Beadle's Dime Library No. 770

# Catalog Description

"The Showman Detective: Old Grip's Rogue Round-Up" by Jackson Knox (pseudonym "Old Hawk"), serialized in Beadle's Weekly (July 26, 1898), recounts a mystery at a traveling menagerie operated by veteran showman Pap Shoresby. When wild animals arrive at a Hoboken pier for the season's opening, Shoresby is bitten by a cobra di capello while examining serpents—a bite that kills him within minutes. His daughter Luella, a fearless animal-tamer known as the "Lion Queen," suspects deliberate murder. Detective Edward "Old Grip" Grippon uncovers evidence that Eben Markheim, a swarthy animal collector spurned by Shoresby in his romantic pursuit of Luella, conspired with Gorgo, a Javanese serpent-handler, to orchestrate the fatal snake strike using sleight-of-hand. The mystery deepens as Markheim's motives involve gaining control of the show and forcing Luella's hand.