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Not by Mary Agnes Clerke but her sister Ellen Mary Clerke... A country‑house dinner, a proud gem‑collector, and a bishop who turns suddenly pale at the sight of a certain blue stone. The menu is flawless, the conversation carefully civilised, yet something crooked sits at the table: a sapphire whose history is supposed to be locked away in an ecclesiastical strong‑room, not winking at the candles from the throat of a woman with altogether too much laughter and altogether too much past. As the evening lengthens, old scandals, forged loyalties, and the uneasy difference between knowing and merely believing begin to press in on the assembled guests, until the question of what is genuine—stone, story, or reputation—refuses to stay politely buried. The Great Valdez Sapphire, written by the Irish author, poet, and scholar Ellen Mary Clerke (1840–1906), first appeared in the April 1892 issue of the British monthly periodical The Argosy (Vol. 53, No. 317). It achieved a long afterlife in early twentieth‑century crime and mystery collections, including Julian Hawthorne’s multivolume The Lock and Key Library (1909) and Joseph Lewis French’s Masterpieces of Mystery (1920), and was often misattributed as “Anonymous” due to its frequent reprinting without a clear byline. Ellen Mary Clerke was a Skibereen born journalist, translator, and popular science writer who worked in several European languages and published on subjects ranging from Italian poetry to astronomy and world geography. Best known in her lifetime for essays and leaders in The Tablet and the Dublin Review, she also produced poetry, fiction, and informed, quietly incisive work on the cultural and scientific concerns of her age.v Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Following on from The Story of the Naval Attaché last week, we move onto part 2 of Richard Harding Davis's novella: In The Fog, in which a Queen's Messenger has an encounter with the seductive, charming, ruthless, femme fatale, Russian spy Princess Zichy. It takes place not in the fog, but in an overnight train from Paris to the French Riviera. Oozing period charm, it reminded me a bit of The Lady Vanishes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On a winter night when London has quite forgotten the idea of light, an American naval attaché loses his way in the yellow murk near Knightsbridge. The streets are gone, the landmarks drowned; only an occasional scrap of gaslight or distant music proves the city is still there at all. Groping along an iron railing, he finds an open gate, a half‑closed door, and a silent, richly furnished house that should not be open to the fog or to him. Someone has just left in haste. Someone else, he soon discovers, has not left at all. In that strange, luxurious quiet, the fog outside begins to feel less dangerous than whatever is waiting in the rooms within. In the Fog first appeared in 1901, serialised in The Windsor Magazine, and was later collected by Charles Scribner’s Sons. It is now in the public domain and widely available, including in the Library of Congress Crime Classics edition. Richard Harding Davis (1864–1916) was an American war correspondent, journalist, and bestselling author of adventure and mystery tales. His work helped define the image of the dashing foreign correspondent and shaped popular fiction on both sides of the Atlantic at the turn of the twentieth century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Miss Violet Hunter has been offered a post as governess at a salary so far above the ordinary. The conditions attached are small, and each on its own might be put down to an employer's eccentricity. She goes a handsome house in the Hampshire countryside, where the beech trees burn copper in the evening light. But, as you might imagine, things are not what they seem. "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches" first appeared in The Strand Magazine in June 1892, with illustrations by Sidney Paget.
It was collected later that year as the twelfth and final story in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) trained as a doctor in Edinburgh before turning to writing, and created Sherlock Holmes in 1887. 
He wrote fifty-six short stories and four novels about the detective, alongside historical fiction, science fiction and tales of the supernatural. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On a bitter winter morning in London, a respected banker arrives at Baker Street half‑mad with terror. In his keeping was one of the most precious ornaments of the British Empire; now it lies twisted and mutilated, and every sign points to betrayal within his own house. Snow has fallen, secrets have stirred, and somewhere between a locked bureau and a silent suburban garden, honour, love, and ruin have become entangled. Holmes listens, then walks out into the cold to read what the night has written on the world. First published in The Strand Magazine in May 1892, “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet” later appeared as the eleventh tale in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It sits among the early Strand stories that fixed Holmes and Watson in the public imagination. Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a Scottish physician and writer who created Sherlock Holmes while practising medicine in Southsea. His work ranges from detective fiction and historical romance to science fiction and spiritualist writings. Buy the print version of my Sherlock Holmes story here https://payhip.com/b/6fMUh In collection Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A bride vanishes from her own wedding breakfast. Her clothes are found floating in the Serpentine. A jealous woman is taken away by the police. Every sign points toward something dark, something final — and yet Sherlock Holmes, reading the morning papers over his breakfast in Baker Street, has already seen something that no one else has thought to look for. Not all disappearances are what they seem. Not all mysteries contain a crime. A bride vanishes from her own wedding breakfast. Her clothes are found floating in the Serpentine. A jealous woman is taken away by the police. Every sign points toward something dark, something final — and yet Sherlock Holmes, reading the morning papers over his breakfast in Baker Street, has already seen something that no one else has thought to look for. Not all disappearances are what they seem. Not all mysteries contain a crime. "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor" was first published in The Strand Magazine in April 1892, and later that year collected as the tenth story in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, published in London by George Newnes. Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859. A physician by training, he created Sherlock Holmes in 1887 and went on to become one of the most widely read authors in the world. He died in 1930."The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor" was first published in The Strand Magazine in April 1892, and later that year collected as the tenth story in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, published in London by George Newnes. Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859. A physician by training, he created Sherlock Holmes in 1887 and went on to become one of the most widely read authors in the world. He died in 1930. Buy my Sherlock Holmes Puzzle Story: The Case of the Cumberland Kidnapping here https://payhip.com/b/6fMUhv v Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A young hydraulic engineer is offered an unusually generous fee for a small, secret piece of work. The commission requires absolute discretion; the journey must be made at night; and the house to which he is taken seems designed to vanish from memory. What begins as an odd professional errand becomes a winter journey into locked rooms, guarded silences, strange machinery, and a danger too close to name. In “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb,” Arthur Conan Doyle allows Sherlock Holmes to stand at the edge of a tale whose real centre is one man’s account of an encounter he will carry in his body for the rest of his life. First published in *The Strand Magazine* in March 1892, with illustrations by Sidney Paget. Collected later in 1892 in *The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes*, published by George Newnes. Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a Scottish physician, novelist, and creator of Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson. Though best known for Holmes, he also wrote historical fiction, adventure tales, science fiction, spiritualist works, and supernatural stories. Buy my Sherlock Holmes Story: The Case of the Cumberland Kidnapping here https://payhip.com/b/edCsa Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a reeking opium den on the riverside, Dr Watson is looking for a lost soul when he stumbles on something stranger than any drugged vision: an old man who isn’t what he seems, and a disappearance that may not be a crime at all. Clothes without a body, blood on a windowsill, a woman who insists her husband is alive when everyone else is certain he is dead. First published in The Strand Magazine in December 1891. Collected as the sixth story in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892). Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a Scottish physician and writer. He created Sherlock Holmes, the world’s best‑known consulting detective, and wrote widely in historical, adventure, and speculative fiction. 📚 Buy my paperbacks here: https://books.by/tony-walker-books 🎙️ Buy my ebooks and audiobooks here: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Five dried orange pips, sent through the post with no letter, no explanation, only three initials scrawled beneath them. Twice before, the same type of letter arrived at an English door. Twice, within weeks, a man was dead. Now a third message has come, addressed to a man who comes seeking Sherlock Holme's help. Somewhere across an ocean, an old debt has not been forgotten. Sherlock Holmes has seen ciphers, poisons, and blackmail — but rarely a warning this odd. This is a story about how far the past can reach. Publication "The Five Orange Pips" first appeared in The Strand Magazine in November 1891. It was collected the following year in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Author Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a Scottish physician and writer who created Sherlock Holmes, the world's most enduring fictional detective. Beyond the Holmes canon, he wrote historical novels, science fiction, and non-fiction across a career spanning five decades. 📚 Buy my paperbacks here: https://books.by/tony-walker-books 🎙️ Buy my ebooks and audiobooks here: payhip.com/TheClassicGhostStoriesPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A woman comes to Baker Street with a hundred pounds a year, a typewriter, and a fiancé who has vanished into thin air as if he had never existed at all. Sherlock Holmes never leaves his chair but deduces its solution anyway. Somewhere in a plush sleeve, a torn glove, an ill-fitting boot, the truth is already sitting in plain sight — waiting only to be noticed by those who know how to think. "A Case of Identity" was first published in The Strand Magazine in September 1891, and later collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892). Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a Scottish writer and physician best known for creating Sherlock Holmes, one of the most enduring detectives in fiction. Beyond the Holmes canon, he wrote historical novels, science fiction, and non-fiction throughout his life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Christmas Eve during Prohibition, a burglar named Dancing Dan drinks hot Tom and Jerrys at Good Time Charley's speakeasy with the narrator and the proprietor. Dan has been courting Miss Muriel O'Neill, a nightclub worker, despite the dangerous attention of Heine Schmitz, a violent Harlem mobster who considers her his own. As the evening wears on and the liquor flows, Dan arrives with a suspiciously heavy package, and Ooky—a down-and-out porter still wearing his Santa Claus costume from his advertising job—stumbles in and passes out. What begins as a drunken Christmas celebration becomes something more complicated when Dan gets an idea about how to impress Miss Muriel, one that mixes his criminal instincts with an unexpected impulse toward kindness. Publication: "Dancing Dan's Christmas," first published December 21, 1932 (Collier's magazine); collected in Furthermore (1938). Author: Damon Runyon (1880–1946), American journalist and short-story writer known for his Broadway underworld tales written in present-tense slang. His stories inspired the musical Guys and Dolls. Join my Patreon for ad free stories you can download https://patreon.com/barcud Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A battered hat. A Christmas goose. A puzzle that begins in jest. On a winter evening in Baker Street, what starts as idle curiosity leads Sherlock Holmes into the heart of London's markets and back alleys, where something precious has gone astray and the wrong man may pay the price. The trail winds through shopkeepers and strangers, each holding one fragment of the truth. But detection is not merely about finding answers—sometimes it asks harder questions. What is justice worth? When does punishment heal, and when does it only harden? In the glow of the season, a small mystery reveals the weight of mercy. Published in The Strand Magazine, January 1892, with illustrations by Sidney Paget. Later collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, October 1892. Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, was a Scottish physician and writer born in 1859. Beyond detective fiction, he wrote historical novels, campaigned against injustice, and devoted his later years to spiritualism, dying in 1930. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Read by Brendan Sullivan A man, stuck inside with time on his hands, watches the small theatre of neighbouring lives through a single window. Patterns harden into questions; silences feel heavier than noise. An ordinary evening acquires edges: late footsteps, a restless light, a habit broken. Curiosity grows teeth. What do you really know about people you never meet—only study from across the brick divide? In this narration, the city is a chessboard, the view a keyhole, and the air itself seems to hold its breath. “It Had to Be Murder” by Cornell Woolrich; first published in Dime Detective Magazine, February 1942. Also known as “Rear Window” in later anthologies and editions. Cornell Woolrich (1903–1968), American noir writer publishing under his own name and the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley. His fiction shaped mid‑century suspense, fuelling numerous film adaptations; he lived reclusively and wrote with stark, fatalistic intensity. Buy me a coffee? https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A dangerous prisoner has escaped from Dartmoor, and the police are certain he will return to where he stashed the stolen jewels whose whereabouts remain maddeningly obscure. When Inspector Muirhead comes to Philip Trent's rooms, he brings not evidence but an enigma: a letter whose phrasing seems deliberately cryptic, as though its author were speaking in code. First published in The Strand Magazine, March 1914. Collected in Trent Intervenes (1938). E. C. Bentley (1875–1956), journalist, satirist, and inventor of the clerihew. Best known for Trent’s Last Case (1913) and the Philip Trent stories. Say thanks with a coffee? https://buymeacoffee.com/10mn8sk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

wo men are out late for dinner in a swanky hotel: one is a detective, the other writes detective stories. They notice three Wall Street tycoons at a nearby table. Before the night ends, one of those men is found dead. The detective says it’s suicide. The detective story writer says it’s not. Publication: First published in 1934 in Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror, Third Series, edited by Dorothy L. Sayers. Later reprinted in classic detective anthologies, including The Mammoth Book of Great Detective Stories. Author: Leslie Charteris (1907–1993) was a British‑American writer best known for creating Simon Templar, “The Saint.” He also wrote short fiction and edited anthologies, shaping mid‑century popular crime writing. The thumbnail and introduction are anti-pirate devices! Join my patreon https://patreon.com/barcud Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices