This House to Let

"This House to Let" by William Le Queux is a detective novel written in the early 20th century. The story begins with Constable Brown patrolling Cathcart Square in London, where he discovers a mysterious empty house that has been unoccupied for months, now marked as "To Let." The intrigue escalates when Brown investigates a broken window at the property, leading to a gruesome discovery: the lifeless body of a man, presumed to be a suicide victim. At the start of the novel, we are introduced to Constable Brown, an amiable but rather unambitious policeman, who is curious about the empty house and its caretaker, old Miles. Brown's investigation reveals signs of unusual activity in the house, culminating in the shocking find of the dead man's body with evidence suggesting a connection to a man named Reginald Davis, who was previously suspected of a murder. As the narrative unfolds, it intertwines themes of mystery and social dynamics, hinting at deeper secrets surrounding Davis's life and his tragic end. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

William Tufnell Le Queux was an Anglo-French journalist and writer. He was also a diplomat, a traveller, a flying buff who officiated at the first British air meeting at Doncaster in 1909, and a wireless pioneer who broadcast music from his own station long before radio was generally available; his claims regarding his own abilities and exploits, however, were usually exaggerated. His best-known works are the anti-French and anti-Russian invasion fantasy The Great War in England in 1897 (1894) and the anti-German invasion fantasy The Invasion of 1910 (1906), the latter becoming a bestseller.