The Anthropologist at Large

More from the detective who joined the Archive last night: Dr. John Thorndyke, created by R. Austin Freeman in 1909 — a medical man and a barrister, and the first true forensic scientist in detective fiction. Thorndyke is not a newspaper reader. He considers the whole form a disorderly parade of unrelated facts, destructive to the habit of consecutive thought. He allows himself a quarter of an hour with a blue pencil and a pair of office shears, and then the paper goes in the fire. On this particular morning the shears pause. A cutting about another art robbery — one of those maddening cases, as he observes, where the motive makes no sense at all. You cannot melt down an ivory carving. You cannot sell it as it stands. The very qualities that make such a thing valuable make it impossible to turn into money. The thief got past a caretaker who was himself a retired police-sergeant. He left almost nothing behind him. Almost. He left a hat. And from a hat, and what is caught inside it, Thorndyke proposes to describe the man who wore it — where he came from, what he was trained in, and where the stolen collection is at this moment. FOR LISTENERS This is a complete, unabridged reading of The Anthropologist at Large by R. Austin Freeman, collected in John Thorndyke's Cases (1909) and now in the public domain. Every word is the author's own, including the scientific reasoning of its period. Part of The Midnight Archive: three nights of classics every week, alongside four original Nocturnal Tales mysteries. Freeman's whole argument was that a detective should show you the evidence rather than tell you a story about it — every step checkable, nothing taken on trust. Having heard both Thorndyke cases now, does that make him more satisfying than a detective who simply astonishes you, or less? SUPPORT & LISTENING OPTIONS CREDITS Narrated and produced by Nocturnal Tales. Story by R. Austin Freeman (public domain). TAGS / KEYWORDS r austin freeman audiobook, dr thorndyke audiobook, the anthropologist at large, john thorndyke's cases, first forensic detective, art robbery mystery, trace evidence detective story, edwardian detective story, scientific detective fiction, public domain audiobook, unabridged classic mystery HASHTAGS