03261cam a22003613u 4500 77423 UtSlPG 20260610134807.0 m cr n 260607r20251919utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d 19003704 UtSlPG en iso639-1 PS Ostrander, Isabel, 1883-1924 The twenty-six clues The 26 clues Salt Lake City, UT : Project Gutenberg, 2025 1 online resource : multiple file formats text txt rdacontent computer c rdamedia online resource cr rdacarrier Release date is 2025-12-08 Tim Miller, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) "The twenty-six clues" by Isabel Ostrander is a detective novel written in the early 20th century. It centers on the brazen strangling of a young society woman whose body is staged in an eccentric “crime museum,” drawing together a proud scientific criminalist, an intuitive ex-policeman, and a zealous amateur collector as competing methods collide over a web of clues. The investigation spans two neighboring households, a blind French secretary, and a grieving husband, hinting at intimate knowledge, calculated staging, and secrets behind a polished social façade. The opening of the novel gathers Wade Terhune, ex-Roundsman Tim McCarty and his friend Dennis Riordan at Calvin Norwood’s home, where debate over scientific detection turns to shock when the Duchess-of-Piatra “skeleton” table instead reveals Evelyn Jarvis, freshly strangled with a blue scarf. Her blind acquaintance Victor Marchal identifies her by a distinctive perfume, Inspector Druet takes charge, and Evelyn’s husband Oliver arrives shattered. Terhune spots an unbolted museum window, a ladder outside, and a long black hair on the frame, arguing the body was brought in from the Jarvis yard through a door cut in the fence. At the Jarvis house, Margot the maid—nervous and evasive—claims a foreboding dream; the cook and butler were off until late, and a housemaid sulked upstairs with a toothache. Evelyn’s sitting-room and bedroom are pristine, but her dressing-room is torn apart and the wall safe forced—yet her finest jewels were in a bank and her engraved emerald ring was untouched, complicating the robbery theory. Back in the museum, Dennis discovers a high-quality, gasoline-stained chauffeur’s glove wedged on the ladder and then dislodges the missing “Duchess” skeleton from the chimney, leaving investigators convinced the murder occurred in Evelyn’s rooms and that someone well acquainted with both houses staged the grim display. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Originally published: New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1919 New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction Detective and mystery stories Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction https://archive.org/details/twentysixclues0000isab_s6y1/mode/2up https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77423 118143 118143