The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations

....The fact is meanwhile that in the riddle story the detective was an afterthought or more accurately a deus ex machina to make the story go. The riddle had to be unriddled; and who could do it so naturally and readily as a detective? The detective as Poe saw him was a means to this end; and it was only afterwards that writers perceived his availability as a character. Lecoq accordingly becomes a figure in fiction and Sherlock while he was as yet a novelty was nearly as attractive as the complications in which he involved himself. Riddle-story writers in general however encounter the obvious embarrassment that their detective is obliged to lavish so much attention on the professional services which the exigencies of the tale demand of him that hehas very little leisure to expound his own personal equation .... Collection of American riddle stories containing narratives from Edgar Allan Poe Nathaniel Hawthorne and many more. Originally published in 1909.