Published by COLLINS CRIME CLUB
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain as The Skeleton Key
by Wm Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1919
Published by The Detective Story Club Ltd 1929
Introduction © Hugh Lamb 2015
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1929, 2015
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008137144
Ebook Edition © August 2015 ISBN: 9780008137151
Version: 2015-08-14
Contents
Chapter I: MY FIRST MEETING WITH THE BARON
Chapter II: MY SECOND MEETING WITH THE BARON
Chapter IV: I AM INTERESTED IN THE BARON
Chapter V: THE BARON CONTINUES TO INTEREST ME
Chapter VI: ‘THAT THUNDERS IN THE INDEX’
Chapter VII: THE BARON VISITS THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
Chapter XIII: ACCUMULATING EVIDENCE
Chapter XV: THE FACE ON THE WALL
Chapter XVI: THE BARON FINDS A CHAMPION
Chapter XVIII: THE BARON RETURNS
Chapter XX: THE BARON LAYS HIS CARDS ON THE TABLE
All authors, especially fiction writers, have to tread at some time on the edge of the dark slope that leads to obscurity. Some are unlucky enough to miss their step while still alive; many more slide down after their death. Such an unfortunate was Bernard Capes, who published 40 books (in 20 years) but passed into the shadows within three years of dying. He deserved better.
Bernard Edward Joseph Capes was born in London on 30 August 1854, a nephew of John Moore Capes, a prominent figure in the Oxford Movement. He was educated at Beaumont College and raised as a Catholic, though he later gave that up and followed no religion. His elder sister, Harriet Capes (1849–1936) was to become a noted translator and writer of children’s books.
Capes had a string of unsuccessful jobs. A promised Army commission failed to materialise; he spent an unhappy time in a tea-broker’s office; he studied art at the Slade School but, despite