{"id":5062,"date":"2025-12-08T01:35:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T01:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=5062"},"modified":"2025-12-08T01:35:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T01:35:20","slug":"the-dublin-mystery-by-baroness-orczy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=5062","title":{"rendered":"The Dublin Mystery by Baroness Orczy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Dublin Mystery by <a href=\"https:\/\/quizlit.org\/the-mysterious-death-on-the-underground-railway-by-baroness-orczy\">Baroness Orczy<\/a> was published in 1908 in her short fiction collection The Old Man in the Corner. <\/p>\n<p><em>This post may contain affiliate links that earn us a commission at no extra cost to you.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">The Dublin Mystery by Baroness Orczy<\/h2>\n<div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"__youtube_prefs__ epyt-facade no-lazyload\"><button class=\"epyt-facade-play\"><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">The Dublin Mystery by Baroness Orczy<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cI always thought that the history of that forged will was about as interesting as any I had read,\u201d said the man in the corner that day. He had been silent for some time, and was meditatively sorting and looking through a packet of small photographs in his pocket-book. Polly guessed that some of these would presently be placed before her for inspection\u2014and she had not long to wait.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is old Brooks,\u201d he said, pointing to one of the photographs, \u201cMillionaire Brooks, as he was called, and these are his two sons, Percival and Murray. It was a curious case, wasn\u2019t it? Personally I don\u2019t wonder that the police were completely at sea. If a member of that highly estimable force happened to be as clever as the clever author of that forged will, we should have very few undetected crimes in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is why I always try to persuade you to give our poor ignorant police the benefit of your great insight and wisdom,\u201d said Polly, with a smile.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know,\u201d he said blandly, \u201cyou have been most kind in that way, but I am only an amateur. Crime interests me only when it resembles a clever game of chess, with many intricate moves which all tend to one solution, the checkmating of the antagonist\u2014the detective force of the country. Now, confess that, in the Dublin mystery, the clever police there were absolutely checkmated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAbsolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust as the public was. There were actually two crimes committed in one city which have completely baffled detection: the murder of Patrick Wethered the lawyer, and the forged will of Millionaire Brooks. There are not many millionaires in Ireland; no wonder old Brooks was a notability in his way, since his business\u2014bacon curing, I believe it is\u2014is said to be worth over \u00a32,000,000 of solid money.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis younger son Murray was a refined, highly educated man, and was, moreover, the apple of his father\u2019s eye, as he was the spoilt darling of Dublin society; good-looking, a splendid dancer, and a perfect rider, he was the acknowledged \u2018catch\u2019 of the matrimonial market of Ireland, and many a very aristocratic house was opened hospitably to the favourite son of the millionaire.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf course, Percival Brooks, the eldest son, would inherit the bulk of the old man\u2019s property and also probably the larger share in the business; he, too, was good-looking, more so than his brother; he, too, rode, danced, and talked well, but it was many years ago that mammas with marriageable daughters had given up all hopes of Percival Brooks as a probable son-in-law. That young man\u2019s infatuation for Maisie Fortescue, a lady of undoubted charm but very doubtful antecedents, who had astonished the London and Dublin music-halls with her extravagant dances, was too well known and too old-established to encourage any hopes in other quarters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhether Percival Brooks would ever marry Maisie Fortescue was thought to be very doubtful. Old Brooks had the full disposal of all his wealth, and it would have fared ill with Percival if he introduced an undesirable wife into the magnificent Fitzwilliam Place establishment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is how matters stood,\u201d continued the man in the corner, \u201cwhen Dublin society one morning learnt, with deep regret and dismay, that old Brooks had died very suddenly at his residence after only a few hours\u2019 illness. At first it was generally understood that he had had an apoplectic stroke; anyway, he had been at business hale and hearty as ever the day before his death, which occurred late on the evening of February 1st.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was the morning papers of February 2nd which told the sad news to their readers, and it was those selfsame papers which on that eventful morning contained another even more startling piece of news, that proved the prelude to a series of sensations such as tranquil, placid Dublin had not experienced for many years. This was, that on that very afternoon which saw the death of Dublin\u2019s greatest millionaire, Mr. Patrick Wethered, his solicitor, was murdered in Phoenix Park at five o\u2019clock in the afternoon while actually walking to his own house from his visit to his client in Fitzwilliam Place.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPatrick Wethered was as well known as the proverbial town pump; his mysterious and tragic death filled all Dublin with dismay. The lawyer, who was a man sixty years of age, had been struck on the back of the head by a heavy stick, garrotted, and subsequently robbed, for neither money, watch, or pocket-book were found upon his person, whilst the police soon gathered from Patrick Wethered\u2019s household that he had left home at two o\u2019clock that afternoon, carrying both watch and pocket-book, and undoubtedly money as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAn inquest was held, and a verdict of wilful murder was found against some person or persons unknown.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut Dublin had not exhausted its stock of sensations yet. Millionaire Brooks had been buried with due pomp and magnificence, and his will had been proved (his business and personalty being estimated at \u00a32,500,000) by Percival Gordon Brooks, his eldest son and sole executor. The younger son, Murray, who had devoted the best years of his life to being a friend and companion to his father, while Percival ran after ballet-dancers and music-hall stars\u2014Murray, who had avowedly been the apple of his father\u2019s eye in consequence\u2014was left with a miserly pittance of \u00a3300 a year, and no share whatever in the gigantic business of Brooks &amp; Sons, bacon curers, of Dublin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSomething had evidently happened within the precincts of the Brooks\u2019 town mansion, which the public and Dublin society tried in vain to fathom. Elderly mammas and blushing d\u00e9butantes were already thinking of the best means whereby next season they might more easily show the cold shoulder to young Murray Brooks, who had so suddenly become a hopeless \u2018detrimental\u2019 in the marriage market, when all these sensations terminated in one gigantic, overwhelming bit of scandal, which for the next three months furnished food for gossip in every drawing-room in Dublin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr. Murray Brooks, namely, had entered a claim for probate of a will, made by his father in 1891, declaring that the later will made the very day of his father\u2019s death and proved by his brother as sole executor, was null and void, that will being a forgery.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Baroness Orczy Books to Read<\/h2>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4aRHLG4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4aRHLG4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Buy on Amazon<\/a><\/div>\n<p>If you enjoyed The Dublin Mystery by Baroness Orczy, check out <a href=\"https:\/\/quizlit.org\/the-woman-in-the-big-hat-by-baroness-orczy\">The Woman in the Big Hat by Baroness Orczy.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Narrated by Yoganandh T, courtesy of Librivox<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Dublin Mystery by Baroness Orczy was published in 1908 in her short fiction collection The Old Man in the Corner. This post may contain affiliate links that earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. The Dublin Mystery by Baroness Orczy The Dublin Mystery by Baroness Orczy \u201cI always thought that the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5062"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}