A false publisher's agent steals Count Stylptitch's memoirs

The theft of Count Stylptitch’s memoirs is carried out through a carefully staged publisher’s visit: a man calling himself Mr Holmes claims to represent Balderson and Hodgkins, collects the manuscript from Anthony Cade, and leaves him a £1,000 cheque. The deception is exposed when Superintendent Battle shows Anthony the dead Prince Michael Obolovitch, whom Anthony recognizes as the supposed agent. The episode turns an apparently routine handover into a personal loss for James McGrath and a revealing test of how much Anthony will tell the police.

The Hand-over

Anthony had been reluctant to part with the memoirs before the last day allowed for their delivery. He wanted time to see for himself what had caused the commotion around the manuscript. But the purported publisher’s representative argued that transferring it would put responsibility on the publishers rather than Anthony, and offered a written discharge. The £1,000 payment, he explained, would not be available until the following Wednesday under the agreement with the author’s executors; he offered to send his own cheque immediately instead.

Anthony accepted the arrangement. He asked for the cheque at once because he might leave England before Wednesday. The supposed representative promised that Mr Holmes, described as a man living in South London, would call first thing the next morning on his way to the firm and provide a receipt. He also advised Anthony to place a dummy packet in the manager’s safe, reasoning that enemies who heard about the transfer might otherwise attack Anthony’s rooms. Anthony agreed to follow the instructions.

At nine the next morning, Mr Holmes arrived with a card identifying him as a representative of Balderson and Hodgkins. Anthony handed him the manuscript and received the promised cheque for £1,000. The visitor packed the papers into the small brown bag he had brought, wished Anthony good morning, and left. The handover seemed so uneventful that Anthony called it tame; watching from the window, he wondered aloud whether the man might be murdered on the way to the publishers.

The Deception Exposed

Anthony did not treat the cheque as an uncomplicated reward. He sealed it in an envelope with a brief note, while recalling that Jimmy had advanced him a substantial sum when they met in Bulawayo and that most of that money remained untouched. The manuscript was connected to a friend’s commission, not simply to Anthony’s own payment. Although he considered that one assignment finished, he judged that he had bungled the other and decided to investigate further in disguise.

The handover was exposed after Prince Michael’s murder. When Superintendent Battle showed Anthony the dead man, Anthony reacted with surprise. Battle inferred that he recognized him, and Anthony confirmed that he had seen the man before—but not as Prince Michael. The dead man had presented himself as a representative of Balderson and Hodgkins and used the name Mr Holmes. That identification linked the prince directly to the theft: the visitor who had walked away with the memoirs was not the publisher’s agent he claimed to be.

The revelation also changed the meaning of the quiet morning visit. Mr Holmes’s card, his explanation of the delayed payment, the proposed receipt, and the brown bag had made the transfer appear to be ordinary business. Anthony had handed over the manuscript believing that the publisher’s representative had authority to receive it. The concealed identity invalidated that confidence and left him without the memoirs, despite having accepted a cheque.

Loss and Investigation

Anthony described the loss to Battle as a loss suffered by his friend, James McGrath. He said Jimmy had been neatly defrauded of £1,000, but stressed that the manner of the deception troubled him more than the sum itself. He had given up the manuscript like an unsuspecting victim, and the discovery left him stung by his own readiness to trust the visitor’s credentials. He nevertheless refused to regard recovery as impossible: the memoirs’ delivery deadline was still ahead, and he believed there might yet be a chance to regain them.

The theft became entangled with Anthony’s wider predicament. In the space of twenty-four hours, he had become involved in two separate crimes. His handling of the first had included concealing a body and obstructing justice; then he had reached the scene of the second crime at the moment it was being committed. The stolen manuscript therefore was not an isolated puzzle for him. It sat within a chain of events in which his own conduct could make him look culpable, even as he tried to pursue the person who had deceived him.

When questioned, Anthony chose a selective version of the truth. He resolved to tell the truth with one minor alteration and one serious omission, and began his account by describing his meeting with Jimmy in Bulawayo. Later, he explained why he had not earlier shared everything he knew: until the letters associated with Mrs Revel had been proved unrelated to her, he believed disclosure could harm her. Once that suspicion no longer applied, he judged that withholding information would hamper Battle’s investigation and gave the superintendent access to the facts. His account of the theft thus belongs to a larger pattern of measured disclosure, not straightforward cooperation from the outset.

Narrative Significance

The episode is built around the contrast between procedural reassurance and concealed identity. The visitor supplies the forms of legitimate business—a company card, a receipt, an explanation of the payment schedule, and a practical suggestion about protecting the manuscript—while using those details to make Anthony’s surrender of it seem safe. The ordinary transaction becomes a trap precisely because its apparent safeguards encourage trust.

The delayed recognition gives the theft a second function in the investigation. Anthony’s knowledge that Mr Holmes was Prince Michael is not merely a clue about the missing memoirs: it establishes that Anthony had encountered the murdered man under an assumed role, and it places his account under scrutiny. Battle must assess both what Anthony knows and what he has chosen to conceal. The episode consequently links the pursuit of the manuscript to the novel’s wider concern with imposture, incomplete testimony, and the difficulty of distinguishing a credible story from a constructed one.