A ruthless practitioner of logic, Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen accepts the challenge of escaping from a high security prison. Can his logic work its way around this concrete and iron cage?

Two short spring pieces tonight, by Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat) and Elizabeth von Armin (The Enchanted April)

Once upon a time, before there were the Brothers Grimm, there was Charles Perrault, and he gave us (among others) the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty. Here is the story from his collection of Mother Goose Tales, first published in 1697. His children were charmed. I hope you will enjoy it, too.

P. G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster tells of "Jeeves and the Kid Clementina"

Stacy Aumonier's anticipation of Alfred Hitchcock: "Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty"

In an age of scams, you might enjoy learning about the old “green goods” caper: O. Henry, “Shearing the Wolf.”

All the evidence points to one person, but Hercule Poirot keeps asking questions and solves “The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan.”

Werner Bergengruen takes an amused and skeptical look at misleading national identities in his story “The Sand Doctor.”

A tender story by Kate Chopin: "Love on the Bon-Dieu"

Sudden and high adventure in the most stolid and regular of lives: "A Source of Irritation" by Stacy Aumonier