The Absent-Minded Gentleman: A Scandinavian Mystery Classic Short Story

By Frank Heller

When a counterfeiting ring rocks London, the trail leads to a curiosity shop and a professor offering a treatment for 'absent-minded gentleman' - but can Detective Kenyon get to the bottom of the clever scheme?

Frank Heller was the pseudonym of Gunnar Serner, who was the first internationally famous Swedish crime writer. The so

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kabaty Press
• Release date: Jan 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9788395556289

Frank Heller

Frank Heller was the first internationally famous Swedish crime writer. The son of a clergyman, to avoid arrest after a financial fraud he left Sweden for the continent. In desperate straits after losing the swindled money in a casino in Monte Carlo, he tried his hand at writing novels with immediate success, and produced forty-three novels, short stories and travelogues before his death in 1947.

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Frank Heller

The Absent-minded Gentleman

A Scandinavian Mystery Classic Short Story

This edition published by Kabaty Press 2022

Copyright © 1924 by Frank Heller

Translation by Robert Emmons Lee

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THE STORY OF THE ABSENT-MINDED GENTLEMAN

Gothenburg Road lies in the northwest of London, on the outskirts of the fashionable quarter round Regent’s Park. It still displays traces of vanished beauty, as we read in old-time novels; formerly one of a network of elegant streets, it has fallen upon evil days. From Bloomsbury in the southeast, the boarding-houses have been gaining ground in steady numbers, and they have already captured the most important vantage posts of Gothenburg Road.

Half-way down Gothenburg Road rises a medium-sized three-storied building of respectable appearance (No. 492), which in the year 1906 presented a somewhat dilapidated exterior—also the sign To Let. For a long time past, the rent which was asked—£450—seemed to warrant that Messrs. Jones and Greenaway, 21 Gilmour Square, would never succeed in letting it. So much greater was the astonishment of its companions in misfortune and of the neighboring boarding-houses, when during an April day of the same year a gang of workmen appeared, who set to with a will to renovate the premises and busied themselves with the four flower beds—each the size of a tablecloth. The sign To Let disappeared and furniture vans drew up at the door.

Upon my word, they have actually got rid of 492, remarked the boarding-houses. Who on earth can be foolish enough to give £450 for that old barrack?

Fancy, we are going to have a neighbor in 492, said the people in the other houses. Let’s hope it won’t be another boarding-house!

Curiosity waned a few days later when it transpired that the house had been let to a foreigner, a Professor Pelotard from Paris, but it took a new lease of life when the Professor moved in. For he seemed fully resolved to keep Gothenburg Road in ignorance about himself and his doings. The prying eyes which focused themselves on him from behind curtained windows had to be content with the scant knowledge that the Professor was about thirty, extremely well groomed, the owner of a blue-gray Daimler, and that he lived by himself. His household consisted of a French cook and a Swedish maid. Questioned about their master’s occupation, they were only able to impart that he was busy all day long on something very learned, and that presumably he was very rich.

With this information people had to be satisfied until in May a red-headed, vulgarly-dressed man was observed leaving the house every morning about half-past eight. They hastened to question the Swedish girl, and again received unsatisfactory replies.

The red-headed gentleman is the Professor’s secretary, she declared, who helps him in his work.

But how, she was asked, can he help him if he is away all day?

That question the servant was unable to answer, and so the mystery remained unsolved.

Ultimately, on a fine May morning, Mr. Ingram, a resident in one of the most select boarding-houses of Gothenburg Road, chanced upon an advertisement in the Daily Telegraph which seemed at last to shed some light on the Professor’s activities.

It ran as follows:

Psychic research. Professor Pelotard of Paris is seeking data for his great scientific work, relating to various cases of collector’s mania and similar crazes. As it is well known that such tendencies are characterized by acute absent-mindedness, mental worry and weakness of memory, you are asked to state—should you kindly answer this advertisement—how far the above applies to your case. Absolute discretion is guaranteed by Professor Pelotard, who will gratefully acknowledge all information submitted. Professor Pelotard’s new psychic treatment prevents or effectually cures the troublesome after-effects which make absent-mindedness and loss of memory a veritable curse to those who suffer from them. Apply by letter to Professor Pelotard, Gothenburg Road, London, N.W.

Perusal of the other papers showed that the Professor’s advertisement, which formed a lively topic of conversation in all the boarding-houses, was to be found in practically all of them, from Liberal papers like the Daily News and the Daily Chronicle, to the venerable Times and the Conservative Pall Mall. It was to be found in Punch as well as in Tit Bits, also in all the magazines; and it made a brave show on the first page of the Curio and the Collector’s Journal. Only in the cheap popular press was it missing.