The Clue of the Silver Key
By Edgar Wallace
At first, he thought it was a Yale lock, but when he tested it out with a big clasp knife containing half a dozen tools, he found it was a straightforward catch. The cupboard held a complete dress suit, including a silk hat and overcoat. On a shelf were several plain but exquisitely woven handkerchiefs, socks, folded dress ties, and the like.
He searched the pockets but could find no clue to the ownership of the suit. There was no maker’s tab on the inside of the coat or concealed in the breast pocket. Even the trouser’s buttons were not inscribed with the tailor’s name.
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Edgar Wallace
Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was a British writer of sensational detective, gangster, adventure and sci-fi novels, plays and stories.
Biography.
Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at the age of 12. He joined the army at age 21 and was a war correspondent during the Second Boer War for Reuters and the Daily Mail. Struggling with debt, he left South Africa, returned to London, and began writing thrillers to raise his income, publishing books including The Four Just Men (1905). Drawing on his time as a reporter in the Congo, covering the Belgian atrocities, Wallace serialized short stories in magazines such as The Windsor Magazine and later published collections such as Sanders of the River (1911). He signed with Hodder and Stoughton in 1921 and became an internationally recognized author.
After an unsuccessful bid to stand as Liberal MP for Blackpool (as one of David Lloyd George’s Independent Liberals) in the 1931 general election, Wallace moved to Hollywood, where he worked as a scriptwriter for RKO. He died suddenly from undiagnosed diabetes during the initial drafting of King Kong (1933).
Wallace was such a prolific writer that one of his publishers claimed he wrote a quarter of all books in England. In addition to journalism, Wallace wrote screenplays, poetry, historical nonfiction, 18 stage plays, 957 short stories, and over 170 novels, 12 in 1929 alone. More than 160 films have been made of Wallace’s work.
In addition to his work on King Kong, he is remembered as a writer of “The Colonial Imagination” for the J. G. Reeder detective stories and The Green Archer serial. He sold over 50 million copies of his combined works in various editions, and The Economist in 1997 described him as “one of the most prolific thriller writers of [the 20th] century”. However, most of his books are out of print in the UK but are still read in Germany. A 50-minute German TV documentary was made in 1963 called The Edgar Wallace Story featured his son Bryan Edgar Wallace.
Legacy
Violet Wallace’s own will left her share of the Wallace estate to her daughter Penelope (1923–1997), an author of mystery and crime novels, who became the chief benefactor and shareholder. Penelope married George Halcrow in 1955. The couple ran the Wallace estate, managing her father’s literary legacy and starting the Edgar Wallace Society in 1969. The work is continued by Penelope’s daughter, also named Penelope. The Society has members in 20 countries. The literary body is currently managed by the London agency A.P. Watt.
Wallace’s eldest son, Bryan Edgar Wallace (1904–1971), also wrote mystery and crime novels. In 1934, Bryan married Margaret Lane (1907–94), a writer. Lane’s biography of Edgar Wallace was published in 1938
The Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine was a monthly digest-size fiction magazine specializing in crime and detective fiction. It published 35 issues from 1964 to 1967. Each issue contained original short crime or mystery fiction works and reprints by authors like Wallace, Chekhov, Steinbeck, and Agatha Christie.
More than 160 films and several radio adaptations have been based on Wallace’s work. A pub named after him is located in Essex Street, off Strand in London.
Edgar Wallace
