The blue scarab

by R. Austin (Richard Austin) Freeman

The blue scarab by R. Austin Freeman is a collection of detective stories written in the early 20th century. The cases follow the medico-legal sleuth Dr. John Thorndyke and his colleague-narrator Dr. Jervis as they solve curious crimes with forensic science, precise observation, and ingenious reasoning. Expect rational puzzles tinged with antiquarian lore, family secrets, and cryptic clues. The opening of this collection presents two cases. First, a rural robbery draws Thorndyke into the Blowgrave family’s legend of a vanished uncle and lost jewels: a deed-box is stolen during a decoy fire, its contents mysteriously returned except for a blue scarab; using the scarab’s “hieroglyphs,” Thorndyke deciphers English directions, corrects for compass variation, and locates a buried skeleton and a chest of gems, while unmasking a grasping cousin as the thief via typewriter and fingerprint clues. Next, an apparent suicide at a Margate boarding house turns suspicious when Jervis and a local doctor find white paint footprints of a barefoot intruder with no little toes and signs of entry by a stack-pipe; Jervis reasons toward a northern, possibly seafaring suspect (frost-bite or ergot past), with a Swedish visitor and the absent colonial-police husband as potential leads. After a tussle with the police over evidence, Jervis brings his photographs and deductions to London, where he and Thorndyke prepare a fuller, independent investigation.