"The Man in Lower 10" by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Lawrence Blakely is a young attorney in Washington, D.C., partners with his best friend from school and college and fellow lawyer. He is taking the train from Washington to Pittsburg, to bring the evidence for a forged documents case to a courtroom. The documents will convict the accused. 

As is the custom in the early 1900s, he reserves a space in the Pullman sleeper car, numbered Lower 10. But returning from a few drinks in the saloon car, Blakeley discovers someone else asleep in his assigned bed. The conductor switches the sleeping arrangements, and all appears well.

 

Except the man in the Lower 10 bunk is found dead, stabbed to death. Blakely’s own clothes and suitcase, with the all-important fraud documents, are missing, and he’s left with someone else’s clothes. Just as his fellow travelers begin to accuse him of murder, there’s a wreck – another train has plowed into them. Blakely – now with a broken arm from the crash – is eventually awakened by a beautiful fellow traveler, and the two make their way from the train as their car is engulfed in flames. 

 

But there is still a murder victim, missing documents, and the mystery of what happened to Blakely’s clothes.

 

The Man in Lower 10 was one of the first mysteries published by American writer Mary Roberts Rinehart. It inaugurated a string of popular mystery stories that continued well into the 1930s. As in many of her stories, Rinehart combined mystery and romance in The Man in Lower 10, to the point where the novel is almost more romance than mystery. And Rinehart nicely complicates the romance, with having both law partners in love with the same woman. 

 

Rinehart (1876-1958) was a prolific writer of plays, mysteries, short story collections, non-fiction, and essays. A stock market crash in 1903 forced her to find income, and she began to write short stories. In 1907, her novel The Circular Staircase made her famous across the United States. The Bat first appeared as a play in 1920 and published as a novel in 1926. Several movie versions were filmed, included the 1959 movie starring Vincent Price and Agnes Morehead.

 

Related:

 

The Case of Jennie Brice by Mary Roberts Rinehart.