The Illustrious Prince 1910

THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE (1910)

The Illustrious Prince is an exquisitely mannered Japanese, currently resident in London. An American, Hamilton Fynes, leaves the Lusitania and is found, mysteriously, murdered on a private train to London. Fynes has some government position, we learn, and has been travelling through Europe.

In London an American Miss Penelope Morse is waiting at the Carlton for Fynes, she had received a Marconigram from the Lusitania inviting her to lunch at the Carlton.

A Marconigram

Inspector Jacks of the Yard questions her and to throw off the police she jumps out of a taxi and disappears into Harrods.

Harrods 1910

She goes to a club and there meets a fellow American Dicky Vanderpole, a diplomat. On leaving the club Dicky is found murdered in a cab...
The background to this story is the rivalry between the USA and Japan as Pacific powers. Written before the first world war but after Japan's deafeat of Russia Oppenheim shifts his normal European perspective.
The Prince is a fascinating character and is presented in a most sympathetic way. Oppenheim will later do a similar portrait for a Chinese hero in The Great Prince Sham.
Romance, politics, spying, murder and detection.
6/10

The Golden Web 1911

 

THE GOLDEN WEB (1911)

The contrast in personal appearance between the two men, having regard to the relative positions, was a significant thing. The caller who had just been summoned from the waiting room and was standing before the others table, hat in hand, a little shabby, with ill-brushed hair and doubtful collar...

 So we meet our protagonists. Once companions in Africa their lives have diverged. Stirling Deane is the head of a huge mining corporation, while Basil Rowan has failed in life and is mortally ill. Rowan asks Deane for help to ensure that his sister's future is secure. Deane refuses to employ him in a regular post and Rowan explains that he is desperate and will undertake any assignment.
It so happens that there is a dispute about the ownership of an African gold mine. Deane was visited a few days before by Richard Sinclair. This man had a document which seemd to suggest that he had title to the mine.
Deane sends Rowan to meet with the down-at-heel and drunken Sinclair saying that the return of the title would be worth £10,000 to him.

                An electric Brougham as mentioned in the book.
A struggle ensues in the hotel room, Sinclair dies and Rowan is convicted of murder.
Deane has a crisis of conscience knowing that if he had spoken up the result would have been a conviction for manslaughter.
He is approached by Rowan's sister Winifred, who has visited the condemned cell and learnt what occurred. Rowan has told her that the papers must be in the hotel room.
Meanwhile Deane goes to the seaside to recuperate upsetting his fiance and there meets Ruby Sinclair a vivacious but bored young woman who lives with her tedious uncle. She is of course a relative of the dead man.
In due course she goes to London in great poverty and teams up with another mine claimant who has arrived from Africa to meet his friend Sinclair.
Deane bribes a porter to get a key to the hotel room; as he searches it Winifred enters on the same mission! The paper is discovered...and after the usual vicissitudes everybody ends up living happily ever after.
5/10


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Written as Anthony Partridge, a name that Oppenheim used several times in his early writing career.

The Vanished Messenger 1914

THE VANISHED MESSENGER (1914)

There were very few people up on platform number 21 of Liverpool Street station...
Two of them happen to be our heroes: an American John P Dunster who is going toan international conference in The Hague and a professional golfer Gerald Fentolin.
Fentolin has "missed" his train to Harwich and contrives to get himself on the private train that Dunster is taking to the port for the ferry to the continent.

Thanks to a timely flood in eastern England Fentolin is able to waylay Dumpster; he is imprisoned in a castle until the conference Dunster should attend is concluded and England's secrets are safe once more. The castle though is the home of a crippled genius engaged in selling secrets to Germany.
The machinations of Germany and her allies are foiled.
Yet another look at the Hun's antics published in the year that WW1 started. Obviously Mr Fentolin and Oppenheim's other sterling heroes fail to stop the war; just as Buchan's Hannay failed.
3/10

The Tempting of Tavernake 1912

THE TEMPTING OF TAVERNAKE (1912)

They stood upon the roof of a London boarding house in the neighborhood of Russell Square, one of those grim shelters, the refuge of transatlantic curiosity and British penury.
 
And so starts the romance of Leonard and Beatrice. Leonard Tavernake is the most curious of men; in these days we would be inclined to think of him as a  mild representative of the autistic spectrum. He is filled with ambition and lacks any romantic interests. He is 25 years old and works for an estate agent.
"Six years ago I was a carpenter then I became an errand boy... today I am a sort of manager, in 18 months time I should start for myself."

Beatrice, an American in London, is desperately poor and rescued from suicide by Leonard. Later he meets her criminal sister, a truly beautiful woman. Leonard, for the first time in his life becomes aware of the power of women, and falls in love with her. She attempts to get him to tell her where her sister lives. Beatrice is a danger to her schemes and is in danger if her whereabouts are disclosed.
Much toing and froing ensue before the happy ending occurs.
The story is deftly told and pleasant to read.
Readers of Oppenheim will be pleased to follow the cast through various meals in choice restaurants.
5/10