Nocturnal Tales: Mystery Audiobooks and Crime Stories

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A double bill for the blind detective — two more cases from Ernest Bramah.

🕯️ THE GAME PLAYED IN THE DARK
By some distance the most famous Carrados story ever written. It begins with Inspector Beedel making conversation: nothing happens abroad, he says, without leaving some trace of it in London — if only somebody troubles to look. Faked securities in Mexico. A jade charm pawned for one and threepence down at the Basin. Real First-Class Crime. Before the night is over, Max Carrados will find himself in a house he does not control, outnumbered and entirely at the mercy of people who mean him harm — and there he will discover the one contest in which a blind man has never been at any disadvantage at all.

🔍 THE TILLING SHAW MYSTERY
A quieter case. It opens in Carrados's own study, the morning's clearing-up still in progress, when a girl of about twenty comes in from Oakshire — nervous, brave and desperate. A man's life depends on a single piece of evidence. The trouble is that everybody has already accepted it without question.

Tonight's pairing shows the two halves of what makes Carrados worth returning to: turning his supposed weakness into an overwhelming advantage, and the patient business of refusing to accept a fact simply because everyone else already has.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
These are complete, unabridged readings of The Game Played in the Dark and The Tilling Shaw Mystery by Ernest Bramah, 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? Sherlock Holmes? Father Brown? Lady Molly? Loveday Brooke? 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
Bramah gives his detective something the era almost never allowed: an ending that is kind. "Yes, there is friendship at first sight" is not a line Sherlock Holmes would ever have been given. Which of tonight's two stayed with you? 🕵️

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

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
ernest bramah audiobook, max carrados audiobook, the game played in the dark, the tilling shaw mystery, blind detective mystery, inspector beedel, edwardian mystery audiobook, wrongly accused mystery, double bill mystery, classic detective story audiobook, public domain audiobook, unabridged classic mystery

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There are marriages which fail because husband and wife stop loving one another. And there are marriages which become infinitely more dangerous because they insist on loving in the wrong way.

London, March 1936. On a wet evening outside the Savoy, a young clergyman stops the Belgian Detective in the street. The Reverend Julian Dyson is pale, apologetic and frightened — and the household he describes is one of the strangest he and Arthur have ever been asked to enter.

Charles Bartlett is a prosperous man with a considerably younger wife, Adelaide. The third member of the household is Dyson himself, who came as Adelaide's tutor and spiritual adviser and has become a great deal closer. What is extraordinary is the husband's attitude: rather than driving the young minister away, Charles encourages the friendship, permits the intimacy, and has quietly altered his will so that his wife will lose nothing if she marries again after his death.

Generosity? Manipulation? Illness? Then Charles begins to sicken. And at a quarter past one one morning, he is violently, fatally ill.

The wife had the opportunity. The lover had bought the poison. The poison was found inside the victim. And yet the single question on which a murder conviction depends has no answer at all: how did it get there?

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
This is an original Golden Age-style mystery presented as a respectful homage to classic detective fiction, inspired by the real Pimlico Mystery of 1886 — the case of Adelaide Bartlett, her husband Edwin, and the Reverend George Dyson, in which the medical evidence defeated the prosecution entirely. Names, dates, characters and solution here are altered and fictionalised. All characters are fictional. No affiliation, endorsement, or official connection is implied.

💬 QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS
In the real case the jury was told, in effect: we know how, we know who benefited, we simply cannot explain the method. So they acquitted. When a crime is obvious but unprovable, should the law follow the evidence or the instinct? 🕵️

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

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
Belgian detective mystery audiobook, Pimlico Mystery inspired, Adelaide Bartlett case, chloroform poisoning mystery, unsolved poisoning case, 1930s London mystery, love triangle murder, impossible method mystery, Arthur narrator mystery, golden age mystery audiobook, true crime inspired mystery, classic whodunit audiobook, full-length mystery audiobook, historical mystery audiobook

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A second double bill for Lady Molly of Scotland Yard — two of Baroness Orczy's strongest cases.

🧥 THE IRISH-TWEED COAT
It begins with an Englishman dead in Sicily. Mr. Andrew Carrthwaite, a Yorkshireman who owned marble works outside Palermo and refused to let a single one of his workmen join any society, club or union, is found in his own garden with a stiletto between his shoulder blades — and a scrap of rough Irish tweed, torn from his killer's coat, clutched in his hand. His gold watch is missing, which looks like robbery; the Sicilian police think otherwise. The case will take Lady Molly a very long way from Scotland Yard — further than is entirely safe.

🏰 THE FORDWYCH CASTLE MYSTERY
When the ablest men at the Yard are at their wits' end, the chief instinctively turns to Lady Molly. A death at a great house. An ancient barony that descends through the female line. Two granddaughters, a disputed inheritance, a lawyer, and a household in which almost everyone is a woman with something to protect — and a solution nobody at Scotland Yard will reach by ordinary means.

What is striking about tonight's pair is how far Orczy lets her heroine go: arrested abroad in one story, handing a great house its worst secret in the other, and in neither does she need rescuing.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
These are complete, unabridged readings of The Irish-Tweed Coat and The Fordwych Castle Mystery 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? Loveday Brooke? Raffles? Max Carrados? Arsène Lupin? Sherlock Holmes? Father Brown? 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
In the first case, a woman is too frightened of a man to accuse him even after everything. The people most afraid to speak usually have the best reason to. Which of tonight's two stayed with you? 🕵️

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

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
baroness orczy audiobook, lady molly of scotland yard, the irish tweed coat audiobook, the fordwych castle mystery, female detective audiobook, edwardian mystery audiobook, sicily murder mystery, Palermo stiletto murder, country house mystery, disputed inheritance mystery, double bill mystery, public domain audiobook, unabridged classic mystery

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Dublin, and the agency's newest client arrives carrying a flat leather dispatch case and a reputation he is about to lose. Captain Corrigan was one of the men who prepared the great westward Atlantic flight from Baldonnel aerodrome — a modest figure at the edge of photographs full of more famous men. Now a valuer preparing the case for an American collector has found the lining pulled away beside the clasp, and paper beneath it: a telegram form, folded twice, warning of conditions over the western Atlantic. Addressed to Corrigan. Timed before the aeroplane left. If it is genuine, he let three men fly into weather he knew about and said nothing. A reporter from the Evening Record already has the story and will print on Wednesday. With Anne at the second desk, Pip underfoot, and four days to prove a document false, Captain Arthur follows the case through hangar number three, an Air Corps records office, an auction house and a night of fire at the aerodrome — to a message that was never sent, and a man who worked out precisely what a hero's name is worth. The Telegram from Baldonnel is an original Golden Age-style mystery about courage, reputation, and the difference between being needed and being loved.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
This is an original Golden Age-style mystery presented as a respectful homage to classic detective fiction. All characters and events in this story are fictional. No affiliation, endorsement, or official connection is implied.

💬 QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS
A single piece of paper, and a man's entire life's work becomes a question mark. He can prove nothing; he can only be disproved. If someone forged one document about you, how much of your reputation would survive the week? 🕵️

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

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
Captain Arthur Anne Foster, Dublin mystery audiobook, aviation mystery audiobook, forged telegram mystery, Baldonnel aerodrome mystery, 1920s Dublin mystery, transatlantic flight mystery, reputation ruined mystery, detective agency mystery, Pip the spaniel mystery, document forgery mystery, golden age mystery audiobook, classic whodunit audiobook, full-length mystery audiobook, historical mystery audiobook

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A double bill tonight, and our longest case of the fortnight: two complete mysteries for Miss Loveday Brooke, the quiet, plainly dressed professional of the Lynch Court agency.

🔍 MISSING!
Five hundred pounds reward. A young woman has walked out of her father's park at ten in the morning and simply not come back — and by the time the handbill reaches the Lynch Court office, she has been gone ten days. Loveday goes down to Langford Hall and finds a household in which almost everybody has a reason to want the truth kept quiet.

🕯️ A PRINCESS'S VENGEANCE
The second case is darker. A girl who is young, pretty, friendless and a foreigner has disappeared as completely as if the earth had opened to receive her — and two whole days were allowed to pass before anyone troubled to call the police. Scotland Yard has as good as dropped it. What Loveday finds is a household where a great deal of kindness is being performed in public, and something quite different in private.

Two vanished women, two very different explanations. Billed in her day as "the female Sherlock Holmes," Loveday Brooke is nothing like him — no theatrics, no lecture at the end, just a woman nobody thinks to watch, watching everybody.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
These are complete, unabridged readings of Missing! and A Princess's Vengeance by Catherine Louisa Pirkis, collected in The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective (1894) 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 Loveday Brooke? Sherlock Holmes? Father Brown? Lady Molly? Violet Strange? Raffles? Max Carrados? 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
At the end, a certain gentleman draws on his gloves, recovers his easy manner, and asks that people understand he acted only out of kindness to a friendless foreigner. Pirkis lets him have his exit line — and makes quite sure we know what it's worth. Which of tonight's two cases stayed with you? 🕵️

📖 GET THE EBOOK — $3.99

📌 Patreon — included with Writing Table & Archive Society, or one-time purchase
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🛒 Gumroad — EPUB + PDF included
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❤️ SUPPORT & LISTENING OPTIONS

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🧾 CREDITS
Stories by Catherine Louisa Pirkis (public domain). Narrated and produced by Nocturnal Tales.

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
c l pirkis audiobook, loveday brooke audiobook, missing audiobook story, a princess's vengeance audiobook, lady detective victorian, female detective audiobook, lynch court agency, missing woman mystery, victorian mystery audiobook, double bill mystery, classic detective story audiobook, public domain audiobook, unabridged classic mystery

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São Paulo, February 1929. Carnival has seized the city by the collar: drums and trumpets in the avenues, coffee fortunes discussed before breakfast, a woman dressed as Cleopatra scattering flowers from the roof of a motorcar. From the window of the Hotel Esplanada the Belgian Detective pronounces the whole thing excessive. Then a shot is fired inside the Crystal Gallery — and in a city where every face is behind a mask, nobody can say who pulled the trigger. A thin gold bracelet is caught against an iron ridge. A small lock of hair has been cut away close to the skin. A woman in a white cloak walks out through the crowd and is not seen again. A passenger holds a ticket for a train she never boarded, and a man who died twenty years ago appears to have been in the room. As the procession moves south and the music keeps playing beneath the windows, the Belgian Detective and his loyal companion Arthur uncover a crime built on old humiliation, careful theatre, and a shot that came before the shot everyone heard. The Mask Beneath the Glass is an original Golden Age-style mystery about honour, scandal, and what a crowd will forgive when it likes the story.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
This is an original Golden Age-style mystery presented as a respectful homage to classic detective fiction, inspired by the real Galeria de Cristal case in São Paulo, in which a woman was tried five separate times for the same killing and juries looking at identical evidence reached entirely different verdicts. The date, characters, conspiracy and solution here are invented. All characters are fictional. No affiliation, endorsement, or official connection is implied.

💬 QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS
In the real case there was never much doubt about who fired the shot. Five juries saw the same confession, the same weapons and the same dead man — and could not agree on what justice required. When the facts are settled and the verdict still isn't, what is a jury actually deciding? 🕵️

📖 GET THE EBOOK — $3.99

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

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
Belgian detective mystery audiobook, São Paulo 1929 mystery, Carnival murder mystery, Galeria de Cristal inspired, Brazilian history mystery, honour killing trial mystery, masked crowd mystery, 1920s South America mystery, Arthur narrator mystery, golden age mystery audiobook, courtroom scandal mystery, classic whodunit audiobook, full-length mystery audiobook, historical mystery audiobook, hotel murder mystery

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A young doctor with a brilliant degree and no money is offered an arrangement too generous to refuse: a fine house in Brook Street, a practice fully furnished, and a silent partner who asks only for a share of the takings and a room of his own. The partner is a nervous, elderly man named Blessington — and Blessington is afraid of something. Then a Russian nobleman calls at Brook Street with his son, a room is found locked and empty, and Blessington's terror becomes almost unbearable over a burglary in which nothing at all was taken. Sherlock Holmes is asked to explain why a man should be so frightened by thieves who stole nothing; the answer lies years in the past, and it is closing in on Brook Street with great patience. Presented complete and unabridged, exactly as Arthur Conan Doyle wrote it, from the Midnight Archive, Nocturnal Tales' library of the classic detective stories that built the genre.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
This is a complete, unabridged reading of The Resident Patient by Arthur Conan Doyle, first published in 1893 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 Sherlock Holmes? Father Brown? Raffles? Max Carrados? Lady Molly? Arsène Lupin? Violet Strange? 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
Nothing was stolen — and that was the most frightening thing that could possibly have happened. When would an empty-handed burglary terrify you more than a robbery? 🕵️

📖 GET THE EBOOK — $3.99

📌 Patreon — included with Writing Table & Archive Society, or one-time purchase
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🛒 Gumroad — EPUB + PDF included
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🧾 CREDITS
Story by Arthur Conan Doyle (public domain). Narrated and produced by Nocturnal Tales.

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
arthur conan doyle audiobook, sherlock holmes audiobook, the resident patient audiobook, memoirs of sherlock holmes, brook street mystery, Blessington, blackmail revenge story, locked room mystery, victorian mystery audiobook, classic detective story audiobook, public domain audiobook, full-length classic audiobook, unabridged classic mystery

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A double bill tonight from the gentleman thief you asked for more than any other: A. J. Raffles, by E. W. Hornung — Conan Doyle's own brother-in-law, who dedicated the collection to him.

🏏 GENTLEMEN AND PLAYERS
The most celebrated Raffles story of them all. Raffles is a dangerous bat, a brilliant field and perhaps the finest slow bowler of his decade — and he takes remarkably little interest in cricket for its own sake. So what exactly does he find interesting about a country-house cricket week? And why is a professional player on the other side watching him quite so closely? The game on the lawn is very far from the only game being played.

💎 A COSTUME PIECE
London is talking about Reuben Rosenthall, who made his millions on the diamond fields of South Africa and has come home to enjoy them in the most conspicuous way imaginable — enormous diamonds in his shirt and on his finger, and a prize-fighter of heinous repute at his shoulder. He is exactly the sort of man Raffles cannot resist. He is also, as Bunny is about to discover, exactly the sort of man who keeps something rather more dangerous than a safe.

Two burglaries, two very different methods. In each, the pleasure is watching Raffles work out not how to break in, but how to be the last person anyone suspects.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
These are complete, unabridged readings of Gentlemen and Players and A Costume Piece 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 Raffles? Sherlock Holmes? Father Brown? Max Carrados? Lady Molly? Arsène Lupin? Violet Strange? 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
Raffles never hides in the shadows — he hides behind his own good name. Who's harder to catch: the criminal nobody can find, or the one nobody can believe? 🕵️

📖 GET THE EBOOK — $3.99

📌 Patreon — included with Writing Table & Archive Society, or one-time purchase
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❤️ SUPPORT & LISTENING OPTIONS

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

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
e w hornung audiobook, raffles audiobook, gentlemen and players audiobook, a costume piece audiobook, the amateur cracksman, gentleman thief story, cricket mystery story, jewel theft story, Reuben Rosenthall, victorian crime story, double bill mystery, classic detective story audiobook, public domain audiobook, unabridged classic mystery

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In the spring of 1924, the Andalucía Express departs Madrid for an overnight journey towards Seville. Near the rear of the train, two armed postal clerks guard a locked mail van containing a leather case said to be worth nearly a million pesetas.

When the emergency cord is pulled in open country, the van is found bolted from within. One clerk lies dead, the other gravely wounded, and the valuable case has vanished. A passenger has disappeared, his glove lies beside the bodies, and an injured railway inspector claims that a mysterious man jumped from the moving train.

But the evidence soon becomes stranger. A warning appears on the outside of a rain-soaked window. A photograph is taken from beyond the moving train. The dead clerk’s body disappears from a sealed carriage—and the missing leather case returns in its place.

With every clue apparently identifying a different culprit, the investigation must determine who was truly aboard the Andalucía Express, who was already dead before it departed, and how a living man vanished from a railway van locked on both sides.

This is a fast-moving Nocturnal Tales railway mystery of false identities, manufactured evidence and murder aboard one of Spain’s great night trains.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
This is a complete original mystery written for Nocturnal Tales. The story is followed by a historical epilogue examining the real 1924 Andalucía Express murders that inspired it.

🗳️ YOU CHOOSE WHAT'S NEXT
Should our next mystery take place aboard another train, at sea, or inside an isolated country house? Vote in the poll attached to this episode or tell us in the comments.

💬 QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS
Which clue would have convinced you most—the glove beside the bodies, the military button, or the photograph taken from outside the train? 🕵️

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🧾 CREDITS
Written, narrated and produced by Nocturnal Tales.

Original mystery fiction. © All rights reserved—no reproduction or adaptation permitted.

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
the mystery of the locked mail van, locked mail van mystery, andalucia express mystery, spanish train murder, locked railway carriage mystery, railway mystery audiobook, historical detective story, golden age style mystery, full mystery audiobook, madrid to seville train, 1920s mystery story, impossible crime audiobook, original detective fiction, nocturnal tales mystery

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The whole case turns on one insignificant fact: Max Carrados happened to call on his friend, the inquiry agent Louis Carlyle, at the exact moment Carlyle was leaving for the safe deposit in Lucas Street, Piccadilly. While Carlyle attends to his deed-box, the blind man sits quietly among the palms in the great circular hall, doing nothing at all — or so it appears. What he is actually doing is listening to one of the most secure buildings in London, and hearing something in it that nobody with working eyes has noticed. Meanwhile a celebrated impersonator is preparing the finest job of his career, behind steel doors that are not supposed to open for anyone. Max Carrados is one of the most remarkable detectives ever put on paper: a gentleman who lost his sight and solves his cases entirely without it, and George Orwell counted the Carrados stories among the only detective tales since Poe worth re-reading. Presented complete and unabridged, exactly as Ernest Bramah wrote it, from the Midnight Archive, Nocturnal Tales' library of the classic detective stories that built the genre.

ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS
This is a complete, unabridged reading of The Last Exploit of Harry the Actor 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? Sherlock Holmes? Father Brown? Lady Molly? Arsène Lupin? Raffles? Violet Strange? 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
A room full of people with perfect eyesight walked through that hall and noticed nothing. The blind man sat still and heard everything. What have you missed lately simply because you were looking instead of paying attention? 🕵️

📖 GET THE EBOOK — $3.99

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

🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS
ernest bramah audiobook, max carrados audiobook, the last exploit of harry the actor, blind detective mystery, louis carlyle, safe deposit robbery story, impersonator crime story, Piccadilly mystery, edwardian mystery audiobook, classic detective story audiobook, public domain audiobook, full-length classic audiobook, unabridged classic mystery