Summary
Summary of The Old Man in the Corner
Who it’s for
This book suits readers who like short puzzles, clever reasoning and an old-fashioned London setting. It is a good pick for a commute or a quiet evening. If you want deep character study or modern forensic detail, you may find it thin.
What this book is
The Old Man in the Corner is a set of detective stories by Baroness Orczy, who also wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel. The tales first appeared in magazines in the early 1900s and were gathered into book form in 1908. They arrived when readers were hungry for rivals to Sherlock Holmes. Orczy's answer was a detective who never leaves his seat.
Every story has the same frame. A young woman journalist sits in a London tea shop, and a strange old man at the next table starts talking about a crime that has baffled the police. He plays with a long piece of string, tying and untying knots as he reasons. Then he explains who did it and how. You get puzzles of murder, theft and disappearance, a sharp and cranky guide, and a picture of Edwardian London. Let us begin with the tea shop and the string.
In this summary
- 1A tea shop becomes a detective's officeFree
- 2The police are fools, says the Old Man
- 3Cases come from all over Britain
- 4Reasoning from reports, not from clues
- 5Polly Burton learns to listen and to doubt
- 6What the cases are really about
Key point 1 of 6
A tea shop becomes a detective's office
The setting is simple and it never changes. A young journalist named Polly Burton works for a newspaper called the Evening Observer. She often stops at a teashop in London for a glass of milk and a bite to eat. Such shops were run by the Aerated Bread Company, and they gave ordinary city workers a cheap, respectable place to sit.
In the corner she notices an odd old man. He is thin and pale and nervous, with a mild face and a shabby, rather comical look. His hands are never still. He fiddles with a piece of string and ties it into knots, then picks the knots apart again. At first Polly thinks he is merely a figure of fun.
Then he speaks to her. He has noticed that she is reading about a crime in the papers, and he tells her flatly that she has it wrong. The police, he says, have no idea what really happened. He has worked it out, and he has done it without leaving his chair.
This opening is the key to the whole collection. The detective has no office, no cases brought to him and no fee. He turns up in a public place, uninvited, with a theory and a listener. The charm lies in the contrast between the crowded, ordinary teashop and the dark crimes he describes over the teacups.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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