The Mystery of the Poisoned Dish of Mushrooms (A Classic Short Story of Detective Max Carrados)

By Ernest Bramah

This early work by Ernest Bramah was originally published in the early 20th century and we are now republishing it with a brand new introduction. 'The Mystery of the Poisoned Dish of Mushrooms' is a classic case of poison and skulduggery for blind super sleuth Max Carrados. Ernest Bramah Smith was born was near Manchester in 1868. He was a poor student, and dropped out of the Manchester Grammar School when sixteen years old to go into the farming business. Bramah found commercial and critical success with his first novel, The Wallet of Kai Lung, but it was his later stories of detective Max Carrados that assured him lasting fame.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Jan 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473378803

Ernest Bramah

Ernest Bramah (1868–1942) was an English author of detective fiction.

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The Mystery of the

Poisoned Dish of

Mushrooms

By

Ernest Bramah

Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Ernest Bramah

Ernest Bramah Smith was born was near Manchester in 1868. He was a poor student, and dropped out of the Manchester Grammar School when sixteen years old to go into the farming business. During his late teens, he began to contribute short stories and vignettes to the Birmingham News. A few years later, he moved to London’s Grub Street - famous for its concentration of impoverished ‘hack writers’ – and eventually became editor of a number of journals.

Bramah found commercial and critical success with his first novel, The Wallet of Kai Lung, in 1900. The character of Kai Lang – a travelling storyteller in China – went on to feature in a number of his works, many of which featured fantasy elements such as dragons and gods, and utilised an idiosyncratic form of Mandarin English. Something of a recluse, Bramah also wrote political science fiction – in fact, his 1907 novel The Secret of the League was acknowledged by George Orwell as a forerunner to his famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four – and even tried his hand at detective fiction. At the height of his fame, Bramah’s mystery tales, featuring the blind detective Max Carrados, appeared alongside Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories in the Strand Magazine, even occasionally outselling them. Bramah died in 1942, aged 74.

THE MYSTERY OF THE POISONED

DISH OF MUSHROOMS

Some time during November of a recent year, newspaper readers who are in the habit of being attracted by curious items of quite negligible importance might have followed the account of the tragedy of a St. Abbots schoolboy which appeared in the Press under the headings, Fatal Dish of Mushrooms, Are Toadstools Distinguishable? or some similarly alluring title.

The facts relating to the death of Charlie Winpole were simple and straightforward and the jury sworn to the business of investigating the cause had no hesitation in bringing in a verdict in accordance with the medical evidence. The witnesses who had anything really material to contribute were only two in number, Mrs. Dupreen and Robert Wilberforce Slark, M. D. A couple of hours would easily have disposed of every detail of an inquiry that was generally admitted to have been a pure formality, had not the contention of an interested person delayed the inevitable conclusion by forcing the necessity of an adjournment.

Irene Dupreen testified that she was the widow of a physician and lived at Hazlehurst, Chesset Avenue, St. Abbots, with her brother. The deceased was their nephew, an only child and an orphan, and was aged twelve. He was a ward of Chancery and the Court had appointed her as guardian, with an adequate provision for the expenses of his bringing up and education. That allowance would, of course, cease with her nephew’s death.

Coming to the particulars of the case, Mrs. Dupreen explained that for a few days the boy