The Secret House

About This Book

The Secret House is a 1917 thriller by Edgar Wallace (1875–1932), one of the most prolific and popular writers of the early twentieth century. The story centers on a blackmailing scheme run through a scandalous London gossip magazine called The Gossip's Corner. Its mysterious editor — a man who wears a veil and vanishes through secret passages in his office building — has baffled Scotland Yard for years. When the ambitious foreign adventurer Poltavo takes a position as his secretary, a web of scandal, kidnapping, and forced marriage begins to unravel, pursued by T. B. Smith, a shrewd Assistant Commissioner of Police.

Wallace blends detection with Gothic suspense as the trail leads from fog-shrouded London streets to the isolated Secret House of the title, where the conspiracy's darkest secrets are kept. The novel features several characters who first appeared in Wallace's earlier work The Nine Bears. Edgar Wallace, who began his career as a war correspondent in the Boer War, would go on to write over 170 novels and is credited as the creator of King Kong. The Secret House is in the public domain and freely available through Project Gutenberg.

Excerpt

A man stood irresolutely before the imposing portals of Cainbury House, a large office building let out to numerous small tenants, and harbouring, as the indicator on the tiled wall of the vestibule testified, some thirty different professions.— Opening of The Secret House

Publication Details