Cover of Clubfoot the Avenger

Clubfoot the Avenger

  • Free to read
  • 3 hours to read
  • 21 chapters
  • Reading level: 6th grade

"Clubfoot the Avenger" by Valentine Williams is a detective novel written in the early 20th century. The story features Major Desmond Okewood, a retired secret service agent, who finds himself drawn back into the dangerous world of espionage when a malevolent figure known as "The Man with the Clubfoot" resurfaces with a campaign of vengeance against those connected to the British Secret Service. The narrative promises intrigue and suspense, while Okewood grapples with threats from the dangerous mastermind and his cunning tactics. The opening portion of the book sets the stage with a grim discovery in a rain-soaked London, where a dead man is found in a cabriolet, suspected of suicide. As Major Okewood investigates the peculiar circumstances surrounding the death, he meets various characters, including a young woman, Miss Vera Slade, whose stolen car is linked to the crime. Suspicion arises that the dead man may not be who he seems, suggesting a deeper conspiracy tied to Okewood's past. This tense beginning establishes an atmosphere of mystery while hinting at the complex web of intrigue that will unfold as Okewood navigates old relationships and confronts the dark figure of Clubfoot.

Read free now No app, no sign-up. Your place is saved automatically. Or download for your e-reader ↓
  • Spy stories
  • English fiction · 20th century

Read the opening

Chapter I: The Purple Cabriolet

It was a wet night. The rain fell in torrents. The low archway leading into Pump Yard, Saint James’s, framed a nocturne of London beneath weeping skies. The street beyond was a shining sheet of wet, the lamps making blurred streaks of yellow on the gleaming surface of the asphalt. Within, on the rough cobbles of the yard, the rain splashed and spurted like a thousand dancing knives.

On either side of the small square cars were drawn up in two long lines, the overflow from the lock-ups of the garage set all round the yard. At the open door of a plum-coloured cabriolet, his oilskins shining black in the pale rays of a gas-lamp above his head, a policeman stood, peering over the shoulder of a man in a raincoat who was busying himself over something inside the car. Behind him a glistening umbrella almost completely obscured the form of another man who was talking in whispers to a gnome-like figure in overalls, a sack flung over his head and shoulders in protection against the persistent rain.

Keep reading Clubfoot the Avenger →

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Chapter I: The Purple Cabriolet
  3. Chapter II: Enter Miss Vera Slade
  4. Chapter III: The Man with the Clubfoot
  5. Chapter IV: The Strange Experience of Miss Patricia Maxwell
  6. Chapter V: The Ikon of Smolensk
  7. Chapter VI: The Secret of the Ikon
  8. Chapter VII: The Unseen Menace
  9. Chapter VIII: The Top Flat
  10. Chapter IX: The Footstep in the Dark
  11. Chapter X: In Which Desmond Okewood Finds Clubfoot in Strange Company
  12. Chapter XI: The Constantinople Courier
  13. Chapter XII: Xenia
  14. Chapter XIII: In Which Check Proves to Be Checkmate
  15. Chapter XIV: The Girl at the Hexagon
  16. Chapter XV: The Decoy
  17. Chapter XVI: The House in Pimlico
  18. Chapter XVII: The Meeting
  19. Chapter XVIII: The Chamois Leather Packet
  20. Chapter XIX: A Flight and What Came of It
  21. Chapter XX: In Which Miss Mary Brewster Speaks Her Mind

Download for your e-reader

Files are provided by Project Gutenberg. On a Kindle, the simplest route is to send the EPUB with Amazon’s Send to Kindle. Downloaded copies don’t sync with your place on Classic Book Reader.

About this edition

This free edition of Clubfoot the Avenger by Valentine Williams comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #65416, released 2021-05-22. It is in the public domain in the United States, so you can read it here in full at no cost, on any phone, tablet or computer. Genre: Crime, Thrillers and Mystery, Novels, British Literature.

Summary provided by Project Gutenberg (automatically generated).

More by Valentine Williams