Summary
Summary of The Adventuress
Key ideas
Key idea 1
A death hides a missing weapon
A revolver shot shatters the Chemistry Building door, and a shaken lawyer enters Craig Kennedy’s laboratory. Maxwell Hastings brings news that Marshall Maddox, head of Maddox Munitions, has been found dead in Westport Bay. His family had gathered aboard a yacht to divide a fortune, but the plans for a secret wireless weapon have vanished.
Kennedy accepts the case. What looks like a struggle over inheritance now carries another danger: a weapon capable of controlling torpedoes and ships may have passed into unknown hands.
Key idea 2
Small traces disturb the family story
Start free to read
Key idea 3
A listening device explains the theft
Start free to read
Key idea 4
The poison points toward deliberate murder
Start free to read
Key idea 5
A hidden wire changes the investigation
Start free to read
Key idea 6
The danger reaches into the bay
Start free to read
Key idea 7
The fortune corrodes the family
Start free to read
Key idea 8
Science serves pursuer and criminal alike
Start free to read
Key idea 9
Evidence matters more than appearances
Start free to read
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
Readers who like detective puzzles built on laboratory science, secret signals and suspects who all hide something will feel at home here. Fans of Sherlock Holmes style deduction and wartime intrigue will find plenty to follow.
What this book is
The Adventuress is a Craig Kennedy detective novel by Arthur B. Reeve, an American writer who died in 1936. It was written in the years of the First World War, when explosions at munitions plants filled the newspapers and talk of spies was everywhere. Reeve gives his detective, a university chemistry professor, the scientific tools of the day and lets him use them to read a crime the way a doctor reads a body.
The story is told by Walter Jameson, a newspaper man and Kennedy's close friend. It starts with a revolver shot at Kennedy's door and a frightened lawyer who has news of a death. Marshall Maddox, head of the huge Maddox Munitions company, has been found floating in Westport Bay. At the same time a secret war weapon, a wireless system for steering torpedoes and ships, has gone missing from his company's safe.
What you get is a puzzle with many suspects. A family fights over a hundred million dollars. A Mexican dancer seems to follow the youngest brother everywhere. A quiet Japanese servant and a sallow watcher called Sanchez are always at the edge of the scene. Kennedy meets each trap with a new instrument, and the clues come one by one. Let us start where Kennedy does, with a stranger who stumbles into his laboratory.
In this summary
- 1A frightened lawyer brings Kennedy a deathFree
- 2The yacht, the dancer and a house of hate
- 3A safe opens without a mark
- 4Gas, poison and a trap in the dark
- 5Hidden ears and a staged conversation
- 6Dogs, ciphers and signals from the water
- 7A family poisoned by money
- 8Science as the detective's chief witness
- 9How Jameson tells it and where to look
Key point 1 of 9
A frightened lawyer brings Kennedy a death
The book opens with a revolver shot that shatters the front door of the Chemistry Building. A moment later an elderly man stumbles into Kennedy's laboratory, pale and shaken. Walter Jameson hands him a stimulant while Kennedy searches the campus and finds nobody there. The shooter has vanished as if he never existed.
The visitor is Maxwell Hastings, lawyer to Marshall Maddox, head of Maddox Munitions. He tells them that Maddox's body was found in Westport Bay that very morning. Hastings recovers fast and speaks like a hardheaded businessman, and it is clear he has come to hire Kennedy. He sizes up the detective just as Kennedy sizes him up.
Then Hastings explains the family quarrel. A hundred million dollars has split the Maddox heirs. Marshall wanted control of the company, his younger brother Shelby preferred a good time, and his sister Frances sided with Marshall's estranged wife Irene. A young Mexican dancer named Paquita, known in New York cabarets, has drifted into the story of both brothers.
The heirs met aboard Shelby's yacht, the Sybarite, to divide the company. The chief prize was the telautomaton, a system for controlling submarines, torpedoes and aircraft by wireless. Kennedy warns at once that such a secret is too big for any corporation to hold. Then Hastings describes the morning. Marshall's cabin is empty, his bed slept in, his clothes in place, and the briefcase with the plans gone.
A woman on deck lifts a marine glass and cries that she sees a body, and an oysterman's boat has found Marshall. Hastings sealed the cabin with wax before he came to town. Kennedy accepts the case on the spot, saying a mystery is the breath of his life. Even as they leave, Hastings glances back at the door, remembering the shot.
That’s 1 of 9 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
Check yourself
How does Kennedy chiefly build his case?
Right. “Kennedy solves the case less by questioning people than by reading things.”Not quite. “Kennedy solves the case less by questioning people than by reading things.”
What explains how someone learned about the garage?
Right. “It is a detectaphone, the listening end of a wire.”Not quite. “It is a detectaphone, the listening end of a wire.”
What does the Maddox fortune reveal about wealth built on weapons?
Right. “It also shows how a fortune built on weapons can poison the people who share it, and how a few honest feelings can cut through the poison.”Not quite. “It also shows how a fortune built on weapons can poison the people who share it, and how a few honest feelings can cut through the poison.”
Questions about The Adventuress
What is The Adventuress by Arthur B. Reeve about?
It is a detective novel in which Craig Kennedy investigates the death of munitions chief Marshall Maddox and the theft of a wireless war weapon. A feuding family, a cabaret dancer and a silent servant all draw suspicion.
Who is Craig Kennedy?
Craig Kennedy is a university chemistry professor who works as a scientific detective. He solves crimes with instruments such as a spectroscope and a detectaphone detector, and his friend Walter Jameson tells the stories.
What is the telautomaton in The Adventuress?
The telautomaton is a fictional wireless system for steering torpedoes, ships, vehicles and aircraft from a distance. Maddox Munitions buys it, and its plans and a working model become the object of theft and murder.
Who is Paquita in the book?
Paquita is a young Mexican cabaret dancer from New York who turns up at Westport just as the Maddox family gathers. Jameson calls her a born adventuress, and her motives stay uncertain for much of the story.
Is The Adventuress easy to follow for modern readers?
Yes, in that the chapters are short, each ends on a fresh clue, and Kennedy explains every gadget in plain terms to Jameson. The clear first-person voice keeps the many suspects easy to track.
