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A secretive medical house-call reveals domestic terror behind closed doors.

Dr. Strangeways answers a midnight summons to treat a pale woman with a bruised neck. Her twitching, hysterical escort accidentally drops a packet of cocaine, exposing a household ruined by addiction. The wounded woman claims a tight collar caused the mark, but her evasive composure signals deliberate harm. Photographs in the room hint at a hidden theatrical past before she flees to safety under the name Angelina Frood.

CHAPTER I. THE DOPER’S WIFE → CHAPTER III. ANGELINA FROOD

Threatening stalkers can be displaced using calculated charity and vigilance.

Nicholas Frood resurfaces at a Rochester night shelter, faking hysterical seizures and begging for news of his missing wife. Recognizing the doper from London, Strangeways pays the man's train fare back to the capital to remove the immediate danger. Mrs. Frood lives quietly under an alias near the architectural firm of Japp and Bundy. Removing the husband buys brief security, but his presence in town proves her sanctuary is compromised.

CHAPTER IV. DEALS WITH CHARITY AND ARCHÆOLOGY → CHAPTER VI.

Sudden silent absences transform quiet apprehension into active alarm.

Mrs. Frood arrives at the surgery shaken and asking for sleeping medicine, burdened by an inexplicable presentiment of disaster. She vanishes into the night fog on a brief trip to Chatham and fails to return. By morning, her landlady Mrs. Gillow finds the bed unslept in and an untouched supper on the table. Strangeways alerts her business associates, realizing that her fears were grounded in real and impending danger.

CHAPTER VII. MRS. GILLOW SOUNDS THE ALARM → CHAPTER IX. JETSAM

Clean items on muddy shores suggest deliberate planting over accident.

River scavengers dredge up Mrs. Frood's abandoned handbag and a pristine box of tablets near the Chatham mudflats. Forensic specialist Dr. John Thorndyke joins Strangeways in Rochester, analyzing the physical contradictions of the evidence. A dropped parcel remaining unsoiled on a tidal bank implies human placement rather than drifting currents. The discovery shifts the investigation from a simple missing-persons case to a calculated land-and-water crime scene.

CHAPTER X. WHICH DEALS WITH ANCIENT MONUMENTS AND A BLUE BOAR →…

Systematic physical mapping turns scattered debris into a coherent trail.

Months pass without a body surfacing in the Medway, though scavengers recover a second shoe and an artistically wrought silver hat-pin. Sergeant Cobbledick seeks Thorndyke's assistance as traditional search methods falter. Thorndyke carefully plots each artifact on a master map, measuring tides and precise coordinates to reconstruct the movement of evidence. An inspection of Angelina's undisturbed room provides physical metrics for scientific identification if remains are eventually found.

CHAPTER XII. THE PRINTS OF A VANISHED HAND → CHAPTER XIV.

Unidentified remains in distant morgues can overturn primary murder theories.

Clues along Black Boy Lane—a button, a hat, and a missing city wall key—trace a path back into Rochester. Thorndyke brings Strangeways to a London hospital dissecting room, where an unclaimed anatomical subject lies embalmed. Strangeways identifies the distinctive clubbed fingers and mahogany-stained hands of Nicholas Frood. Because Frood died of exposure in April before Angelina vanished, the central suspicion of him as her killer completely collapses.

CHAPTER XV. THE END OF THE TRAIL → CHAPTER XVI.

Forensic deduction unravels complex charades when physical facts align correctly.

The coroner's inquest re-evaluates the case once Nicholas Frood's prior death is officially established. Thorndyke presents his synthesized deductions, connecting the displaced city wall key, the staged trail of clothing, and anatomical realities. By separating false leads from physical truths, he demonstrates how a desperate flight was disguised as a violent river murder. The investigation concludes with a masterclass in forensic reasoning that clears away every lingering mystery.

CHAPTER XVII. THORNDYKE PUTS DOWN HIS PIECE → CHAPTER XIX.

Book

The mystery of Angelina Frood

A masterclass in forensic deduction showing how scientific observation untangles a disguised disappearance and fraudulent crime.

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