47 [25. Behind Locked Doors] 49 [26. Lost at Sea] 51 [27. A Suave Gunman] 53 [28. Accidental Death] 55 [29. Easy Money] 57 [30. Robbery at High Noon] 59 [31. The Wrong Foot Forward] 61 [32. Death Attends the Party] 63 [33. No Way Out] 65 [34. Midnight Murder] 67 [35. Speakeasy Stick-Up] 69 [36. Behind Time] 71 [37. A Broken Engagement] 73 [38. The Holden Road Murder] 75 [39. Fisherman’s Luck] 77 [40. The Unlucky Elephant] 79 [41. The Professor Listens] 81 [42. Ten-Fifteen] 83 [43. Rapid Transit] 85 [44. The Professor is Disappointed] 87 [45. A Dramatic Triumph] 89 [46. Murder at the Lake] 91 [47. The Professor Studies a Coat] 93 [48. Too Late] 95 [49. Sergeant Reynolds’s Theory] 97 [50. Daylight Robbery] 99 [51. A Simple Solution] 101 [52. Who?] 103 [53. Murder in the Swamp] 105 [54. Death by Drowning] 107 [55. Tragedy at the Convention] 109 [56. A Murderer’s Mistake] 111 [57. Babe Comes Through] 113 [58. A Soldier of Fortune] 115 [59. Number Twenty-Six] 117 [60. The Pullman Car Murder] 121 [61. Forgery] 123 [62. The Christmas Eve Tragedy] 125 [63. A Knight of the Bath] 127 [64. Murder in the First Degree] 129 [65. A Rendezvous with Death] 131 [66. A Rum Regatta] 133 [67. Who is the Heir?] 135 [68. The Professor Stops a Blunder] 137 [69. The Perfect Crime] 139 [70. The Professor Sees Through It] 141 [71. The Kidnapers’ Cleverness] 143 [Solutions] 145
IT STANDS TO REASON!
A NEW NATIONAL GAME
Here is a fascinating game of wits for a party of any size. It can be played in either of two ways.