Jacques Futrelle's first published book-length story featuring the arrogant, cocaine-taking, large-headed Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen, nicknamed "The Thinking Machine" A high-society fancy-dress party falls victim to a robbery- confusions of identity, long-held grudges, romance, and honor all appear in the excitement that follows. Jacques Futrelle was an American journalist and detective-story writer and Van Dusen was his most famous detective character, appearing in a number of his works

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