The Old Man in the Corner

The character's moniker is used as the title of the collection of the earliest stories featuring the character. He was one of the first of this character-type created in the wake of the huge popularity of the Sherlock Holmes stories. The Old Man in the Corner (1908) introduces one of the mystery genre's first armchair detectives and he's a peculiar case himself. He comes out of his corner on page one to intrude on a young woman journalist, Miss Burton of the Evening Observer, at her table in a tea shop. "There is no such thing as a mystery," the Old Man insists, no matter what people read in the penny press. To prove it, he sets about solving a number of crimes the police couldn't. His deductions are based mostly on accounts in the news. The book's inventive premise is the work of the Hungarian Baroness Emmuska Orczy, best-known for her creation of The Scarlet Pimpernel. Her masked hero saved aristocrats, and she gives the Old Man a touch of the upper crust as well. He claims to be "only an amateur," but his disdain for the police is like the king to the commoner. He has a rich man's -- or crazy man's -- eccentricities. He admires a clever crook, and his nervous fingers tie elaborate knots in a piece of string while he mulls the clues. "Now, follow my reasoning point by point . . ." he challenges Miss Burton, and off he goes to out-smart the sharpest criminals in London -- all without leaving the table.