Resumen
Resumen de El caso de Stretton Street
Para quién es
Readers who enjoy a plot driven mystery with secret meetings, shadowing in foreign cities, daring criminals, rich schemers and a hero who must prove an astonishing story that nobody would believe.
De qué trata este libro
The Stretton Street Affair is a mystery novel by William Le Queux, told in the first person by a young electrical engineer named Hugh Garfield. It was written in the years just after the First World War, when London was full of talk about foreign money, drugs and fast living. Garfield says he sets down a plain confession of what really happened to him, however wild it sounds.
The story begins on an ordinary winter evening. Hugh walks through a smart street near Park Lane on his way to visit his uncle, and a footman begs him to help a worried master. A single hour in that house costs him a month of his life and leaves him with a crime on his conscience. From there the book follows his hunt for the truth across Florence, Paris, Madrid and the south of France.
You get a fast chase with railway timetables, hotel concierges, disguises and a deadly poison that leaves no trace. You also get a love story and a villain who is a famous and respected millionaire. Let us begin with the train journey that comes just before the trap.
En este resumen
- 1A friendly stranger and a lost fortuneFree
- 2A footman's plea and a strange scent
- 3A death certificate for five thousand pounds
- 4A month lost and a hospital by the sea
- 5A flat denial in Florence and a face in the cathedral
- 6Secrets in the garden and a warning for Mrs. Cullerton
- 7A girl who fears him and a banker who is no banker
- 8Poisoned pins, a bandit and a chase to Nîmes
- 9What the story is really about
- 10How the story is told
Idea clave 1 de 10
A friendly stranger and a lost fortune
Hugh Garfield is twenty-nine, a war pilot with a Military Cross, now working for the old firm of Francis and Goldsmith in Westminster. He shares a flat at Rivermead Mansions, beside Hammersmith Bridge, with his friend Harry Hambledon, a young solicitor. Harry is in love with a girl named Norah Peyton. Hugh is unattached and content, with a small fortune left by his Aunt Emily.
On the evening train from York to London, a polite Frenchman joins his compartment. He says he is an official of the Crédit Lyonnais in Paris, and the two men dine together and chat in French. The man is charming and asks many easy questions, and Hugh, who prefers to keep to himself, still tells him where he lives and what he does. At the station the Frenchman invites him to dinner the next night, but Hugh must see his uncle in Orchard Street.
Home at the flat, Hugh finds a letter from his solicitors. The investments he made with his aunt's money have failed, and he has lost nearly everything except his salary. He goes to bed shaken and a little ashamed of his own folly.
The next day passes quietly. Harry takes Norah to the theatre, and Hugh sets out on the evening of Wednesday, November seventh, to visit his uncle. He tells us, almost in a whisper, that he is walking into a vortex of mystery.
The reader should note how much the opening plants. The money loss, the chatty stranger and the habit of visiting an uncle on certain evenings all matter later, because someone has been paying close attention to this young man.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
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Questions about El caso de Stretton Street
What is The Stretton Street Affair about?
It follows Hugh Garfield, a young engineer drawn into a rich man's house near Park Lane, who signs a false death certificate and then hunts across Europe for the truth about the girl, the poison and the people behind it.
Who is Oswald De Gex in the novel?
De Gex is a famous international financier with a villa near Florence and a London house in Stretton Street. He is generous in public and widely praised, and Hugh comes to see him as the mind behind the plot.
What does red, green and gold mean in the book?
They are the three words that Gabrielle Tennison repeats in her illness, shuddering as she does. They point to something she saw on the night of her disappearance, and the meaning becomes clear as the story unfolds.
Is The Stretton Street Affair easy to read?
Yes, in the sense that matters here: the chapters are short, the plot moves from city to city, and each one ends on a clear hook, so the mystery pulls you from one scene to the next.
When was the book written and is it a true story?
It is a work of fiction by William Le Queux, set in the years just after the First World War. Its places are real, such as Florence, Madrid and Hammersmith, but the poison and the plot are invented.