Summary
Summary of No. 13 Toroni
Key ideas
Key idea 1
A warning arrives before the murder
Victor Dreyel has lived quietly in his Stockholm studio for years, but a telegram breaks that calm. Signed E.R., it warns that Toroni knows the secret and tells him to watch a wooden doll. Dreyel asks his neighbor Thomas Murner to bring the detective Maurice Wallion that evening, yet refuses to explain what he fears.
Before Wallion arrives, Murner hears footsteps and a thud upstairs. Then a scream announces that Dreyel is dead, and a girl in grey is accused of killing him.
Key idea 2
Murner shelters the accused stranger
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Key idea 3
Small marks overturn the obvious story
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Key idea 4
The dolls link another threatened life
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Key idea 5
Corman turns suspicion toward Seattle
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Key idea 6
A fellow passenger draws Wallion's attention
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Key idea 7
The clinic conceals a captive father
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Key idea 8
The pursuit reaches a waiting yacht
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Key idea 9
Loyalty stands against the pursuit of gold
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The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
Readers who love old-fashioned detective adventures with clues, disguises, sea voyages and treasure, and who enjoy a clever investigator, a young hero and a mystery that grows stranger from chapter to chapter.
What this book is
No. 13 Toroni is a detective novel by the Swedish writer Julius Regis, set in the summer of 1918. It opens in a quiet Stockholm studio, where an old photographer waits for a visitor and a detective friend. By the end of the evening he lies dead, and a small wooden doll has vanished from his shelf.
The book follows the journalist detective Maurice Wallion and his friend Thomas Murner, a young architect, as they chase the answer. The trail runs from a house in John Street to a lonely cottage in northern Sweden, then across the Atlantic and the American continent to Seattle, and then into a far more dangerous game. Along the way you meet a pale girl in grey, a smooth American doctor, a silent Greek antiquarian and a businessman with a yacht.
The story gives you a chase with plain, quick scenes, clues you can piece together yourself, and a puzzle built from carved dolls and strange numbers. What do the numbers on the feet mean? Who is the thirteenth, and what is King Solomon? The first key point begins on the night of the murder in Stockholm.
In this summary
- 1A telegram, a doll and a murderFree
- 2A stranger hides in Murner's rooms
- 3Wallion reads the marks and the clues
- 4A cousin, a letter and a second attack
- 5Doctor Corman comes to take her away
- 6On the ship, a Greek and a story
- 7Seattle: a detective, a parcel and a prisoner
- 8The chase to the sea and the Ariadne
- 9What King Solomon was, and who plays what part
Key point 1 of 9
A telegram, a doll and a murder
The story begins on the first of August 1918 in Stockholm. Victor Dreyel, a quiet photographer of about sixty, has lived for fifteen years in a fifth-floor studio at No. 30 John Street. The neighbors know nothing about his past, and they have long since stopped guessing.
That evening Dreyel is tense. A telegram has reached him from Gothenburg, signed E.R., which says that Toroni has learned the secret and tells him to watch the wooden doll. Dreyel has asked his young neighbor Thomas Murner to bring a famous newspaper detective, Maurice Wallion, at nine. When Murner reads the telegram, Dreyel mutters that Toroni was the thirteenth.
Murner sees the doll on a shelf of photographs. It is a carved figure about eight inches tall, a workman in a broad hat and heavy boots, and it arrived from America in the early summer. Dreyel will not let anyone touch it. He sends Murner downstairs and shuts the door.
Murner waits in his rooms below and hears two sets of footsteps overhead and then a dull thud. Silence follows. He starts for the stairs, and a scream tears through the house. The porter's wife is crying out that a girl in grey has killed Mr. Dreyel and that she must not escape.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Check yourself
Why does Wallion reject the claim that the girl killed Dreyel?
Right. “It was a short, slim man who climbed onto the roof through that small window.”Not quite. “It was a short, slim man who climbed onto the roof through that small window.”
What does Wallion discover about Elaine's father at Corman's villa?
Right. “The man is calm, tired and not mad.”Not quite. “The man is calm, tired and not mad.”
What counters greed in the story's central relationships?
Right. “Elaine's loyalty to her father, and Murner's loyalty to a girl he hardly knows, are the other side of that greed.”Not quite. “Elaine's loyalty to her father, and Murner's loyalty to a girl he hardly knows, are the other side of that greed.”
Questions about No. 13 Toroni
What is No. 13 Toroni about?
It is a detective novel about a murdered Stockholm photographer, two stolen wooden dolls and a secret called King Solomon. A Swedish journalist detective follows the trail from Stockholm to Seattle and then along a dangerous coast.
Who is Toroni in the book?
Toroni is the name in the telegram that frightens Victor Dreyel, who calls him the thirteenth. The people in the story fear him, and Maurice Wallion works throughout to learn who he is and what he is after.
What do the numbers on the wooden dolls mean?
Each doll is numbered and carved in the likeness of one of twelve men, and some carry extra figures on the foot. Wallion works out a theory about them in the middle of the book, and the full answer comes later.
When is No. 13 Toroni set and where does it take place?
It is a work of fiction by the Swedish author Julius Regis, set in the summer of 1918. The scenes move from Stockholm and northern Sweden to an ocean liner, an American train, Seattle and the sea beyond.
Is No. 13 Toroni easy to read?
Its short chapters, quick scenes and clear clues make it easy to follow. Each chapter ends on a small surprise or question, so the story keeps moving from one setting to the next.
