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The Terrible People
The day Clay Shelton is set to be hanged, he requests to speak with the inspector who arrested him, Arnold Betcher Long. He tells Long that the Gallows Hand will have its revenge. Assuming he is a dead man trying to delay the inevitable, Long ignores him. But when the judge who sentenced Shelton is murdered, he finally starts to take notice.
Soon more people involved with the Shelton case begin to die, all killed by a shadowy organization known as the Terrible People, and Long knows it's only a matter of time before he's next.
Soon more people involved with the Shelton case begin to die, all killed by a shadowy organization known as the Terrible People, and Long knows it's only a matter of time before he's next.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1926
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About the author
Edgar Wallace
2,163 books260 followersRichard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) was a prolific British crime writer, journalist and playwright, who wrote 175 novels, 24 plays, and countless articles in newspapers and journals.
Over 160 films have been made of his novels, more than any other author. In the 1920s, one of Wallace's publishers claimed that a quarter of all books read in England were written by him.
He is most famous today as the co-creator of "King Kong", writing the early screenplay and story for the movie, as well as a short story "King Kong" (1933) credited to him and Draycott Dell. He was known for the J. G. Reeder detective stories, The Four Just Men, the Ringer, and for creating the Green Archer character during his lifetime.
Over 160 films have been made of his novels, more than any other author. In the 1920s, one of Wallace's publishers claimed that a quarter of all books read in England were written by him.
He is most famous today as the co-creator of "King Kong", writing the early screenplay and story for the movie, as well as a short story "King Kong" (1933) credited to him and Draycott Dell. He was known for the J. G. Reeder detective stories, The Four Just Men, the Ringer, and for creating the Green Archer character during his lifetime.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 18, 2020
Very good revenge from beyond the grave tale. Was made into a German movie in the 60s.
September 12, 2020
When Inspector Arnold (Betcher) Long of Scotland Yard traps and arrests a much-wanted international forger Clay Shelton at the Eastern Counties Bank, London, unknowingly he was arresting John Xavier Towler Long his uncle his father’s elder step-brother. During the fracas preceding the arrest the police man accompanying Inspector long is fatally injured in the shootout. This leads to the hanging of Clay Shelton and sets in motion a maelstrom of events which is the story of “The Terrible People”.
Fifty years to date, in the summer of 1970 I completed my Secondary School Certificate Examinations. I had about three months before my results would be declared and I had to start proceeding for admissions to the next level. In the interregnum I read many a novels – Agatha Christie, Edgar Wallace, Erle Stanley Gardner, Ellery Queen, John Creasy and the rest. So omnivorous a reader was I that my daily completed novels were three to four. And it was in this period that I read The Terrible People.
A couple of years ago I saw the film “Murder on the Orient Express” based on a book of the same title by Agatha Christie. The murder was of an Italian Ratchett who had been stabbed twelve times. Ratchet was a convicted kidnapper Casetti sentenced to death for the kidnapping and subsequent killing of the Armstrong girl Daisy. With the help of his money power he escapes and settles in Europe. The Wagon Lite first class coach had fourteen berths. Ratchet had booked one berth, the conspirators booked the other thirteen, but only twelve were available because one berth had been booked for the company director M. Bouc. M. Bouc gives his berth to his friend Hercule Poirot and himself takes the second class berth allotted to Poirot. All the conspirators were connected to the Armstrong household as friends, employees, relatives and even the Godmother to Daisy. They executed Casseti who had escaped the hangman in the U.S.A. I also re-read the book and remarked to my son who is a greater bibliophile than me. That Edgar Wallace has also written a book on the same theme “The Terrible People”. Fifty years is a long time and only a hazy memory of the tale of a family taking revenge on the preparators of the unnatural death of a family member was all I could recollect.
About a couple of weeks ago I once again picked up this book and to my surprise it was a completely different plot - the only common thread between Murder on the Orient Express and The Terrible People was the family members of the dead person take revenge on the preparators.
On the day Clay Shelton is to be hanged he expresses a desire to talk to Betcher Long and in the prison Shelton tells that the Gallows Hand will come back to take revenge for his hanging and everyone connected with his arrest, conviction and execution would be killed. On his way back to London a marksman tries to shoot him. Luckily Betcher escapes and as he gets down to investigate he finds his assassin dead shot in the back. He was returning to his car, when it is petrol bombed and destroyed.
As far as the police knew Clay Shelton was a loner. He had no gang, no friends and no family. But after his death The Terrible People became active and as Shelton had prophesised the Gallows Hand claimed the lives of the sentencing Judge, the Prosecuting Counsel and the hangman. Only the banker Joshua Monkford and Betcher Long were still alive of the people connected with the arrest, conviction and execution, at the end of first year of Shelton’s hanging.
Who were The Terrible People? They were Clay Shelton’s family. All the members of the family were in England. Their identities were different. They were not related to each other but were friends and not all. Once a year the family assembled for three weeks at a little Danish watering-place on the Baltic. All of them were educated in Denmark and spoke fluent Danish almost as easily as they spoke English.
There was his wife Alicia Ostrander who lived as a maiden lady Miss Revelstoke.
Their eldest son was Jackson-Jackson Crayely. The second son was Cravel who was the right-hand man of his father. Henry was the third son and the only daughter of the marriage was Alice. These were The Terrible People. With Shelton’s death the fortunes of the family dwindled and they were in a bad way. Henry had drafted a will for Joshua Monkford and forged his signature leaving all his wealth to Nora Sanders. This inheritance was to be the life blood for the family. Joshua Monkford was murdered at Heartsease in the late evening of 1st August. However, Betcher Long threw a spanner in the works preventing Nora from giving the authority to pursue the probate to Henry and gave it to his father’s lawyers.
Miss Revelstoke and Cravel the generalissimo and her lieutenant finding their plans thwarted become desperate and kidnap Nora Sanders to force her into marriage with one of Miss Revelstoke’s sons. With indirect assistance from Alice Long, Betcher trails Nora. In the meantime Betcher’s father Sir Godley Long following Miss Revelstoke is at Heartsease when the third attempt is made on the life of Betcher. Fortuitously he is saved by his father.
After dropping Betcher down the new shaft for construction of staircase / lift, Cravel coshes Sargent Rouch and placing him on the backseat of Betcher’s car sends it to the bottom of the river. However Rouch regained and slips out of the car much before it is driven into the river. Rouch contacts the Berkshire Constabulary who obtain a search warrant for Heartsease and Nora is taken away to the hospital. Cravel once more tries to murder Betcher using the same telephone trick as he had used on Monkford but as Betcher starts pressing the hook, a queer premonition of danger made his flesh creep and he dropped the receiver a little and then…an explosion occurred. Betcher turned, saw that blood was pouring from Cravel’s forehead and he was quite dead.
The book ends with the revelations made of Clay Shelton’s family in an earlier paragraph by Sir Godley Long. Sir Godley Long also reveals that thirty years ago his older step brother John Xavier left their house. John Xavier later became infamous as Clay Shelton. At that time a neighbour of Longs had a sweet young Danish woman as governess for her children. Godley long falls in love and she agrees to marry him. On the wedding she reveals that she is actually in love with Clay Shelton and was carrying his child. She had married him so that the unborn child is not nameless.
They go to Copenhagen for their honeymoon and one day she goes shopping and never returns. She informs Sir Godley by a note that she does not intend to return and is going to where her happiness is. After her divorce from Sir Godley she apparently married Clay Shelton.
I have read a good number of Edgar Wallace novels. On an average they are between 150 to 180 pages. But this book is a lot longer nearly 300 pages. As per expectations the book was gripping page turner and if possible I would have liked to finish it in one sitting as I did fifty summers ago but that has not been possible. To all readers of crime thrillers and mysteries I would recommend this book set in England around the time of the first Great War. It was an era with no computers, no internet, etc. I greatly enjoyed the book.
Fifty years to date, in the summer of 1970 I completed my Secondary School Certificate Examinations. I had about three months before my results would be declared and I had to start proceeding for admissions to the next level. In the interregnum I read many a novels – Agatha Christie, Edgar Wallace, Erle Stanley Gardner, Ellery Queen, John Creasy and the rest. So omnivorous a reader was I that my daily completed novels were three to four. And it was in this period that I read The Terrible People.
A couple of years ago I saw the film “Murder on the Orient Express” based on a book of the same title by Agatha Christie. The murder was of an Italian Ratchett who had been stabbed twelve times. Ratchet was a convicted kidnapper Casetti sentenced to death for the kidnapping and subsequent killing of the Armstrong girl Daisy. With the help of his money power he escapes and settles in Europe. The Wagon Lite first class coach had fourteen berths. Ratchet had booked one berth, the conspirators booked the other thirteen, but only twelve were available because one berth had been booked for the company director M. Bouc. M. Bouc gives his berth to his friend Hercule Poirot and himself takes the second class berth allotted to Poirot. All the conspirators were connected to the Armstrong household as friends, employees, relatives and even the Godmother to Daisy. They executed Casseti who had escaped the hangman in the U.S.A. I also re-read the book and remarked to my son who is a greater bibliophile than me. That Edgar Wallace has also written a book on the same theme “The Terrible People”. Fifty years is a long time and only a hazy memory of the tale of a family taking revenge on the preparators of the unnatural death of a family member was all I could recollect.
About a couple of weeks ago I once again picked up this book and to my surprise it was a completely different plot - the only common thread between Murder on the Orient Express and The Terrible People was the family members of the dead person take revenge on the preparators.
On the day Clay Shelton is to be hanged he expresses a desire to talk to Betcher Long and in the prison Shelton tells that the Gallows Hand will come back to take revenge for his hanging and everyone connected with his arrest, conviction and execution would be killed. On his way back to London a marksman tries to shoot him. Luckily Betcher escapes and as he gets down to investigate he finds his assassin dead shot in the back. He was returning to his car, when it is petrol bombed and destroyed.
As far as the police knew Clay Shelton was a loner. He had no gang, no friends and no family. But after his death The Terrible People became active and as Shelton had prophesised the Gallows Hand claimed the lives of the sentencing Judge, the Prosecuting Counsel and the hangman. Only the banker Joshua Monkford and Betcher Long were still alive of the people connected with the arrest, conviction and execution, at the end of first year of Shelton’s hanging.
Who were The Terrible People? They were Clay Shelton’s family. All the members of the family were in England. Their identities were different. They were not related to each other but were friends and not all. Once a year the family assembled for three weeks at a little Danish watering-place on the Baltic. All of them were educated in Denmark and spoke fluent Danish almost as easily as they spoke English.
There was his wife Alicia Ostrander who lived as a maiden lady Miss Revelstoke.
Their eldest son was Jackson-Jackson Crayely. The second son was Cravel who was the right-hand man of his father. Henry was the third son and the only daughter of the marriage was Alice. These were The Terrible People. With Shelton’s death the fortunes of the family dwindled and they were in a bad way. Henry had drafted a will for Joshua Monkford and forged his signature leaving all his wealth to Nora Sanders. This inheritance was to be the life blood for the family. Joshua Monkford was murdered at Heartsease in the late evening of 1st August. However, Betcher Long threw a spanner in the works preventing Nora from giving the authority to pursue the probate to Henry and gave it to his father’s lawyers.
Miss Revelstoke and Cravel the generalissimo and her lieutenant finding their plans thwarted become desperate and kidnap Nora Sanders to force her into marriage with one of Miss Revelstoke’s sons. With indirect assistance from Alice Long, Betcher trails Nora. In the meantime Betcher’s father Sir Godley Long following Miss Revelstoke is at Heartsease when the third attempt is made on the life of Betcher. Fortuitously he is saved by his father.
After dropping Betcher down the new shaft for construction of staircase / lift, Cravel coshes Sargent Rouch and placing him on the backseat of Betcher’s car sends it to the bottom of the river. However Rouch regained and slips out of the car much before it is driven into the river. Rouch contacts the Berkshire Constabulary who obtain a search warrant for Heartsease and Nora is taken away to the hospital. Cravel once more tries to murder Betcher using the same telephone trick as he had used on Monkford but as Betcher starts pressing the hook, a queer premonition of danger made his flesh creep and he dropped the receiver a little and then…an explosion occurred. Betcher turned, saw that blood was pouring from Cravel’s forehead and he was quite dead.
The book ends with the revelations made of Clay Shelton’s family in an earlier paragraph by Sir Godley Long. Sir Godley Long also reveals that thirty years ago his older step brother John Xavier left their house. John Xavier later became infamous as Clay Shelton. At that time a neighbour of Longs had a sweet young Danish woman as governess for her children. Godley long falls in love and she agrees to marry him. On the wedding she reveals that she is actually in love with Clay Shelton and was carrying his child. She had married him so that the unborn child is not nameless.
They go to Copenhagen for their honeymoon and one day she goes shopping and never returns. She informs Sir Godley by a note that she does not intend to return and is going to where her happiness is. After her divorce from Sir Godley she apparently married Clay Shelton.
I have read a good number of Edgar Wallace novels. On an average they are between 150 to 180 pages. But this book is a lot longer nearly 300 pages. As per expectations the book was gripping page turner and if possible I would have liked to finish it in one sitting as I did fifty summers ago but that has not been possible. To all readers of crime thrillers and mysteries I would recommend this book set in England around the time of the first Great War. It was an era with no computers, no internet, etc. I greatly enjoyed the book.
June 6, 2025
"You think I'm crazy with the heat! There are things in this world undreamed of in your philosophy, my friend, and the Gallows Hand is one of them!"
Clay Shelton is the code name assigned by Scotland Yard to a notorious internationally wanted forger, who has defrauded a number of different bank facilities around the world out of fortunes. Called so for the first alias of many known ones, he has remained elusive for years. Scotland Yard assumes he must be a lone wolf, without partners in crime, since no hints about his identity or whereabouts have ever escaped via any means.
When he is finally caught red handed at Eastern Counties Bank in London by Inspector Arnold Long (aka Betcher), he manages to shoot a policeman. In the end, he is hanged for his crimes.
On the day of his execution, he asks the arresting officer to visit him for one final chat. It is then that he vows retribution from beyond the grave on everyone who contributed to his caption and looming death. No-one takes him seriously at first. Why should they, when everyone is convinced he had no associates.
But on his way back from the prison, someone tries to shoot Betcher. While the detective escapes with barely a fright, his would-be killer is found dead instead. When later the judge, the prosecuting lawyer and the hangman connected to the case end up in individual deadly accidents, it becomes clear Shelton's promise of retribution was not an empty one.
No Edgar Wallace novel would ever be complete without a love story. So of course, there is also a damsel in distress, falling for the righteous knight in shining armour. Cliché? Maybe. But it's a formula that works, and I'm here for it - the happy ending at the end of the trials and tribulations.
Book read in the Estonian language, English quote taken from the free e-book version at Gutenberg Project.
Clay Shelton is the code name assigned by Scotland Yard to a notorious internationally wanted forger, who has defrauded a number of different bank facilities around the world out of fortunes. Called so for the first alias of many known ones, he has remained elusive for years. Scotland Yard assumes he must be a lone wolf, without partners in crime, since no hints about his identity or whereabouts have ever escaped via any means.
When he is finally caught red handed at Eastern Counties Bank in London by Inspector Arnold Long (aka Betcher), he manages to shoot a policeman. In the end, he is hanged for his crimes.
On the day of his execution, he asks the arresting officer to visit him for one final chat. It is then that he vows retribution from beyond the grave on everyone who contributed to his caption and looming death. No-one takes him seriously at first. Why should they, when everyone is convinced he had no associates.
But on his way back from the prison, someone tries to shoot Betcher. While the detective escapes with barely a fright, his would-be killer is found dead instead. When later the judge, the prosecuting lawyer and the hangman connected to the case end up in individual deadly accidents, it becomes clear Shelton's promise of retribution was not an empty one.
No Edgar Wallace novel would ever be complete without a love story. So of course, there is also a damsel in distress, falling for the righteous knight in shining armour. Cliché? Maybe. But it's a formula that works, and I'm here for it - the happy ending at the end of the trials and tribulations.
Book read in the Estonian language, English quote taken from the free e-book version at Gutenberg Project.
June 5, 2024
I thought this was a particularly excellent golden age story. The women were not portrayed as feeble, hysterical or silly, which is always a plus. The plot was clever, and comparatively plausible and did not contain any of the usually “I believe I have solved the mystery, it’s revolves around this one tiny piece of evidence which I will not share with you and I’m not going to tell anyone the answer, and instead, I will set up unrealistic traps to test my theory!” The only thing I didn’t like it was the silly name of the “gang” - The Terrible People.
March 18, 2024
Πολύ ενδιαφέρον μυθιστορημα μυστηριου με ήρωα έναν πλούσιο αστυνομικό επιθεωρητή που προσπαθεί να βρει τα ίχνη μιας τρομερής συμμορίας που σπέρνει πτώματα στο διαβα της. Στην προσπάθεια του αυτή γνωρίζει μια νεαρή την οποία και ερωτεύεται και προσπαθεί να προστατέψει για να μην γίνει ένα ακόμα θύμα της συμμορίας. Το τέλος είναι αναπάντεχο καθώς και ένας από τους τρόπους δολοφονίας ενός από τα θύματα.
February 26, 2017
I wanted to give it more stars. I liked the beginning, it was intriguing and funny. But then it became too convoluted, there were too many weird coincidences and Betcher became too arrogant, making stupid mistakes. Overall, I was slightly disappointed.
January 20, 2021
Edgar Wallace. Los clásicos no defraudan. Intriga policial de las clásicas. Las mujeres se desmayan en los momentos de tensión. Y el protagonista es bueno en todo, correcto y podría ser un buen padre de familia. Además está forrado ¡Qué más se le puede pedir a un hombre!
April 29, 2023
Once I'd worked out the Big Question, the story was not sufficiently compelling for me to finish it.
The motive remains obscure, but frankly, I doubt whether Wallace has a good answer to that, either.
The motive remains obscure, but frankly, I doubt whether Wallace has a good answer to that, either.
September 3, 2017
Mais um excelente policial da Vampiro, este dos livros antigos.
Mantém o suspense até ao fim.
Mantém o suspense até ao fim.
June 21, 2022
The start is veeery slow but then it picks up and is quite entertaining. The plot by the end is a bit predictable
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 12, 2018
2 ½ stars
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews