The Old Man in the Corner
These detective stories introduced one of the genre’s oddest sleuths: a nameless old man who sits in the corner of a London tea-shop, ties and unties knots in a length of string, and solves notorious crimes without ever leaving his chair. He lays out each case to a young woman journalist, reasoning from newspaper reports alone and taking a cool, almost cynical pleasure in showing how the guilty slipped past the police. First appearing in magazines from 1901 and collected in book form in 1908, the tales helped establish the armchair detective and remain sharp, ironic puzzles. Orczy, better known for the Scarlet Pimpernel, proves just as clever at plotting a mystery. Free PDF and EPUB edition available here.
About the Author
Baroness Emmuska Orczy (1865 to 1947) was a Hungarian-born British author who settled in London and made her name with The Scarlet Pimpernel. Her sweeping romances of the French Revolution created one of fiction’s first masked heroes and shaped a century of adventure storytelling.
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Listen to The Old Man in the Corner Audiobook Free
Listen to The Old Man in the Corner by Baroness Orczy free online. The full audiobook (6 hr 20 min, 25 chapters, read by J. M. Smallheer) streams free on this page.
The Old Man in the Corner (1908) is a public domain work.
| # | Chapter | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Fenchurch Street Mystery | 13:10 | |
| 2 | The Millionaire in the Dock | 18:24 | |
| 3 | His Deduction & The Robbery in Phillimore Terrace | 15:59 | |
| 4 | A Night's Adventure & All He Knew | 20:31 | |
| 5 | The York Mystery | 9:27 | |
| 6 | The Capital Charge & A Broken-Hearted Woman | 24:47 | |
| 7 | The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway | 20:18 | |
| 8 | Mr. Errington | 14:48 | |
| 9 | The Liverpool Mystery | 14:54 | |
| 10 | A Cunning Rascal | 10:55 | |
| 11 | The Edinburgh Mystery | 7:56 | |
| 12 | A Terrible Plight | 9:25 | |
| 13 | Non Proven & Undeniable Facts | 14:12 | |
| 14 | The Theft at the English Provident Bank | 13:10 | |
| 15 | Conflicting Evidence & An Alibi | 17:22 | |
| 16 | The Dublin Mystery & Forgery | 19:55 | |
| 17 | A Memorable Day & An Unparalleled Outrage | 16:27 | |
| 18 | The Prisoner | 17:31 | |
| 19 | A Sensation & Two Blackguards | 9:57 | |
| 20 | The Regent’s Park Murder | 12:34 | |
| 21 | The Motive & Friends | 15:54 | |
| 22 | The De Genneville Peerage | 9:23 | |
| 23 | A High-Bred Gentleman | 10:30 | |
| 24 | The Living and the Dead & The Mysterious Death in Percy Street | 17:55 | |
| 25 | Suicide or Murder? & The End | 24:58 |
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