Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 306

# Catalog Entry: The Roughs of Richmond; The Mystery of the Golden Beetle

Weekly publication, September 8, 1884. This issue opens a serial mystery by Anthony P. Morris (credited author of earlier works including "Electro Pete").

The narrative begins in Richmond, Virginia, where police deliver the body of Dorsey Fenwick to his elegant Franklin Street home. His widow, the young-appearing Mrs. Mathilde Fenwick, receives the news with striking composure. She promptly summons detective Mr. Call from the Call & Tuff agency while her daughter Erminie learns of her father's death. Mrs. Fenwick reveals to Erminie a mysterious golden beetle with ruby eyes kept in a hidden alcove of the library—part of what she calls "the curse of the Fenwicks," which she claims caused Dorsey's violent death. Erminie horrifyingly observes the golden beetle appears to have moved of its own accord. An undertaker arrives to prepare the body. Mrs. Fenwick is mysteriously interrupted in her private sitting room by an appearance of an unusually short man with prominent facial features, whose entrance and comment suggest involvement in the case.