Three sevens
by Perley Poore Sheehan (1875–1943)
- Free to read
- 4 hours to read
- 28 chapters
"Three Sevens" by Perley Poore Sheehan is a detective novel written in the early 20th century. It follows Daniel Craig, a wrongly convicted inmate who stages a calculated prison takeover to correct injustices and then pledges to recapture the worst criminals set loose, while forging a fraught alliance with reformer Joan Gracie. Mixing prison-break tension with manhunt and moral inquiry, it sets up a high-stakes redemption quest on both sides of the law.
The opening of the novel plunges into San Pedro Prison, where Craig, isolated in “solitary,” receives a cat wearing a collar of hidden saws—Chi Slim’s legacy—and cuts his way out. With the help of seasoned inmate Eddie the Yegg, he disarms guards, seizes the prison, convenes a jury of convicts, and begins paroling men he deems reformed, until a riot erupts when a mob tries to seize a mysterious young woman—Joan Gracie, daughter of the incoming reform warden. Craig shields her, is wounded, and retreats to the offices where Joan tends him; together they learn escaped felons have already robbed a train and shot travelers, and they compile a “little red ledger” of the most dangerous fugitives Craig must return. Resolute, Craig slips into the night with an oath to make amends, recruiting the loyal George Washington as his deputy, while Joan holds the fort and her father’s special train arrives to reassert lawful control.
- Detective and mystery stories
- Escapes
- Escaped prisoners
- Thrillers (Fiction)
Read the opening
Chapter I: “Solitary”
It mattered not at all to Craig that he had at least another ten years of prison ahead of him, nor that at least another month of this unexpired term would have to be passed here in the “cooler.” He had already considered these facts through long hours, and had found them as unproductive as stones. But the cat was a brand-new fact. He stroked her fur. He tickled her under the chin. In a sort of tremulous delight he wondered how she got here—where she came from—who owned her.
At this last phase of his happy speculation it was as if his mind gave a slight start of surprise. Did she come as a heritage, so to speak, from Chi Slim?
Here in San Pedro Prison, the punishment cells were a row of boiler-iron boxes, each of them approximately a five-foot hollow cube—six of them in all, ranged along one side of a dark subcellar. In each cell there was an iron door with two openings in it—one near the top, through which the guard could flash his light, when he made his rounds, and thus see what the inmate of the cell was doing; and the other at the bottom, through which things could be pushed, such as food and water pans, without the door being opened.
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About this edition
This free edition of Three sevens by Perley Poore Sheehan comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #78011, released 2026-02-23. 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.
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