The Secret Passage

The Secret Passage (1905) is a mystery novel by Fergus Hume. Although not as successful as The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886), an immediate bestseller for Hume, The Secret Passage is a gripping novel with an atmospheric intensity and tightly wound mystery worthy of the best of Victorian fiction. From an author whose work inspired Arthur Conan Doyle, The Secret Passage is a story of murder with a haunting, original conclusion.
Susan Grant, a young woman seeking employment, arrives at Rose Cottage, the home of Miss Loach. After a brief but intense interview, Susan begins working as a parlor maid, quickly discovering the high standard to which Miss Loach holds her employees. Across town, her sister Mrs. Octagon, a writer with a penchant for self-promotion, lives with her husband, Peter, and daughter, Juliet. Speaking with Juliet following afternoon tea one day, Mrs. Octagon raises the topic of her sister, whose quiet life she deeply disapproves of. At this moment, as though by a stroke of fate, her husband bursts in with the news of Miss Loach's murder. As Jennings, a local detective, begins his investigation, he discovers a broad cast of friends, employees, and acquaintances, all of whom harbor some motive-but who could have been driven to murder? Was it Susan, whose history working for a mysterious Spaniard seems questionable at best? Was it Mrs. Octagon, from whom the topic of her sister had always drawn the bitterest of words? As The Secret Passage winds toward its cunning conclusion, one thing becomes clear-the line between malice and murder remains murky, even under the brightest of lights.
With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Fergus Hume's The Secret Passage is a classic of English mystery and detective fiction reimagined for modern readers.

Fergusson Wright Hume (1859 - 1932), known as Fergus Hume, was a prolific English novelist. Finding that the novels of Émile Gaboriau were then very popular in Melbourne, Hume obtained and read a set of them and determined to write a novel of the same kind. The result was The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, set in Melbourne, with descriptions of poor urban life based on his knowledge of Little Bourke Street. It was self-published in 1886 and became a great success. Because he sold the British and American rights for 50 pounds, however, he reaped little of the potential financial benefit. It became the best-selling mystery novel of the Victorian era; in 1990 John Sutherland called it the "most sensationally popular crime and detective novel of the century". This novel inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write A Study in Scarlet, which introduced the fictional consulting detective Sherlock Holmes. Doyle remarked, "Hansom Cab was a slight tale, mostly sold by 'puffing'." After the success of his first novel and the publication of another, Professor Brankel's Secret (c.?1886), Hume returned to England in 1888. His third novel was titled Madame Midas and it was based on the life of the mine and newspaper owner Alice Ann Cornwell. This book became a play and her estranged husband, John Whiteman, sued over its content. Hume resided in London for a few years and then moved to the Essex countryside where he lived in Thundersley for 30 years. Eventually he produced more than 100 novels and short stories.