A dead man and just one clue, a piece of paper with an address

In this classic work of detective fiction written more than a century ago, young sub-editor Frank Spargo is one of the earliest if not the first protagonist of a sub-genre – the investigative journalist!

Spargo, who works at The Watchman, a leading Fleet Street newspaper, leaves the office after the London edition has been ‘put to bed’. Passing through the Middle Temple, off Fleet Street, he stumbles on the body of an unidentified elderly gentleman who has been bludgeoned to death.

Despite the police assuming this was a case of robbery gone wrong, Spargo senses a scoop, joins forces with a Scotland Yard detective Rathbury and a young barrister Breton, whose address was the only item found on the body, to solve this intriguing crime.