Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 833

This issue of Beadle's Dime Library (October 1894) features "The Sport Detective's Grip: Or, Bouncing the Race-Course Bettors" by William H. Manning, the opening installment of a serialized mystery-crime story.

The narrative follows tension between two boarders at the Old Fort Hotel in New York: Charles Gaston, a wealthy racing man and part-owner of the thoroughbred Aztec Chief, and Ben Lomond, a mysterious spy caught eavesdropping on Gaston's room. After a confrontation, Lomond strikes Gaston but is threatened with a revolver; both warn of further violence. Later that night, a patrolman discovers Gaston dead on the street, electrocuted by a loose live wire attached to a telegraph pole while apparently investigating a dead horse and wagon. Landlord Jones identifies the corpse, revealing Gaston was a prominent figure at Sheepshead and other racetracks who had met with his partner Arad Frederickson and bookmaker Luke Pinkney earlier that evening regarding their horse.