Lelaki di Sudut Kafe

by Emmuska Orczy

“Ah, begitu rupanya. Pengajaranku sepertinya tidak memperbaiki kekuatan penalaranmu. Logikamu seburuk logika polisi. Lady Donaldson telah dirampok dan dibunuh, dan kau langsung menganggap bahwa dia dirampok dan dibunuh oleh orang yang sama.”
“Tapi—”

Adrenalin Polly Burton selalu naik tiap bertemu si lelaki tua di sudut kafe, semenjak tahu bahwa laki-laki itu, meskipun tidak ber-tampang rupawan, tetapi memiliki kecerdasan analisis luar biasa melebihi detektif di kepolisian. Ketika polisi kerap kali salah arah saat melakukan investigasi sehingga salah pula menyeret orang ke persidangan, lelaki itu justru tahu pasti bagaimana sebenarnya sebuah kejahatan dilakukan.
Bersama lelaki inilah, Polly menghabiskan waktu menanyakan perihal kejelasan berbagai kasus sensasional hingga kadang tan-pa sadar dia sudah ditinggalkan begitu saja dengan sehelai be-nang di atas meja, sebagai tanda penutup pertemuan mereka.
Dan, Polly tidak pernah tahu siapa nama lelaki di sudut kafe itu.

316 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2023

About the author

Full name: Emma ("Emmuska") Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála Orczy de Orczi was a Hungarian-British novelist, best remembered as the author of THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL (1905). Baroness Orczy's sequels to the novel were less successful. She was also an artist, and her works were exhibited at the Royal Academy, London. Her first venture into fiction was with crime stories. Among her most popular characters was The Old Man in the Corner, who was featured in a series of twelve British movies from 1924, starring Rolf Leslie.

Baroness Emmuska Orczy was born in Tarnaörs, Hungary, as the only daughter of Baron Felix Orczy, a noted composer and conductor, and his wife Emma. Her father was a friend of such composers as Wagner, Liszt, and Gounod. Orczy moved with her parents from Budapest to Brussels and then to London, learning to speak English at the age of fifteen. She was educated in convent schools in Brussels and Paris. In London she studied at the West London School of Art. Orczy married in 1894 Montague Barstow, whom she had met while studying at the Heatherby School of Art. Together they started to produce book and magazine illustrations and published an edition of Hungarian folktales.

Orczy's first detective stories appeared in magazines. As a writer she became famous in 1903 with the stage version of the Scarlet Pimpernel.