Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 842

About this issue

The Actor Detective in Chicago: Dick Doom's Flush Hand by Col. Prentiss Ingraham. This detective mystery opens when Justin Keener, a traveling comedian, discovers a dead woman's body cramped inside a trunk delivered to his Chicago hotel room. Though the trunk bears his name and his key unlocks it, Keener recognizes it as a substitute—his original trunk, containing important papers, has been stolen. Examining the body, detective Dick Doom notes the victim is marked only with initials "C.E." on her belongings and bears signs of poisoning rather than violence. Keener engages Doom to solve the case and recounts his connection: years earlier he rescued actor Ben Bancroft and Bancroft's English wife from drowning at Long Branch. Though Bancroft later died abroad, his widow recently contacted Keener from her deathbed regarding an inheritance. The narrative interweaves Keener's explanations with Doom's methodical investigation into the mysterious death and the theft of the trunk's valuable papers.