Detectives Victorianas - El hombre que tenía nueve vidas (The Man With Nine Lives) by Hugh C Weir

 

First Published: 1914

RATING: GOOD

SPOILERS!!!

The narrator of this story is not the detective, Madelyn Mack, but her friend and reporter, Nora Noraker. Madeline receives a letter from Wendell Marsh, a billionaire. In the letter the man tells her that someone is trying to kill him and has tried to do so eight times, and maybe the ninth time he will be unlucky.

Madelyn and Nora arrive at Mr Marsh's house and they discover that the man has been found dead. The sheriff, Daniel Peddicord is there, and he can't understand how the man was killed when the door to the library, where he was found, was locked from inside. Madelyn and Nora go into the room, and they discover that the man's taste is strange as everything is red, the curtains are ripped and the shelves and books scattered. Mr Marsh is dead on the floor and he is holding a pipe, which Madelyn is told had belonged to Raleigh. The man's niece, Muriel Jansen, is very upset, and when the two women talk to her, she is shocked to learn that her uncle wrote to Madelyn, but when she sees the letter, she says that it isn't in her uncle's hand and this is fake. 

Some men arrive at the house. One is Mr Homer Truxton, the man Muriel wants to marry. Then the coroner arrives with Dr Dench, who was Mr Marsh's oldest friend and who also has a romantic interest in Muriel. When the coroner and Dr Dench examine the body, they say that they haven't found the reason of his death. There is no wounds and there is no poison.

Madelyn is confused because she thought that the poison was in the pipe, but the cut only contains tobacco. And then finally she unravels the mystery. Mr Marsh's pipe had a second compartment where he used some Indian drug which he enjoyed. He was warned against it by Dr Dench, but his butler, Peters, who had been promised a legacy because he provided the drug, continued to use the drug, which made him insane. That is why Muriel didn't recognise her uncle's hand because he had deteriorated too much and he was experiencing hallucinations. Peters was the only who killed him, using the drug and Madelyn has him arrested and sent to prison. 

I enjoyed the story. What surprised me, not just in this story but others in the collection, is how easily some women faint. For example, in this story Muriel faints straightaway when she is upset.