A silent witness: Classic Book Guide and Free Edition
A silent witness: author and translator credits, catalogue synopsis, subjects and links to the Gutenberg reading formats.
A silent witness is catalogued by Project Gutenberg with author credits for Freeman, R. Austin (Richard Austin) (1862–1943).
Catalogue synopsis
Project Gutenberg supplies this automated synopsis of the opening text:
"A Silent Witness" by R. Austin Freeman is a detective novel written in the early 20th century. The story follows young doctor Humphrey Jardine as he stumbles into a baffling mystery in Hampstead—first a vanished corpse and then a calculated attempt on his own life—before the renowned medical jurist Dr. John Thorndyke is drawn in. Expect an intricate, scientifically grounded investigation involving forensic clues, a strange reliquary, and unsettling encounters in London’s lanes and lodgings. The opening of the novel finds Jardine discovering, on a rainy midnight walk through Millfield Lane, what appears to be the body of an elderly clergyman—only for it to vanish before he can return with the police. Next day he uncovers a bloodstain on a fence, footprint traces into Ken Wood, and a small octagonal gold reliquary marked with initials, but the authorities are sceptical. Between hospital duties and a chance meeting with an art student named Sylvia, he takes a temporary post with Dr. Batson, witnesses the certification and swift cremation of a “heart case” named Septimus Maddock, and meets Maddock’s intense landlady, Mrs. Letitia Samway. Soon after, Jardine is lured by a false emergency to a shuttered mineral-water works, trapped in a sealed cellar, and nearly asphyxiated by carbonic acid gas—surviving only by improvising an air hole in the door—setting the stage for the larger mystery to unfold.
Book and edition facts
- Title: A silent witness
- Author credits: Freeman, R. Austin (Richard Austin) (1862–1943)
- Catalogue language: English
Catalogue subjects
- Detective and mystery stories
- London (England) -- Fiction
- Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction
- Thorndyke, Doctor (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
Gutenberg collections
- Category: British Literature
- Category: Crime, Thrillers and Mystery
- Category: Novels
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View the complete Gutenberg catalogue record. Project Gutenberg identifies this edition as public domain in the United States; that designation does not establish its copyright status in every country.
Source notes
Catalogue metadata is public domain and is supplied through Gutendex, which imports Gutenberg's machine-readable catalogue. The automated synopsis is source-supplied, not an independently verified review. Author dates above describe the credited people; no ebook release date is presented as the book's original publication date.
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