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A bell rings in the small hours, and Dr Jervis finds himself doing the one thing he thought he had left behind when he gave up medicine for the law: answering an urgent summons in the dark.
A man lies dead in his own sitting room with a dagger of very curious manufacture driven into his back. The door was bolted on the inside. The windows are high above a garden nobody crossed. Nothing is missing, nobody was seen, and there is no possible way for the murderer to have come or gone.
Scotland Yard has already decided who did it, and is preparing to arrest her.
Dr John Thorndyke — physician, barrister, and the first true forensic scientist in detective fiction — has decided nothing at all yet. He has brought his research case, and he would like to measure a few things first.
There is no leap of intuition anywhere in this story. There is measurement, material, and a patient refusal to accept an impossible conclusion when an unlikely one will do. That is Freeman's whole method, and it is why Thorndyke has lasted.
ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS This is a complete, unabridged reading of The Aluminium Dagger by R. Austin Freeman, collected in John Thorndyke's Cases (1909) and now in the public domain. Every word is the author's own. Part of The Midnight Archive: three nights of classics every week, alongside four original Nocturnal Tales mysteries.
🗳️ YOU CHOOSE WHAT'S NEXT The Archive is deep — more from tonight's detective? Loveday Brooke? Violet Strange? Sherlock Holmes? Father Brown? Max Carrados? Lady Molly? Raffles? Dr Thorndyke? Arsène Lupin? Vote in the poll attached to this episode, or tell us in the comments which classic you want to hear by lamplight.
💬 QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS The room insists the murder could not have happened. How far into the story did you get before you stopped believing the locked door? 🕵️
🕒 CHAPTERS 00:00 - Introduction 01:59 - Part One 17:27 - Part Two 32:44 - Part Three 47:01 - Part Four
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🧾 CREDITS Narrated and produced by Nocturnal Tales. Story by R. Austin Freeman (public domain).
🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS r austin freeman audiobook, dr thorndyke audiobook, the aluminium dagger audiobook, john thorndyke's cases 1909, locked room mystery, impossible crime mystery, forensic detective story, scientific detective fiction, edwardian london mystery, classic detective story audiobook, public domain audiobook, unabridged classic mystery
