The Twenty-Six Clues

At Calvin Norwood's eerie dinner party, a lively debate pits scientific crime-solving against instinct, experience, and human judgment. Norwood's guests include the analytical criminologist Wade Terhune, the plainspoken former policeman Timothy McCarty, his fireman friend Dennis Riordan, and the mysterious blind French war hero Captain Victor Marchal. When Norwood unveils his private crime museum and a black wallet linked to the long-unsolved Hoyos case, the evening takes on the charged feel of a mystery waiting to be reopened. The museum's relics of murders, suicides, and scandals create a haunted atmosphere, but the real horror emerges when a supposed skeleton is uncovered as the strangled body of Evelyn Jarvis, wife of Oliver Jarvis and close friend of Norwood's niece. As shock gives way to investigation, Terhune conducts a scientific reconstruction that seems to implicate Marchal, while Inspector Druet remains unconvinced and the unresolved blackmail plot complicates the case. Grief, suspicion, and hidden motives spread through the household, and McCarty, frustrated but alert, begins to suspect that the truth lies deeper than any single theory. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.