The Clever Mrs Straithwaite

Mr Carlyle arrives at The Turrets in the very best possible spirits: white spats, a gardenia in the buttonhole, and the bustling importance of a man who is certain he has brought his friend a straightforward piece of business. A society lady's pearl necklace, worth five thousand pounds, has vanished during a night at the opera. The newspapers have it before lunch. The insurers are already unhappy. And the lady herself is, as the title promises, extremely clever. That is the whole difficulty. Because Max Carrados — blind since a riding accident, and the most humane of the great detectives — works out what happened rather sooner than anybody involved would like him to. A fraud. A counter-fraud. A glove that falls from a box during the first act. And a detective whose real problem is not who did it, but how much of it needs to be said aloud. This is Ernest Bramah in his lighter, more mischievous key, and it ends not with an arrest but with a telephone call from Charing Cross — and one very carefully chosen word. FOR LISTENERS This is a complete, unabridged reading of The Clever Mrs Straithwaite by Ernest Bramah, collected in Max Carrados (1914) and now in the public domain. Every word is the author's own. Part of The Midnight Archive: three nights of classics every week, alongside four original Nocturnal Tales mysteries. YOU CHOOSE WHAT'S NEXT The Archive is deep — more from tonight's detective? Loveday Brooke? Violet Strange? Sherlock Holmes? Father Brown? Max Carrados? Lady Molly? Raffles? Dr Thorndyke? Arsène Lupin? Vote in the poll attached to this episode, or tell us in the comments which classic you want to hear by lamplight. Carrados settles this one without an arrest. He sees everything, and then decides how much of it needs saying. Was he right to handle it that way? CHAPTERS 00:00 - Introduction 02:06 - Part One 13:31 - Part Two 25:49 - Part Three 37:30 - Part Four 50:01 - Part Five SUPPORT & LISTENING OPTIONS ABOUT THIS RECORDING The Clever Mrs Straithwaite by Ernest Bramah (1914) is in the public domain. This recording is the complete, unabridged original text. Narration and production Nocturnal Tales. CREDITS Narrated and produced by Nocturnal Tales. Story by Ernest Bramah (public domain). TAGS / KEYWORDS ernest bramah audiobook, max carrados audiobook, the clever mrs straithwaite audiobook, max carrados 1914 collection, blind detective mystery, pearl necklace mystery, insurance fraud mystery, edwardian detective story, london society scandal, classic detective story audiobook, public domain audiobook, unabridged classic mystery HASHTAGS