Beadle's Pocket Library No. 255: Jolly Jim, Detective

This issue of Beadle's Dime Novels (Vol. XX, No. 98, November 1888) features "Jolly Jim, Detective: The Young Protege's Victory" by Charles Morris, serialized detective fiction. Merchant Paul Wilkins hires young street detective Jim, apprentice to Harry Keen, to recover his three-year-old daughter, stolen from his Staten Island home. Wilkins suspects his brother-in-law Gilbert Bacon, seeking revenge for past wrongs, took the child. Jim accepts the case, recognizing Wilkins as morally questionable himself. Jim then goes undercover, disguising himself as a ragged street boy to investigate Bacon's residence. He befriends the servant girl Mary, learns Bacon lives there with his wife, and discovers no child on the premises. Mary reveals Bacon has recently taken to late-night absences, suspicious behavior beginning the night of the abduction.