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The Tea-Leaf
Edgar Alfred Jepson (1863-1938) was an English author best known for his adventure and detective fiction. He also wrote supernatural and fantasy stories.
Robert Eustace was the pen name of Eustace Robert Barton (1854-1943), an English doctor and author of mystery and crime fiction with a theme of scientific innovation.
The Tea-Leaf is the most famous short story of these authors and was a forerunner of the locked-room mystery. It tells the story of two former friends who now hate one another. These two bad-tempered characters argue in the hottest room of a turkish bath. Shortly afterwards, one man exits the hot room and goes to the shampoo room. Shortly after, the other man is found stabbed to death in the hottest room.
It seems clear that his former friend is the murderer...but no murder weapon can be found anywhere. In the Turkish bath, there is nowhere to hide a weapon...and it takes the genius of the murdered man's daughter to solve the mystery.
Robert Eustace was the pen name of Eustace Robert Barton (1854-1943), an English doctor and author of mystery and crime fiction with a theme of scientific innovation.
The Tea-Leaf is the most famous short story of these authors and was a forerunner of the locked-room mystery. It tells the story of two former friends who now hate one another. These two bad-tempered characters argue in the hottest room of a turkish bath. Shortly afterwards, one man exits the hot room and goes to the shampoo room. Shortly after, the other man is found stabbed to death in the hottest room.
It seems clear that his former friend is the murderer...but no murder weapon can be found anywhere. In the Turkish bath, there is nowhere to hide a weapon...and it takes the genius of the murdered man's daughter to solve the mystery.
Audible Audio
Published February 23, 2015
About the author
Edgar Jepson
186 books11 followersEdgar Alfred Jepson (1863 - 1938) was an English writer, principally of mainstream adventure and detective fiction, but also of some supernatural and fantasy stories that are better remembered. He used a pseudonym R. Edison Page for some of his many short stories, collaborating at times with John Gawsworth, Hugh Clevely and possibly Arthur Machen, long-term friends.
He was editor for a short period of Vanity Fair magazine, where he employed Richard Middleton, and did much to preserve the latter's memory. He was also a translator, notably of the Arsène Lupin stories of Maurice Leblanc.
He was a member of the Square Club (from 1908) of established Edwardian authors, and also one of the more senior of the New Bohemians drinking club.
As a literary dynasty: his son Selwyn Jepson was known as a crime writer; his daughter Margaret (married name Birkinshaw) published novels as Margaret Jepson (including Via Panama) and as Pearl Bellairs; and Margaret's daughter Franklin is the writer Fay Weldon. The Jepson domestic arrangements are commented on second-hand in Weldon's autobiographical writing.
Jepson was friends with the English mystery writer Hugh Clevely and even shared the same pseudonym "Tod Claymore." They co-wrote the novel "The Man With the Amber Eyes."
He was editor for a short period of Vanity Fair magazine, where he employed Richard Middleton, and did much to preserve the latter's memory. He was also a translator, notably of the Arsène Lupin stories of Maurice Leblanc.
He was a member of the Square Club (from 1908) of established Edwardian authors, and also one of the more senior of the New Bohemians drinking club.
As a literary dynasty: his son Selwyn Jepson was known as a crime writer; his daughter Margaret (married name Birkinshaw) published novels as Margaret Jepson (including Via Panama) and as Pearl Bellairs; and Margaret's daughter Franklin is the writer Fay Weldon. The Jepson domestic arrangements are commented on second-hand in Weldon's autobiographical writing.
Jepson was friends with the English mystery writer Hugh Clevely and even shared the same pseudonym "Tod Claymore." They co-wrote the novel "The Man With the Amber Eyes."
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