The Man in Lower Ten (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)

By Mary Roberts Rinehart and Clea Simon

The Man in Lower Ten (serialized in magazines in 1906) was published as a novel in 1910, and immediately rose to number four on the best-seller list. Combining murder, mystery, and romance, Rinehart’s celebrated novel is sure to keep readers in delightful suspense.

In order to pick up legal papers in another city, a young lawyer, Lawrence Blakely, must travel from Pittsburgh to Baltimore on what he expects to be an uneventful train ride. However the trip quickly becomes anything but boring; Blakely’s papers are stolen, and his car bunk “lower ten” is occupied by a dead body. But that’s not all Blakely finds himself in the middle of. He also grapples with a deadly train wreck, a ghostly haunting, and a sexy yet possibly dangerous love interest.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Apr 19, 2011
• ISBN: 9781411438323

Mary Roberts Rinehart

Often referred to as the American Agatha Christie, Mary Roberts Rinehart was an American journalist and writer who is best known for the murder mystery The Circular Staircase—considered to have started the “Had-I-but-known” school of mystery writing—and the popular Tish mystery series. A prolific writer, Rinehart was originally educated as a nurse, but turned to writing as a source of income after the 1903 stock market crash. Although primarily a fiction writer, Rinehart served as the Saturday Evening Post’s correspondent for from the Belgian front during the First World War, and later published a series of travelogues and an autobiography. Roberts died in New York City in 1958.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

A YOUNG LAWYER EMBARKS ON A MUNDANE ERRAND TO ANOTHER CITY. The legal papers he will be bringing back are essential to a forgery case, but the happy-go-lucky lawyer dreads what he expects will be the excruciating boredom of the overnight trip. Imagine his surprise, then, when not only are the papers stolen on his way back from Pittsburgh to Baltimore, but a dead body appears in the train sleeping-car bunk he was supposed to occupy—a murdered corpse he only knows by the title of Mary Roberts Rinehart’s first full-length mystery, The Man in Lower Ten.

In what is soon a much more exciting outing than young Lawrence Blakely could have anticipated, forgery and murder are joined by a plethora of other complications, including a deadly train wreck and what appears to be a haunting in this groundbreaking mystery. But there’s more as well. As Rinehart began the career that launched her as this country’s first consistently bestselling mystery author, this quintessentially American author managed to work both humor and a compelling romance into the plot, all of which goes a long way toward explaining how the daughter of a failed salesman came to be one of the best-loved authors of her generation.

Now largely forgotten, Rinehart was a sensation in the first half of the 20th century. A fixture on the bestseller lists from 1909 to 1936, she made her name with mysteries, but then branched out into drama and nonfiction, writing about topics as diverse as America’s national parks and the breast cancer that she successfully battled. But before she became a household name, wearing the furs and diamonds that her commercial success provided, she was just another struggling writer. The Man in Lower Ten changed all that. This concise and amusing mystery, which brings Blakely not only a neat resolution but also love, was not Rinehart’s first book, but it was her first full-length project. The Man in Lower Ten had originally been created as a serialized story for the magazine All-Story, back when Rinehart was a debt-ridden housewife, desperate to put her taste for adventure stories, whodunits, and romance to some practical use.

Mary Roberts was born into a respectable middle-class family in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, on August 12, 1876. But the optimism of the American bicentennial in this small manufacturing city was not to last. Rinehart’s biographers recount her father’s repeated failures, primarily as a salesman and inventor, and her family’s constantly changing lifestyle as the money—and servants and luxuries—came and, more usually, went. Rinehart was a good student and ambitious, but her graduation from high school came during one of the familial downswings. With no money for a proper ladies’ college, the determined young woman decided to embark on a medical career. Because of her gender and her age—she finished high school at 16—Rinehart was persuaded to accept nursing as a more realistic option. Still, for her family, it was a social step down. Young middle-class ladies were not expected to have careers as such, and nursing—which brought young women into contact with disease and human waste—was even lower status than such white-collar options as teaching. But Mary, who had helped nurse her sister Olive through a bout of typhoid, was determined. And so, with a little financial aid from a relative and a white lie about her age, the young Miss Roberts set out to be a nurse. While there, she caught the eye of a young doctor, Stanley Rinehart, and by May, 1894, they were secretly engaged. Their wedding would have to wait for April 21, 1896, by which point the young doctor expected to be able to support a wife and family. Before the happy day could arrive, however, tragedy struck. On November 14, 1895, her father committed suicide, shooting himself while traveling on yet another unsuccessful sales job. The wedding followed hard on the heels of the funeral, and before long, Mary Roberts Rinehart had given up any idea of nursing, instead taking up the role of doctor’s wife and mother.

However, if Mary thought that marriage to a professional would provide financial security, she was mistaken. The early years of the 20th century were precarious for speculators, even before the Great Depression, and neither she nor her husband had the best minds for the stock market. In 1904, however, they became entangled in one of the many panics plaguing the market, and found themselves victims of a crisis that not only claimed their savings but also left them $12,000 in debt. Stanley worked as much as he could, making house calls for about a dollar a visit. But Mary saw an avenue to contribute as well. While keeping house, with all the propriety that a doctor’s wife required, she could write. And write she did. By the time The Man in Lower Ten made its first appearance in serialized form from January to April 1906, Rinehart had been writing professionally for years. Her poems, as well as her short stories, were appearing in newspapers and magazines like The Pittsburgh Press and Associated Sunday Magazines, and Munsey’s as early as 1904.

The records of these early efforts, as well as the amounts for which she was paid, were kept long-hand in a notebook. After years of meager payments—six dollars for one story, thirty-five for another—the four hundred dollars she received from All-Story for The Man in Lower Ten must have seemed like a fortune. She quickly followed her debut effort up with two others, all of which would soon find much greater success as stand-alone novels. Rinehart never again had to worry about paying the bills.

The story about how Rinehart first began publishing mystery novels became, in her hands, a bit of a romance. In truth, years before her All-Story serials, Rinehart had made a profitless journey to New York City, visiting with publishers unsuccessfully. But once she had these three serialized mysteries finished, she tried again, this time focusing on the Indianapolis-based publisher Bobbs-Merrill, which had already had great success with one of Rinehart’s early role models, the novelist Anna Katharine Green. Hewitt Howland, an editor at Bobbs-Merrill, went for her three serialized mysteries, bringing out the second serial, The Circular Staircase first in 1908, The Man in Lower Ten in 1909, and The Mystery of 1122, which was re-titled The Window at the White Cat in 1910. But instead of acknowledging her own research and persistence, when it came time to recall her success, Rinehart plays coy. In her version, recounted in a letter to her family, her uncle requests to read her serialized fiction, and she finds the battered old carbon copy¹ for him. He and her husband then have to convince her to send the manuscript off, while her choice of a publisher is presented as a fluke. Was the aspiring author really this reluctant? Had she so quickly forgotten her earlier efforts, and not kept a good copy of her first serialized mystery? None of these options are likely, but like the story-spinner she was becoming, Rinehart did know how to milk a situation for its drama.

However she got there, Rinehart was an immediate success as an author, says biographer Martha Haley Dubose, and The Man in Lower Ten (published late in 1909) roared up the 1910 bestseller lists and became the first American mystery ever to make the annual roster of bestselling books, settling in at No. 4. The days of the six-dollar paychecks were over. Money began coming in, and very welcome it was indeed. What Rinehart had done was develop a uniquely American style—light, a little scary, and more than a little romantic—that would define her career. Even as early as The Man in Lower Ten, she shows a mastery of her trademark themes.

Long before the contemporary taste for paranormal mysteries, for example, Rinehart began inserting Gothic-style supernatural elements into her books. Ghosts, or at least the fear of them, recur throughout her work. And while the haunting of a house in The Man in Lower Ten proves to be solidly of this world, the hints Rinehart gives—mysterious lights, a woman’s hand appearing through a trapdoor—add a dash of spookiness. This atmosphere of suspense and horror, as biographer Jan Cohn put it, would recur throughout her career.

Playing off this bit of creepiness is Rinehart’s solid good humor. In particular, the author knows how to have a laugh at the expense of her characters—and the entire mystery genre. After all, the one detective in The Man in Lower Ten is really a joke. Throughout the book, a small man with a notepad, Wilson Budd Hotchkiss, follows Blakely around, convinced that he can use the methods of Edgar Allen Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle to deduce the truth about the murder as well as the theft of the forged papers. Constantly jotting down observations, he’s sure that he’s onto the real killer, only to find he’s been trailing the wrong man all along.

Her more fully rounded characters are distinctly Rinehart’s own, as well. Unlike the humorous little Hotchkiss, Blakely is charming, a jovial and intelligent young man. Not that he has had a difficult life, up until the fateful train ride in The Man in Lower Ten. Perhaps because of her early brushes with poverty, Rinehart really seems to enjoy writing characters for whom money is not an issue. While they may have jobs, they most certainly indulge in their leisure time. The initial errand, explains Blakely, is a nuisance not only because of the travel entailed, but because he had intended to attend a polo tournament that Saturday, with a short yacht cruise planned for Sunday. He explains, when a man has been grinding at statute law for a week, he needs relaxation. It was then a life to which the author could only aspire, but she gave the fantasy flesh, and her readers got to play along.

With such attractive and relaxed characters, another Rinehart standard—romance—comes easily. Matching a love interest to a murder mystery may seem natural now, figuring highly in works by popular authors like Janet Evanovich. But Rinehart was one of the first to mix them so well, developing the love interest, as it moves from a flirtation onto something more serious, along with our suspicions of the several suspects who could be responsible for both the theft and the murder. That the love interest—the beautiful Alison West—may be one of the strongest suspects for the murder only adds a bit of tension for poor Blakely. It’s a dilemma for the young man who is himself under suspicion, one that brings out both his innate resourcefulness and the truly gentlemanly nature of his character. But it’s never too serious. With Rinehart’s trademark style, we can read along, enjoying the thrills and chills, certain that all will be straightened out by the end. As with today’s lighter fiction, this certainty won readers hearts’ as heavier fiction never could.

Success, however, is never without its detractors, and Rinehart’s works were not universally acclaimed. Ogden Nash famously skewered her in a 1940 poem for The New Yorker, pointing out the number of unlikely coincidences in her novels. His dismissive take on her sometimes naïve character’s familiar Had I But Known refrain became a label that sticks to this day.² In truth, many of Rinehart’s books do show a tendency to rely too heavily on coincidence, or on the naiveté of her characters. The Man in Lower Ten is a happy exception, for the most part, with a well-reasoned plot, but even here, the protagonist Blakely is a bit too willing to be charmed by almost any woman, but particularly the lovely Miss West, who is supposed to be engaged to his best friend.

Some of this criticism, however, benefits from hindsight. Many of what became the mystery genre’s conventions were invented by these early writers. The very idea that the butler did it, for example, came from one of Rinehart’s books, The Door, in which, in fact, the butler was the murderer.

In her way, Rinehart may have given ammunition to her critics by developing such a casual and relaxed tone. As her characters trade quips and kisses, it is easy to dismiss the labor that went into bringing them to life. But in an essay tellingly titled Writing is Work, Rinehart expresses herself on the attention to detail that must go into every book:

[I]n its essence, she wrote, "the crime story is simple. It consists of two stories. One is known only to the criminal and to the author himself. It is usually simple, consisting chiefly of the commission of a murder and the criminal’s attempt to cover up after it; although quite often he is driven to other murders to protect himself, thus carrying on the suspense.

The other story is the one which is told. It is capable of great elaboration, and should, when finished, be complete in itself. It is necessary, however, to connect the two stories throughout the book. This is done by allowing a bit, here and there, of the hidden story to appear. It may be a clue, it may be another crime. In any case, you may be certain that the author is having a pretty difficult time, and that if in the end he fails to explain one of these appearances, at least five hundred people will discover it and write him indignant letters.³

Of course, that’s all back story. What readers today will note was that Rinehart was an American original. She herself embodied the quintessential American myth: re-creating and bettering herself into a success—as well as a mature artist. By the time she died, of a heart attack, on September 22, 1958, Rinehart was as secure as she could ever have dreamed—and her work, whatever its flaws, was as loved. For nearly half a century, she created worlds in which mystery and romance, a little spookiness and lots of fun came together, and she made it all seem easy.

Clea Simon is the author of six mysteries, the most recent of which is Grey Matters (Severn House).

CHAPTER ONE

I GO TO PITTSBURG

MCKNIGHT IS GRADUALLY TAKING OVER THE CRIMINAL END OF THE business. I never liked it, and since the strange case of the man in lower ten, I have been a bit squeamish. Given a case like that, where you can build up a network of clues that absolutely incriminate three entirely different people, only one of whom can be guilty, and your faith in circumstantial evidence dies of overcrowding. I never see a shivering, white-faced wretch in the prisoners’ dock that I do not hark back with shuddering horror to the strange events on the Pullman car Ontario, between Washington and Pittsburgh, on the night of September ninth, last.

McKnight could tell the story a great deal better than I, although he cannot spell three consecutive words correctly. But, while he has imagination and humor, he is lazy.

It didn’t happen to me, anyhow, he protested, when I put it up to him. And nobody cares for second-hand thrills. Besides, you want the unvarnished and ungarnished truth, and I’m no hand for that. I’m a lawyer.

So am I, although there have been times when my assumption in that particular has been disputed. I am unmarried, and just old enough to dance with the grown-up little sisters of the girls I used to know. I am fond of outdoors, prefer horses to the aforesaid grown-up little sisters, am without sentiment (am crossed out and was substituted. Ed.) and completely ruled and frequently routed by my housekeeper, an elderly widow.

In fact, of all the men of my acquaintance, I was probably the most prosaic, the least adventurous, the one man in a hundred who would be likely to go without a deviation from the normal through the orderly procession of the seasons, summer suits to winter flannels, golf to bridge.

So it was a queer freak of the demons of chance to perch on my unsusceptible thirty-year-old chest, tie me up with a crime, ticket me with a love affair, and start me on that sensational and not always respectable journey that ended so surprisingly less than three weeks later in the firm’s private office. It had been the most remarkable period of my life. I would neither give it up nor live it again under any inducement, and yet all that I lost was some twenty yards off my drive!

It was really McKnight’s turn to make the next journey. I had a tournament at Chevy Chase for Saturday, and a short yacht cruise planned for Sunday, and when a man has been grinding at statute law for a week, he needs relaxation. But McKnight begged off. It was not the first time he had shirked that summer in order to run down to Richmond, and I was surly about it. But this time he had a new excuse. I wouldn’t be able to look after the business if I did go, he said. He has a sort of wide-eyed frankness that makes one ashamed to doubt him. I’m always car sick crossing the mountains. It’s a fact, Lollie. Seesawing over the peaks does it. Why, crossing the Allegheny Mountains has the Gulf Stream to Bermuda beaten to a frazzle.

So I gave him up finally and went home to pack. He came later in the evening with his machine, the Cannonball, to take me to the station, and he brought the forged notes in the Bronson case.

Guard them with your life, he warned me. They are more precious than honor. Sew them in your chest protector, or wherever people keep valuables. I never keep any. I’ll not be happy until I see Gentleman Andy doing the lockstep.

He sat down on my clean collars, found my cigarettes, and struck a match on the mahogany bedpost with one movement.

Where’s the Pirate? he demanded. The Pirate is my housekeeper, Mrs. Klopton, a very worthy woman, so labeled—and libeled—because of a ferocious pair of eyes and what McKnight called a buccaneering nose. I quietly closed the door into the hall.

Keep your voice down, Richey, I said. She is looking for the evening paper to see if it is going to rain. She has my raincoat and an umbrella waiting in the hall.

The collars being damaged beyond repair, he left them and went to the window. He stood there for some time, staring at the blackness that represented the wall of the house next door.

It’s raining now, he said over his shoulder, and closed the window and the shutters. Something in his voice made me glance up, but he was watching me, his hands idly in his pockets.

Who lives next door? he inquired in a perfunctory tone, after a pause. I was packing my razor.

House is empty, I returned absently. If the landlord would put it in some sort of shape—

Did you put those notes in your pocket? he broke.

Yes. I was impatient. Along with my certificates of registration, baptism and vaccination. Whoever wants them will have to steal my coat to get them.

Well, I would move them, if I were you. Somebody in the next house was confoundedly anxious to see where you put them. Somebody right at that window opposite.

I scoffed at the idea, but nevertheless I moved the papers, putting them in my traveling-bag, well down at the bottom. McKnight watched me uneasily.

I have a hunch that you are going to have trouble, he said, as I locked the alligator bag. Darned if I like starting anything important on Friday.

You have a congenital dislike to start anything on any old day, I retorted, still sore from my lost Saturday. And if you knew the owner of that house as I do you would know that if there was anyone at that window he is paying rent for the privilege.

Mrs. Klopton rapped at the door and spoke discreetly from the hall.

Did Mr. McKnight bring the evening paper?

Reviews for The Man in Lower Ten (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)

[jalenv_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Man in Lower Ten was Mrs. Mary Roberts Rinehart's first mystery novel, written at the request of her magazine editor for something long enough to be serialized. (She'd been writing short stories for the same reason as Louisa May Alcott: to help support her family. Her husband lost a lot of money in a stock market crash. The editorial request was made in 1905, so it was probably the crash of 1901.)

[fernemysteryreader · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My first impression as I started reading "The Man in Lower Ten" was that this novel would provide the same type of intrigue and characterizations as an Agatha Christie mystery. What a surprise to discover on a quick search of Wikipedia as follows: "Mary Roberts Rinehart (August 12, 1876 – September 22, 1958) was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie, although her first mystery novel was published 14 years before Christie's first novel in 1920." As I read on the Wikisource website, "The Man in the Lower Ten" was "the first detective novel to appear on national bestseller lists." Now it's of interest to wonder if "The Man in Lower Ten" (first published 1909) gave any inspiration to Agatha Christie for "Murder on the Orient Express" (first published 1934).

I look forward to reading more titles by Mary Roberts Rinehart.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not as good as some of MRR. The main character was very engaging, but the plot was a little weak and hard to follow at times. But I did love Blakeley and that is worth an extra half star!

[bsnbabe68 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Old-fashioned murder-on-a-train mystery.

[lkernagh · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Now I understand why Rinehart is considered to be the American Agatha Christie, or should it be that Agatha Christie is the British Mary Roberts Rinehart, given that Rinehart’s first novel – this one – was published some 14 years before Christie’s first book? Either way, this story has all the wonderful atmospheric feel I have come to love in Golden era mystery novels. For a debut novel, Rinehart does a wonderful job drawing her characters and a twisty plot. The story provides for some good suspenseful moments and I did enjoy the banter Lawrence and his partner/good friend McKnight engage in. Even with a murder and unscrupulous people who think Lawrence still has the documents in his possession, the characters comes across as treating this as a low key concern…. Life and death situations seem to still involve taking time off for a good drink, a bite to eat and a bit of tongue-in-cheek dialogue. Favorite character for me is the amateur sleuth Hotchkiss who just pops up everywhere. Hotchkiss employs the detailed investigation techniques characterized by Sherlock Holmes but with the demeanor of a quiet, bookish accountant. Love Lawrence’s reaction to Hotchkiss’ note-taking and question asking: ”I nodded tolerantly. Most of us have hobbies.”. There is even a romantic sub-plot with one of the potential suspects – who just happens to also be McKnight’s current love interest. This came across as a bit of added fluff and distraction to Lawrence’s “search for the killer” focus, but a distraction that did not cause any annoyance for this reader. Overall, a delightful golden age mystery read and I will now keep an eye out for more Mary Robert Rinehart books to read.

[stewartry · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was kind of an odd one. I love Mary Roberts Rinehart – but this one was not quite up to where I expected it to be. Unfortunately it's one of those books where the unsolved mystery is more interesting than the solution. It's a great setup – rather dull lawyer fellow (with vivid best friend – I liked that the kind of boring one was the narrator) goes off to get some very important papers for a very important case, and on the train ride home has them stolen. And also comes in as the best suspect for a murder in his Pullman car. Luckily for him, the train suffers a horrific accident, so he has the chance to avoid immediate investigation, and also to fall in love – with his best friend's girl. The writing is entertaining; characterization works, and all the red herrings and wrong suspects that litter the landscape make for a good yarn. Everything eventually pulls together and gets cleared up – and I admit to disappointment at the wrap-up. Sometimes the journey is just more fun than the destination.One warning: this is very much of its time. In a couple of ways, actually – it startled me when the narrator talks about choosing a hansom cab; the involvement of the train made me think for some reason that it was a Golden Age book, from the forties or so. Then there's the line "Pittsburg without smoke wouldn't be Pittsburg, any more than New York without prohibition would be New York." So – Pittsburgh used to be spelled without the "H", and it's during Prohibition. Check. But just in case you go into this thinking it's just a very well-written historical mystery that uses some great details to let you know when it's set – well, reality will hit you like the Ice Bucket Challenge when words are used to refer to non-white races that would probably not be used today, even by the most dedicated anti-anachronistic writer. Yeah. It was first published in 1909. Things were different then. It can be (to use a period-appropriate adjective) delightful – but it can be cringe-worthy as well. Which was also the case with a few remarks about women, too, which – come now, Ms. Rinehart. The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.

[keeline_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The story is a fun one, very much of its time. Should appeal to fans of Agatha Christie as it reads a bit like some of her lesser works.The author was popular in her day although mostly forgotten today. This book was her first big hit.It contains murder, forgery, train wrecks, mysterious "hauntings", romance, and an amusing first person narrative.The edition I was reading (Barnes and Noble Library of Essential Readings) is probably an OCR'd text and contains several text errors which are a bit distracting. I'd probably have enjoyed this more in a vintage copy or a better edited one.Has some nice details of life (and train travel) in the time period, which is something I enjoy reading about.As a train fan, I particularly was interested in it and enjoyed those details.