A Cry For Help

Detective Fiction

The House Of The Arrow

by A. E. W. MASON (1865 - 1948)

A young English girl is accused in Dijon of murdering her French aunt. Hanaud to the rescue! Inspector Hanaud is a member of the French Sûreté. He is said to have been the model for Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, as well as the opposite of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. In 1910, Mason undertook to create a fictional detective as different as possible from Sherlock Holmes, who had recently been resuscitated after his supposed death by Arthur Conan Doyle in 1903. Inspector Gabriel Hanaud was stout, not gaunt like Holmes; a professional policeman, not a gentleman amateur; from the French Sûreté, not Victorian England; and relying on psychological insights rather than physical evidence. His "Watson" is a retired London banker named Mr. Julius Ricardo, though he appears only briefly in this novel. (David Wales )

Listen next episodes of The House Of The Arrow:
A Map And The Necklace , A New Suspect , A Plan Frustrated , An Experiment And A Discovery , Ann Upcott's Story , At Jean Cladel's , Betty Harlow Answers , Betty Harlowe , Exit Waberski , Hanaud Laughs , Jim Changes His Lodging , Servants Of Chance , Simon Harlowe's Treasure-Room , The Book , The Breaking Of The Seals , The Clock Upon The Cabinet , The Corona Machine , The Façade Of Nôtre Dame , The Finding Of The Arrow , The Night Of The 27th , The Secret , The Secret House , The Truth About The Clock , The White Tablet