The Double Detective; or, The Midnight Mystery

# The Double Detective: or, The Midnight Mystery

This serial installment, authored by Albert W. Aiken, concerns the murder of a wealthy woman at her New Orleans plantation. During an evening party, Mrs. Esperance is stabbed in the neck with a tiny knife while in her chamber. The blade, applied with surgical precision, proves fatal. Colonel Lancelot Terrebonne, a former Confederate officer and guest, takes charge at the scene, preventing tampering with evidence and organizing a search of the grounds for the killer. A significant detail emerges: Mrs. Esperance's valuable diamond necklace and bracelets, which she wore upstairs, have vanished. The doctor Maximilian Gerard, a reformed former wastrel who rebuilt his life through medicine, is summoned. The narrative establishes the mystery's central questions: the identity of the assassin and the motive—whether theft or something darker. The story exemplifies period sensational fiction with emphasis on aristocratic characters and Southern Gothic atmosphere.