The Argyle Case

Summary

An opulent Long Island manse, midnight lacquered in Art-Deco moonlight, becomes the stage for a murder that ricochets through mahogany corridors: shipping titan John Argyle sprawls beneath a Canaletto, his blood stippling a Persian rug like garnets flung from a broken crown. Suspicion coils around Mary, his poised, paradoxically orphaned heiress, because a freshly inked will names her sole inheritor while disinheriting swaggering, prodigal Bruce. Into this velvet-trap of whispers strides Asche Kayton—sartorial sleuth, polyglot chemist of clues—summoned by the ostracized son to exhume truth from the ashes of filial spite. Kayton’s lens magnifies copper-dust fingerprints, Morse flickers of a dictograph, and the acrid perfume of counterfeit scrip until they converge on a clandestine cellar where printing presses throb like iron hearts. There, beneath flickering carbide lamps, the real architect of patricide is cornered; love, exoneration, and a kiss exchanged over a smoking pistol seal the ledger.

Synopsis

The story is that of the mysterious murder of John Argyle, a multi-millionaire, in the library of his home. Circumstances point toward Argyle's adopted daughter Mary, who is the beneficiary under his will, Argyle having quarreled with his son Bruce. Just as the case begins to look black for Mary, Asche Kayton, a great private detective, is called in by Bruce and takes hold of the investigation. His methods are scientific and swift and the trail leads to a den of counterfeiters, where, by use of the dictograph and other modern devices, the real murderer is run to his lair. Kayton falls in love with Mary, who is finally vindicated. Kayton's reward is the girl.