Nocturnal Tales: Mystery Audiobooks and Crime Stories

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🌐 Website — every story we've ever made, free to listen. No paywall, no account, no password.
https://nocturnaltalespodcast.com

A Bavarian mountainside in a snowstorm, and a castle on a black spur of rock with too many roofs and one red window burning beneath the highest of them.

Arthur and the Belgian Detective have been summoned by an old acquaintance, the Baroness Adelheid von Eberwald, whose letter was admirably brief. Somebody in her house wishes to frighten her. Unfortunately for them, she is too old to be frightened and too rich to be easily killed.

She is also, as it turns out, being poisoned.

Then the snow closes the mountain road, the telephone line goes down, and a man falls to his death on the great staircase.

And there is a second staircase death to account for, twenty-eight years earlier, which this family has spent a very long time not discussing.

The Ghost of Schloss Eberwald is an original Golden Age-style mystery about inheritance, debt, and how convenient a haunted house can be to somebody with entirely practical intentions.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
This is an original mystery written by Nocturnal Tales, inspired by the spirit of the great Golden Age crime writers. The plot, characters and text are entirely our own creation. All characters, families and events are fictional, including Schloss Eberwald and the von Eberwald family; any resemblance to real persons or places is coincidental. No affiliation, endorsement, or official connection is implied.

💬 QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS
The clue that settles it is not evidence at all. When the ghost laughs, one person looks at the wall because she knows where the sound comes from — and one person looks at her. How long did you hold on to the ghost? 🕵️

🕒 CHAPTERS
00:00 - Introduction
02:23 - The Castle That Laughed
12:42 - The First Death
22:21 - Behind the Wall
32:53 - Beneath the Chapel
43:12 - The North Tower
1:00:20 - The Last Laugh
1:10:45 - Closing

📖 GET THE EBOOK — $3.99

📌 Patreon — included with Writing Table & Archive Society, or one-time purchase
https://www.patreon.com/posts/156573383

🛒 Gumroad — EPUB + PDF included
https://nocturnaltalespod.gumroad.com/l/ebookvol2

❤️ SUPPORT & LISTENING OPTIONS

📌 Patreon — every new case first, ad-free and early
https://www.patreon.com/NocturnalTales

🌐 Website — every story, free, no account needed
https://nocturnaltalespodcast.com

📺 Rumble — free, supports us with ad revenue
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❤️ Buy Me a Coffee — one-time support
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🎧 Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nocturnal-tales-mystery-audiobooks-and-crime-stories/id1896195848

🧾 CREDITS
Written by Nocturnal Tales. Narrated by Nocturnal Tales.

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
golden age mystery audiobook, haunted castle mystery, bavaria mystery audiobook, snowbound country house mystery, belgian detective audiobook, arthur mystery audiobook, ghost hoax mystery, closed circle whodunit, full length mystery audiobook, classic detective story audiobook, original golden age mystery, vintage detective fiction

🏷️ HASHTAGS
#NocturnalTales #GoldenAgeMystery #ClassicMystery #FullAudiobook #HauntedHouse #DetectiveFiction #Whodunnit #LockedIn

📌 Patreon — every new case first, ad-free and early ($2.99/month)
https://www.patreon.com/NocturnalTales
🌐 Website — every story we've ever made, free to listen. No paywall, no account, no password.
https://nocturnaltalespodcast.com

A complete change of key. After signal boxes and railway disasters, this is Ernest Bramah's blind detective in his lightest and most mischievous register, and the title is not ironic. It really is a comedy.

Max Carrados telephones the inquiry agent Carlyle at his office one April morning, and Carlyle's face assumes its most amiable expression on recognising his friend's voice — which, if you know these two at all, means he is about to be made a fool of in the most affectionate possible way.

What follows involves a young married couple, a small house, a domestic upheaval entirely out of proportion to its cause, and a solution that no serious detective would ever admit to having reached.

Nobody dies tonight. There is no theft worth the name and there is no arrest. There is only a household turned upside down by something very small, and a blind man who works the whole thing out from the other end of a telephone line, enjoying himself enormously.

Bramah is doing something deliberate here. Having spent a whole collection establishing Carrados as formidable, he turns exactly the same faculties on a domestic muddle. The gift is unchanged. Only the stakes are different.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
This is a complete, unabridged reading of The Comedy at Fountain Cottage by Ernest Bramah, collected in Max Carrados (1914) and now in the public domain. Every word is the author's own. Part of The Midnight Archive: three nights of classics every week, alongside four original Nocturnal Tales mysteries.

🗳️ YOU CHOOSE WHAT'S NEXT
The Archive is deep — more Max Carrados? Loveday Brooke? Violet Strange? Sherlock Holmes? Father Brown? Lady Molly? Raffles? Dr Thorndyke? Arsène Lupin? Vote in the poll attached to this episode, or tell us in the comments which classic you want to hear by lamplight.

💬 QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS
We chose a gentler evening on purpose — several of you have said the cases without violence are the ones you enjoy most. Would you like more of the Archive's quiet ones? 🕵️

🕒 CHAPTERS
00:00 - Introduction
02:00 - Part One
16:19 - Part Two
29:47 - Part Three
43:33 - Part Four

📖 GET THE EBOOK — $3.99

📌 Patreon — included with Writing Table & Archive Society, or one-time purchase
https://www.patreon.com/posts/156573383

🛒 Gumroad — EPUB + PDF included
https://nocturnaltalespod.gumroad.com/l/ebookvol2

❤️ SUPPORT & LISTENING OPTIONS

📌 Patreon — every new case first, ad-free and early
https://www.patreon.com/NocturnalTales

🌐 Website — every story, free, no account needed
https://nocturnaltalespodcast.com

📺 Rumble — free, supports us with ad revenue
https://rumble.com/c/c-7820714

❤️ Buy Me a Coffee — one-time support
https://buymeacoffee.com/nocturnaltales

💛 PayPal — one-time tip
https://paypal.me/nocturnaltalesprod

🎧 Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nocturnal-tales-mystery-audiobooks-and-crime-stories/id1896195848

🧾 CREDITS
Narrated and produced by Nocturnal Tales. Story by Ernest Bramah (public domain).

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
ernest bramah audiobook, max carrados audiobook, the comedy at fountain cottage audiobook, max carrados 1914 collection, blind detective mystery, cosy mystery audiobook, gentle classic mystery, humorous detective story, edwardian domestic mystery, classic detective story audiobook, public domain audiobook, unabridged classic mystery

🏷️ HASHTAGS
#NocturnalTales #MidnightArchive #MaxCarrados #ErnestBramah #ClassicMystery #FullAudiobook #Unabridged #BlindDetective #CozyMystery #PublicDomain

📌 Patreon — every new case first, ad-free and early ($2.99/month)
https://www.patreon.com/NocturnalTales
🌐 Website — every story we've ever made, free to listen. No paywall, no account, no password.
https://nocturnaltalespodcast.com

London in the fog, and a block of mansion flats in Battersea where a man has been found dead in his own bath.

The dead man is an architect. He was seen alive the previous evening, the door was locked from within, and the water was long cold by the time anybody thought to look. It would be an accident, and a great many people would much prefer it to be an accident.

Except that on the same afternoon a financier of considerable importance walked out of his offices in the City and has not been seen since.

Two men. One dead in a bathtub in Battersea, one vanished from Threadneedle Street. Nobody at Scotland Yard believes for a moment that the two things are connected. The Belgian Detective is quite certain that they are, and cannot at first say why.

What follows takes Arthur onto a rooftop above Queen Caroline Mansions, into a hospital ward, across a trading floor in the City and down to a house in Salisbury — and finally to a graveyard at first light, where a coffin is lifted out of the ground to settle a question that has been waiting thirty years to be asked.

The Bathtub Enigma is an original Golden Age-style mystery about patience, professional standing, and how much can be arranged by a man everybody has been trained to believe.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
An original mystery written by Nocturnal Tales, inspired by the spirit of the great Golden Age crime writers. Plot, characters and text are entirely our own; all characters and events are fictional. This story first appeared in the second volume of our collected mysteries, revised here and recorded as a full audiobook. No affiliation is implied.

💬 QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS
The locked door was never the problem. Everyone in this case was looking at the wrong body. How early did you stop believing in the accident? 🕵️

🕒 CHAPTERS
00:00 - Introduction
02:18 - The Architect's Alarm
16:07 - The Missing Financier
28:51 - Clues from Above
42:17 - Threads of Deception
57:49 - Stocks and Suspicions
1:13:15 - A Gathering of Minds
1:27:56 - Shadows of the Past
1:43:39 - The Surgeon's Shadow
1:56:29 - The Exhumation
2:15:17 - Closing

📖 GET THE EBOOK — $3.99

📌 Patreon — included with Writing Table & Archive Society, or one-time purchase
https://www.patreon.com/posts/156573383

🛒 Gumroad — EPUB + PDF included
https://nocturnaltalespod.gumroad.com/l/ebookvol2

❤️ SUPPORT & LISTENING OPTIONS

📌 Patreon — every new case first, ad-free and early
https://www.patreon.com/NocturnalTales

🌐 Website — every story, free, no account needed
https://nocturnaltalespodcast.com

📺 Rumble — free, supports us with ad revenue
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❤️ Buy Me a Coffee — one-time support
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💛 PayPal — one-time tip
https://paypal.me/nocturnaltalesprod

🎧 Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nocturnal-tales-mystery-audiobooks-and-crime-stories/id1896195848

🧾 CREDITS
Written by Nocturnal Tales. Narrated by Nocturnal Tales.

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
golden age mystery audiobook, locked room mystery, 1930s london mystery, battersea mystery audiobook, missing financier mystery, exhumation mystery story, belgian detective audiobook, arthur mystery audiobook, long full length audiobook, classic detective story audiobook, original golden age whodunit, vintage detective fiction

🏷️ HASHTAGS
#NocturnalTales #GoldenAgeMystery #ClassicMystery #FullAudiobook #LockedRoomMystery #DetectiveFiction #Whodunnit #VintageMystery

📌 Patreon — every new case first, ad-free and early ($2.99/month)
https://www.patreon.com/NocturnalTales
🌐 Website — every story we've ever made, free to listen. No paywall, no account, no password.
https://nocturnaltalespodcast.com

It begins in a crowd on Oxford Street, waiting for one of those processions that benevolent institutions periodically inflict upon London traffic.

A man dies in the press of people. In the confusion a scrap of paper covered in strange characters passes from hand to hand, and within a few hours the police, a professor of antiquities, and a number of considerably less respectable persons all want it very badly indeed.

Everybody agrees on what must be done. The cipher must be decoded. Scholars are consulted. Anarchists are suspected. Learned energy is expended in quantity.

Dr John Thorndyke — physician, barrister, and the first true forensic scientist in detective fiction — is interested in something else entirely. Not what the document says. The paper it is written on, and what has been done to it.

It is a useful correction to the idea that Freeman only wrote grim laboratory procedurals. He builds an elaborate machine of anarchists, antiquities and secret writing, and then reveals that the whole mechanism turns on something faintly ridiculous.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
This is a complete, unabridged reading of The Moabite Cipher by R. Austin Freeman, collected in John Thorndyke's Cases (1909) and now in the public domain. Every word is the author's own. Part of The Midnight Archive: three nights of classics every week, alongside four original Nocturnal Tales mysteries.

🗳️ YOU CHOOSE WHAT'S NEXT
The Archive is deep — more Dr Thorndyke? Max Carrados? Loveday Brooke? Violet Strange? Sherlock Holmes? Father Brown? Lady Molly? Raffles? Arsène Lupin? Vote in the poll attached to this episode, or tell us in the comments which classic you want to hear by lamplight.

💬 QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS
Everyone in this story attacks the cipher. Thorndyke attacks the paper. How far in did you get before you suspected what the document really was? 🕵️

🕒 CHAPTERS
00:00 - Introduction
02:00 - Part One
16:24 - Part Two
29:22 - Part Three
43:39 - Part Four

📖 GET THE EBOOK — $3.99

📌 Patreon — included with Writing Table & Archive Society, or one-time purchase
https://www.patreon.com/posts/156573383

🛒 Gumroad — EPUB + PDF included
https://nocturnaltalespod.gumroad.com/l/ebookvol2

❤️ SUPPORT & LISTENING OPTIONS

📌 Patreon — every new case first, ad-free and early
https://www.patreon.com/NocturnalTales

🌐 Website — every story, free, no account needed
https://nocturnaltalespodcast.com

📺 Rumble — free, supports us with ad revenue
https://rumble.com/c/c-7820714

❤️ Buy Me a Coffee — one-time support
https://buymeacoffee.com/nocturnaltales

💛 PayPal — one-time tip
https://paypal.me/nocturnaltalesprod

🎧 Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nocturnal-tales-mystery-audiobooks-and-crime-stories/id1896195848

🧾 CREDITS
Narrated and produced by Nocturnal Tales. Story by R. Austin Freeman (public domain).

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
r austin freeman audiobook, dr thorndyke audiobook, the moabite cipher audiobook, john thorndyke's cases 1909, cipher and code mystery, forensic detective story, scientific detective fiction, edwardian london mystery, secret writing mystery, classic detective story audiobook, public domain audiobook, unabridged classic mystery

🏷️ HASHTAGS
#NocturnalTales #MidnightArchive #DrThorndyke #RAustinFreeman #ClassicMystery #FullAudiobook #Unabridged #CipherMystery #ForensicMystery #PublicDomain

📌 Patreon — every new case first, ad-free and early ($2.99/month)
https://www.patreon.com/NocturnalTales
🌐 Website — every story we've ever made, free to listen. No paywall, no account, no password.
https://nocturnaltalespodcast.com

New Orleans, the spring of nineteen thirty-three. There are certain cities which, even before one has committed a crime in them, seem already to know the secret.

Arthur and the Belgian Detective have come for a rest. They have been in the city less than four hours when the telephone rings in their suite at the Roosevelt Hotel.

A prosperous man named Charles Rabito has been shot in a warehouse by the river. Two men have already confessed to being present when it happened, and each of them says the other fired.

The statements were taken independently, and they agree in every particular but one. The same summons at half past eleven. The same argument over money. The same warehouse, the same hour, the same quarrel — and two different hands on the revolver.

One of them is lying, which seems simple enough. The Belgian Detective looks at his friend for rather a long time before answering.

The Two Confessions is an original Golden Age-style mystery about the difference between a lie and a contradiction — and about a family that would rather send two men to separate trials than let one thing be said aloud.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
An original mystery written by Nocturnal Tales, inspired by the spirit of the great Golden Age crime writers. Plot, characters as portrayed, and text are our own. It takes its starting point from a real Louisiana case: Charles Rabito was murdered, and John Capaci and George Daleo were each prosecuted, each placing the shot on the other, and were tried separately. The motive, relationships, setting and solution are invented, and we discuss the real case factually in the Epilogue. All characters as depicted are fictional. No affiliation is implied.

💬 QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS
Both men describe the same night accurately and both still mislead us. Which one did you believe first, and how long did you hold on to it? 🕵️

🕒 CHAPTERS
00:00 - Introduction
02:09 - The Two Confessions
11:14 - The Warehouse on the River
22:52 - The Woman in Ivory
33:34 - The Song Behind the Warehouse
46:01 - The Man Who Disappeared
59:19 - The Third Story
1:09:38 - Epilogue
1:11:28 - Closing

📖 GET THE EBOOK — $3.99

📌 Patreon — included with Writing Table & Archive Society, or one-time purchase
https://www.patreon.com/posts/156573383

🛒 Gumroad — EPUB + PDF included
https://nocturnaltalespod.gumroad.com/l/ebookvol2

❤️ SUPPORT & LISTENING OPTIONS

📌 Patreon — every new case first, ad-free and early
https://www.patreon.com/NocturnalTales

🌐 Website — every story, free, no account needed
https://nocturnaltalespodcast.com

📺 Rumble — free, supports us with ad revenue
https://rumble.com/c/c-7820714

❤️ Buy Me a Coffee — one-time support
https://buymeacoffee.com/nocturnaltales

💛 PayPal — one-time tip
https://paypal.me/nocturnaltalesprod

🎧 Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nocturnal-tales-mystery-audiobooks-and-crime-stories/id1896195848

🧾 CREDITS
Written by Nocturnal Tales. Narrated by Nocturnal Tales.

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
golden age mystery audiobook, new orleans 1930s mystery, louisiana true crime mystery, historical mystery audiobook, belgian detective audiobook, arthur mystery audiobook, charles rabito case, two confessions mystery, closed circle whodunit, full length mystery audiobook, classic detective story audiobook, vintage detective fiction

🏷️ HASHTAGS
#NocturnalTales #GoldenAgeMystery #ClassicMystery #FullAudiobook #HistoricalMystery #NewOrleans #DetectiveFiction #Whodunnit

📌 Patreon — every new case first, ad-free and early ($2.99/month)
https://www.patreon.com/NocturnalTales
🌐 Website — every story we've ever made, free to listen. No paywall, no account, no password.
https://nocturnaltalespodcast.com

The newspaper-reading public called it the Somersetshire Outrage, and to this day, as far as the public is concerned, it was never properly explained at all.

A young shop assistant named Jane Turner is found in her lodgings at Weston, tied to a chair with a rope, a shawl over her head, half-slipping to the floor. Somebody rushed at her, struck her, and pressed a damp handkerchief to her face. Nothing was stolen. Nothing was gained. The assault appears entirely without purpose.

Scotland Yard works at it for three weeks and gets nowhere. There is a sweetheart with an alibi that holds, an elderly woman nobody can trace, and a series of assignations at out-of-the-way railway stations.

Then Lady Molly reads a few silly paragraphs in a London newspaper and has the whole thing.

She is the head of Scotland Yard's Female Department, and Baroness Orczy — the same author who gave the world the Scarlet Pimpernel — put her in charge of it in nineteen ten, at a time when the real Yard would not have dreamed of it. What she uncovers here is not a criminal conspiracy at all. It is a single reckless afternoon, and a great many frightened people afterwards arranging themselves around it.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
This is a complete, unabridged reading of A Day's Folly by Baroness Orczy, collected in Lady Molly of Scotland Yard (1910) and now in the public domain. Every word is the author's own. Part of The Midnight Archive: three nights of classics every week, alongside four original Nocturnal Tales mysteries.

🗳️ YOU CHOOSE WHAT'S NEXT
The Archive is deep — more Lady Molly? Max Carrados? Loveday Brooke? Violet Strange? Sherlock Holmes? Father Brown? Raffles? Dr Thorndyke? Arsène Lupin? Vote in the poll attached to this episode, or tell us in the comments which classic you want to hear by lamplight.

💬 QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS
Lady Molly solves it and then agrees to let the whole thing be buried, because a frightened woman matters more to her than a conviction. Was she right? 🕵️

🕒 CHAPTERS
00:00 - Introduction
01:45 - Part One
12:11 - Part Two
22:56 - Part Three
33:07 - Part Four

📖 GET THE EBOOK — $3.99

📌 Patreon — included with Writing Table & Archive Society, or one-time purchase
https://www.patreon.com/posts/156573383

🛒 Gumroad — EPUB + PDF included
https://nocturnaltalespod.gumroad.com/l/ebookvol2

❤️ SUPPORT & LISTENING OPTIONS

📌 Patreon — every new case first, ad-free and early
https://www.patreon.com/NocturnalTales

🌐 Website — every story, free, no account needed
https://nocturnaltalespodcast.com

📺 Rumble — free, supports us with ad revenue
https://rumble.com/c/c-7820714

❤️ Buy Me a Coffee — one-time support
https://buymeacoffee.com/nocturnaltales

💛 PayPal — one-time tip
https://paypal.me/nocturnaltalesprod

🎧 Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nocturnal-tales-mystery-audiobooks-and-crime-stories/id1896195848

🧾 CREDITS
Narrated and produced by Nocturnal Tales. Story by Baroness Orczy (public domain).

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
baroness orczy audiobook, lady molly audiobook, a day's folly audiobook, lady molly of scotland yard 1910, female detective audiobook, scotland yard female department, edwardian england mystery, blackmail mystery story, staged crime mystery, classic detective story audiobook, public domain audiobook, unabridged classic mystery

🏷️ HASHTAGS
#NocturnalTales #MidnightArchive #LadyMolly #BaronessOrczy #ClassicMystery #FullAudiobook #Unabridged #FemaleDetective #EdwardianMystery #PublicDomain

📌 Patreon — every new case first, ad-free and early ($2.99/month)
https://www.patreon.com/NocturnalTales
🌐 Website — every story we've ever made, free to listen. No paywall, no account, no password.
https://nocturnaltalespodcast.com

Mexico City, the summer of nineteen twenty-eight. A banquet is given for the man who is about to become President — a soldier who won a civil war, lost an arm doing it, and has collected enemies ever since.

Arthur is a guest at that dinner, seated beside the Belgian Detective, who has spent the evening being politely bored.

At ten minutes past ten a young artist appears at the door with a sketchbook. Nobody seems to know who invited him. He asks permission to draw the guest of honour, and permission is cheerfully given, because a caricature is a harmless thing.

He is halfway through the sketch when a woman across the room drops her champagne glass. She has gone completely white. She is not looking at the drawing. She is looking at the artist.

Four minutes later the guest of honour is dead, the artist has been beaten to death by the crowd, and there is a torn scrap of cream-coloured paper on the floor with four words on it in Spanish.

What follows is not a hunt for an assassin. Fifty people watched him fire. It is a colder question altogether: who put the pistol in that young man's pocket, and how do you commit a murder using a stranger's hand?

The Last Portrait is an original Golden Age-style mystery about grievance, patience, and the difference between the man who fires and the man who aims.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
An original mystery written by Nocturnal Tales, inspired by the spirit of the great Golden Age crime writers. Plot, characters and text are entirely our own; all characters and events are fictional. The setting draws on the real 1928 assassination of Mexican President-elect Álvaro Obregón, discussed factually in the Epilogue. Our General Alejandro Serrano is an invention, not the historical General Francisco R. Serrano. No affiliation is implied.

💬 QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS
The man who fired was not the murderer, and the murderer never touched a weapon. Where does the guilt actually sit? 🕵️

🕒 CHAPTERS
00:00 - Introduction
02:25 - The Portrait at Dinner
12:40 - The Dead Man's Pencil
25:05 - San Miguel
37:59 - The Seventh Portrait
50:14 - The Woman in Emeralds
1:01:41 - The Last Portrait
1:11:49 - Epilogue
1:16:56 - Closing

📖 GET THE EBOOK — $3.99

📌 Patreon — included with Writing Table & Archive Society, or one-time purchase
https://www.patreon.com/posts/156573383

🛒 Gumroad — EPUB + PDF included
https://nocturnaltalespod.gumroad.com/l/ebookvol2

❤️ SUPPORT & LISTENING OPTIONS

📌 Patreon — every new case first, ad-free and early
https://www.patreon.com/NocturnalTales

🌐 Website — every story, free, no account needed
https://nocturnaltalespodcast.com

📺 Rumble — free, supports us with ad revenue
https://rumble.com/c/c-7820714

❤️ Buy Me a Coffee — one-time support
https://buymeacoffee.com/nocturnaltales

💛 PayPal — one-time tip
https://paypal.me/nocturnaltalesprod

🎧 Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nocturnal-tales-mystery-audiobooks-and-crime-stories/id1896195848

🧾 CREDITS
Written by Nocturnal Tales. Narrated by Nocturnal Tales.

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
golden age mystery audiobook, 1920s mexico mystery, mexico city 1928 mystery, historical mystery audiobook, assassination mystery story, belgian detective audiobook, arthur mystery audiobook, original golden age whodunit, unsolved historical murder, full length mystery audiobook, classic detective story audiobook, vintage detective fiction

🏷️ HASHTAGS
#NocturnalTales #GoldenAgeMystery #ClassicMystery #FullAudiobook #HistoricalMystery #DetectiveFiction #Whodunnit #UnsolvedMystery

📌 Patreon — every new case first, ad-free and early ($2.99/month)
https://www.patreon.com/NocturnalTales
🌐 Website — every story we've ever made, free to listen. No paywall, no account, no password.
https://nocturnaltalespodcast.com

It begins with Max Carrados greeting his friend Carlyle at the door and remarking that he has a mystery about him somewhere. He can hear it in the man's step.

The mystery is a railway disaster. A signal was passed at danger on a stretch of suburban line, two trains met, and a great many people are dead. The signalman swears on everything he has that the light was green when the express went through.

Everybody accepts that he is either lying to save himself or was too drunk to know, and the official inquiry is about to decide which. His career, and very probably his liberty, ends either way.

Carrados has never seen a signal light in his life. He is also not satisfied that those are the only two possibilities.

What follows is one of the most quietly technical stories Ernest Bramah ever wrote, and one of the coldest endings in Edwardian detective fiction. There is no arrest and no struggle. A man stands up, a door closes, and Carlyle is left with the uncomfortable feeling that he ought to have done something and cannot think what.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
This is a complete, unabridged reading of The Knight's Cross Signal Problem by Ernest Bramah, collected in Max Carrados (1914) and now in the public domain. Every word is the author's own. Part of The Midnight Archive: three nights of classics every week, alongside four original Nocturnal Tales mysteries.

⚠️ A NOTE ON THIS RECORDING
Published in 1914, this story reflects the attitudes of its time, including toward empire and race. We present it unaltered, as we do every text in the Archive.

🗳️ YOU CHOOSE WHAT'S NEXT
The Archive is deep — more Max Carrados? Loveday Brooke? Violet Strange? Sherlock Holmes? Father Brown? Lady Molly? Raffles? Dr Thorndyke? Arsène Lupin? Vote in the poll attached to this episode, or tell us in the comments which classic you want to hear by lamplight.

💬 QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS
Carrados is not a policeman, and he decides for himself how this one ends. Did he have the right to settle it the way he does? 🕵️

🕒 CHAPTERS
00:00 - Introduction
01:58 - Part One
16:36 - Part Two
32:06 - Part Three
48:00 - Part Four

📖 GET THE EBOOK — $3.99

📌 Patreon — included with Writing Table & Archive Society, or one-time purchase
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🧾 CREDITS
Narrated and produced by Nocturnal Tales. Story by Ernest Bramah (public domain).

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
ernest bramah audiobook, max carrados audiobook, the knight's cross signal problem audiobook, max carrados 1914 collection, blind detective mystery, railway disaster mystery, train crash detective story, edwardian london mystery, scientific detective fiction, classic detective story audiobook, public domain audiobook, unabridged classic mystery

🏷️ HASHTAGS
#NocturnalTales #MidnightArchive #MaxCarrados #ErnestBramah #ClassicMystery #FullAudiobook #Unabridged #BlindDetective #RailwayMystery #PublicDomain

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Two cases tonight from the gentleman thief who has drawn more requests than anybody else in the Archive.

WILFUL MURDER is the darkest thing in the whole collection. Bunny warns us at the outset that most of their robberies will not bear telling at length. This one will — because on this occasion Raffles is not planning a theft at all. There is a man who knows too much about them, a fence out at Willesden with a nasty habit of following people home, and Raffles has worked out, quite calmly and from the comfort of an armchair, what the only permanent solution to such a man would be. He is not joking. Bunny cannot make him stop.

NINE POINTS OF THE LAW is the antidote, and Hornung knew exactly what he was doing by pairing this kind of story with that kind. A gentleman answers a very strange advertisement and engages Raffles for a very particular commission: not to steal something belonging to somebody else, but to steal back something that was stolen from him. Possession, as the saying goes, is nine points of the law. Raffles has always found the tenth point negotiable.

Both come from The Amateur Cracksman (1899), the book that invented the gentleman thief and made a hero of a man the reader really should not be rooting for.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
This is a complete, unabridged reading of these two stories by E. W. Hornung, collected in The Amateur Cracksman (1899) and now in the public domain. Every word is the author's own. Part of The Midnight Archive: three nights of classics every week, alongside four original Nocturnal Tales mysteries.

🗳️ YOU CHOOSE WHAT'S NEXT
The Archive is deep — more from tonight's detective? Loveday Brooke? Violet Strange? Sherlock Holmes? Father Brown? Max Carrados? Lady Molly? Raffles? Dr Thorndyke? Arsène Lupin? Vote in the poll attached to this episode, or tell us in the comments which classic you want to hear by lamplight.

💬 QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS
Wilful Murder shows you what Raffles actually is; Nine Points reminds you why Bunny keeps coming back. Which of tonight's two did you prefer? 🕵️

🕒 CHAPTERS
00:00 - Introduction
01:46 - Wilful Murder
33:42 - Interlude
34:24 - Nine Points of the Law

📖 GET THE EBOOK — $3.99

📌 Patreon — included with Writing Table & Archive Society, or one-time purchase
https://www.patreon.com/posts/156573383

🛒 Gumroad — EPUB + PDF included
https://nocturnaltalespod.gumroad.com/l/ebookvol2

❤️ SUPPORT & LISTENING OPTIONS

📌 Patreon — every new case first, ad-free and early
https://www.patreon.com/NocturnalTales

🌐 Website — every story, free, no account needed
https://nocturnaltalespodcast.com

📺 Rumble — free, supports us with ad revenue
https://rumble.com/c/c-7820714

❤️ Buy Me a Coffee — one-time support
https://buymeacoffee.com/nocturnaltales

💛 PayPal — one-time tip
https://paypal.me/nocturnaltalesprod

🎧 Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nocturnal-tales-mystery-audiobooks-and-crime-stories/id1896195848

🧾 CREDITS
Narrated and produced by Nocturnal Tales. Story by E. W. Hornung (public domain).

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
e w hornung audiobook, raffles audiobook, wilful murder audiobook, nine points of the law audiobook, the amateur cracksman 1899, gentleman thief mystery, gentleman burglar story, victorian crime fiction, raffles and bunny, classic detective story audiobook, public domain audiobook, unabridged classic mystery

🏷️ HASHTAGS
#NocturnalTales #MidnightArchive #Raffles #EWHornung #GentlemanThief #ClassicMystery #FullAudiobook #Unabridged #VictorianCrime #PublicDomain