Maxwell Marlowe, Private Eye...The Case of the Missing Stamp and Coin Collections

By Raymond Boyd Dunn

Max is set the task of solving the puzzle of a missing stamp album and a tin of valuable coins, a portion of a deceased estate. He has no clues, and no-one has actually seen the contents of the missing items. He also has some decisions to make regarding his love life. Read how the problems are resolved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raymond Boyd Dunn
• Release date: Mar 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301023707

Raymond Boyd Dunn

Raymond Boyd Dunn is a "born and bred" third generation Australian. After his retirement Raymond Boyd became a grey nomad, and, with his wife, spent some time touring this vast country of Australia. He was born in the small Burnett Valley town of Monto, Queensland, and for his entire life has answered to the name of 'Boyd'. Apart from his travels he has lived all of his life in Queensland, and after satisfying his thirst for seeing first hand this wonderful country we live in, settled on the Sunshine Coast to spend his remaining years in the sunshine near the beach.He commenced his working life as a Bank Officer and resigned after thirteen years to become self-employed. At various stages he has owned a Corner Store, a small Supermarket Chain, a Butchery, a Milk Run, a Printery and a Cattle and Grain Farm. He has been involved, in various capacities, in Cricket and Tennis Clubs; Jaycees, Lions and Rotary Clubs and Aero Clubs. He was a Cricketer, played tennis, tried to play golf, and was a keen long distance runner.Upon taking a well-earned retirement he wrote his unpublished autobiography, which was for distribution among his family of six children and numerous grand-children. A visit to Cooktown, where he learnt of the Palmer River Gold Rush, was the incentive to keep writing and produce his first novel 'Palmer Gold' He then settled down to write novels, producing two more books to complete a Trilogy...'An Australian Ranch' and "Carly and Sam...Will and Effie'. There followed numerous short stories, and other novels: 'Lord of the Manor in Australia', and 'The Vintage Years'. He continues to write whilst enjoying life in the sunshine on the beautiful Sunshine Coast in Queensland.

Book preview

Maxwell Marlowe, Private Eye

The Case of the Missing Stamp and Coin Collection

by Raymond Boyd Dunn

Copyright 2013 Raymond Dunn

Smashwords Edition

Chapter 1

Maxwell Marlowe, Private Eye, wake up to yourself! For someone with a supposedly great investigative brain, you haven't got much sense when it comes to choices of the heart.

Don't be alarmed, dear reader, I'm just talking to myself, and recording my thoughts so you can judge for yourself what sort of an idiot I am. If you read my last adventure, 'Get Charlene!', you will realize that I now have a decision to make; it involves Georgina and Sandra.

Georgina Henderson is my current girlfriend who has been a trifle offended by my recent lack of attention; (at least, I hope the word to describe it is 'trifle'). I have to admit that my former passionate relationship with her has cooled considerably. It's a pity really! She is a beautiful woman who lives alone in a flat with a shower which has just enough room for two, provided the two are close friends; which we are ─ or were!

On the other hand, there is Sandra, who is a flatmate in the unit I share with her and Charlene. In all the time she has been renting a room from me in my leased half of a town house in Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, she and I have engaged in a prolonged verbal battle ─ until recently. She used to take every opportunity to 'rattle my cage', especially when I crept into the flat in the not-so-small hours of the morning after a night of passion with Georgie. Suddenly she has softened in her attitude towards me, and it occurs to me that I have a beautiful woman living in close proximity. The change occurred when she opted to stay alone in our flat when there was some danger caused by the case I was involved in, rather than spend the night alone with me, which she seemed to consider would place her in even greater peril. So I left her alone, and was only too happy to spend that night, or any other night, in the arms of my beautiful girlfriend.

Imagine my surprise next morning when she admitted that, alone in the flat, she was terrified all through the long, dark hours, imagining every little sound as being made by an intruder. She changed overnight from a sharp tongued, young harridan, to emerge in the subdued early morning sunlight as a soft-spoken, agreeable young lady; like a beautiful butterfly emerging from its drab, hard-shelled, grey chrysalis.

Is it a testament to my fickle nature that, from the moment of transmogrification, my affections tended to drift away from Georgie towards my lovely flatmate?

Now that I've made the confession, I will tell you a little more about myself. As you have seen, I am a Private Investigator. I have an office in a side street off Aerodrome Road in Maroochydore on the beautiful Queensland Sunshine Coast. Even though I am the only operative in the business, the name plate on the wall near the front door boasts the title of Marlowe Private Investigators ─ a small exaggeration on my part.

My only employee is a secretary, Dorothy, who is worth her weight in gold as far as I am concerned. People are led to believe that a Private Eye's secretary must be a voluptuous, leggy blonde, dressed in a short skirt, and showing plenty of cleavage. Dorothy is not at all like that. She is a demure, well-dressed young lady of very high intelligence, and possesses a memory the equal of the computer she operates with such skill. Also, she is engaged to a good mate of mine, DC Jimmy Smith of the Maroochydore Police. While I am happy that two of my favourite people have decided to tie the knot,