Riassunto
Riassunto di Il mistero del narciso
A chi è rivolto
Readers who love a fast murder puzzle with odd clues, a clever detective, a loyal helper from the East, a foggy London setting and a romance that grows between the lines.
Che cos’è questo libro
The Daffodil Mystery is a detective novel by Edgar Wallace, the English writer who turned out crime stories at great speed until his death in 1932. It opens in a London department store and ends in a puzzle that stretches from Hyde Park to Shanghai. A millionaire is shot, and his body is found in a park with a woman's nightdress wrapped around his chest and a bunch of daffodils laid on top.
The man who takes up the case is Jack Tarling, a detective fresh from the Shanghai police, known in China as the Hunter of Men. He works with a quiet Chinese assistant named Ling Chu and with a Scotland Yard inspector named Whiteside. Every clue seems to point at a young cashier named Odette Rider, yet Tarling cannot make himself believe in her guilt. Clues keep arriving that fit no neat theory.
In this summary you get the whole shape of the book, from the first quarrel to the strange puzzles in the middle. You meet the people, the clues and the choices that drive the plot. The ending is left untold. Let us begin with the scene that sets everything going, a proposal made in a store office and thrown back in the proposer's face.
In questo riassunto
- 1A rejected offer starts a feudFree
- 2The detective refuses a frame-up
- 3A worshipping burglar is sent to work
- 4A body in the park wearing slippers
- 5Telegrams, a blood stain and a missing girl
- 6Daffodils, a stranger and a hospital bed
- 7A shot in the fog and a familiar pistol
- 8Ling Chu's secret and a store in flames
- 9What the story is really about
- 10How the story is told
Punto chiave 1 di 10
A rejected offer starts a feud
The story begins in the mezzanine office of Thornton Lyne, owner of Lyne's Stores. Odette Rider, a cashier who earns three pounds a week, stands before him and says she does not understand his hints. Lyne explains them plainly. He sneers at marriage, he praises his own poems, and he offers her a life as his companion instead of a wife. Below the office window, the shop girls can watch the whole scene.
Odette answers with steady anger. She tells him she is one of those foolish, suburban people who believe the marriage words mean something. She adds that whatever kind of union he proposes, she would at least want a man. She says his life rests on his father's brains and on money earned by better men, and she announces that she is leaving that night.
The scorn wounds Lyne deeper than anything in his sheltered life. He is the son of a rich founder, a poet whose slim book nobody bought, and he has never faced honest criticism. Wallace sketches him with sharp comedy. He likes to think his pale face looks intellectual, and he enjoys playing the misunderstood artist at the head of a department store.
Odette is sorry for her bitter words at the very last moment, but it is too late. Lyne whispers that she will pay for this. His anger turns at once into a plan, and the plan needs a clever detective.
That detective is already waiting in the boardroom. His name is Tarling, he has lately arrived from China, and Lyne has called him in about quite a different matter. The stage is set for a collision between a vain man's revenge and a stranger who reads faces very well.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Questions about Il mistero del narciso
What is The Daffodil Mystery about?
It is a detective novel about the murder of a rich store owner, found in Hyde Park with daffodils on his chest. A Shanghai detective, Jack Tarling, traces clues that seem to point at a young cashier.
Who is Ling Chu in The Daffodil Mystery?
Ling Chu is Tarling's Chinese assistant, a skilled tracker and thief-catcher from the Shanghai days. He speaks in formal phrases, notices tiny details, and carries a private sorrow that ties him to the case.
What do the daffodils mean in the novel?
The daffodils are the strange signature of the crime. They lie on the dead man's chest, appear in a vase in a flat, and echo the name of a dancer in Shanghai. Tarling studies which kind they are.
Who is Odette Rider?
Odette Rider is a spirited cashier at Lyne's Stores who rejects her employer and then falls under suspicion of his murder. She hides a secret and refuses to explain her false name, to Tarling's frustration.
Is The Daffodil Mystery easy to read?
Yes, in the sense that the chapters are short, the scenes are built on lively talk, and nearly every chapter ends with a question that draws you on. The clues are clear and the pace is quick.