Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 712

# The Mystified Detective: A Strange Romance of the Mines

This 1891 Beadle and Adams dime novel by Lieut. A. K. Sims follows the arrival of a sophisticated gambler called "Diamond Dan" (or "the Gilt-Edged Sport") to the declining mining town of Magic Gulch. The narrative opens with Dan intervening to prevent a man named Paul Carom from losing money at three-card monte dealer Marcus Maximin's rigged game. When a miner beats Maximin at the cards by identifying the queen, a fight erupts.

In the second chapter, Maximin and his associate Mike Hogan discuss their suspicions that Dan orchestrated the miner's win, and they shift their attention to a potentially more lucrative scheme. They have received letters from an accomplice in New York suggesting that a girl named Jeannie La Rue, currently somewhere in the mountains, is an heiress to a substantial fortune. They plan to manipulate her identity and wealth.