Beadle's Dime Library No. 784

This issue, No. 784 from November 11, 1893, contains "Thad Burr's Death Drop; or, The Clue of the S.S.S." by Harold Payne, a detective serial story. Detective Thad Burr is visited at home by a nervous, well-dressed stranger named Aspinall, who seeks private investigation into the death of his shipboard acquaintance, an Englishman named Summerville. Found dead at the Astor House hotel following a theater outing, the body was pronounced a suicide by poison by the attending physician, but Aspinall distrusts this verdict. Burr accepts the case for a hundred-dollar retainer and investigates the body, discovering a mysterious tattoo mark on the dead man's temple—an intricate scarlet brand bearing the linked letters "S.S.S." This cryptic mark becomes the central investigative clue.