Thesiger had spent a great deal of time in India, and sad to say stole an idol from the house of a Brahmin friend. Suspecting fellow guest Ralph Vyner, Bell starts rowing downriver to Vyner's nearby abode, but a result of a ghostly tale told by the nervous keeper of 'The Eight-Mile Lock', stays the night at the lock cottage and thereby not only discovers whodunnit but also the particularly outrageous method involved.īell is asked to visit Edward Thesiger, who seems to have become so unbalanced as to be a danger to others, to give his opinion on the case. The bracelet cannot be found, Scotland Yard is flummoxed, and Bell is asked to investigate. The Ridsdales hold a moonlight dance aboard, but Helena's diamond bracelet goes missing and so everyone attending the frolic is suspect. Lady Helena Ridsdale invites Bell to a houseparty on a boat on the River Thames. What is the explanation of the two deaths and will there be others? Bell and a companion undertake to do night duty at the signal box in an effort to solve the puzzle. Then another signalman, John Davidson, is discovered dead in the same place as Pritchard. Signalman David Pritchard has been found dead at the mouth of the tunnel in suspicious circumstances. In October l893 the Lytton Vale Railway Company in Wales consults Bell in an effort to solve 'The Mystery of the Felwyn Tunnel'. Sir Henry endeavours to get Allen to call off his wedding and let the family die out, but he also reveals the location of the secret room. Anyone entering this hidden room will be kept prisoner until it pleases the Warden of the Door to release him or her. It seems the curse rests upon 'ye Clyntons from generation to generation' and as each heir dies, his spirit takes over guarding a secret room wherein lies a coffin. Bell hears about it from Allen, son and heir of Sir Henry.

And as is equally common, there's a curse on the family. The next story involves the Clinton family which, as happens so often in mysteries, lives in what was once an abbey. Bell sleeps in the haunted chamber and thereby solves the mystery of all three deaths. In fact, mine host and his family do all they can to persuade Bell not to stay overnight but he insists on it, despite having been told Archibald's death was the third at the inn - and there was no apparent cause for any. 'The Mystery of the Circular Chamber' involves Bell investigating the strange death of Archbibald Wentworth in a supposedly haunted bedroom of the rural Tower Inn, a hostelry whose three occupants are anything but welcoming. This l893 collection of seemingly impossible and possibly supernatural cases is introduced by narrator John Bell, who proposes 'to relate the histories of certain queer events, enveloped at first in mystery, and apparently dark with portent, but, nevertheless, when grappled with in the true spirit of science, capable of explanation.' Meade, LT - A Master of Mysteries (1898) with Robert Eustace

A Master of Mysteries by L.T. Meade