The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1909-09-05
THE MAN IN LOWER TEN.

BY Mary Roberts Rinehart author of
The Circular Staircase Illustrated In
color by Howard Chandler Christy.
12mo, cloth, $3.50. The BObbs Merrill
company. Indianapolis.
The Circular Staircase was one of the
/ happy surprises Of 1898. Here was
story by an author practically unknown
which combined elements of humOr auC
mystery in such entertaining proportions
that the reading public was Immediately
CaptiVated The combination was some
thing new, piquant and different, Ike the
first taste of grapefruit dressed with oil.
In The Nan in Lower Ten Mrs Rine-
hart tells an even better story, with
even greater gayety, and even more IN
tense humCr. This iucessant spOntane-
Gus, iTrepreSSible humOr of hers may be
taken as her distinctive contribution to
detective fiction, the very essence of her
true delghtfUness. 1t has its source in
an optimism as natural as the yelling OF
water from the rock It has the tonic
quality of sunshine. Even in the moments
of their direct predicaments the charac-
ters are able to laugh at themselves, and
the reader laughs with them.
Now. one might reasonably suppose that
this incorrigible comic perception would
take the edge off the excitement. But
it doesn't On the contrary, it adds to
the sense of reality, makes the Charac-
ters seem more natural, human and sym
pathetic, supplies ozone to the air OF
plausibility, gives zest to the criminal
terry.
And as for the mystery-the plot of
THE Man in Lower Ten so deeply en-
crosses the reader that he fOrgets meals,
sleep, the tOOthache. appendicitis. duns,
Roosevelt and all other insistent distrac-
tons. We shant give 1t away, we would
not be so Unkind to the prospective read
eT. But the starting point at least may
be indicated. A man goes to bed in Low
er Nine of the Washington sleeper from
PittsbuTg, and awakens in Lower Seven.
In the meantime another man. IN Lower
Ten. which berth the first man was 10
have occupied if Pullman arrangements
had gone straight, is murdered, and the
man in Lower Seven finds, as ne starts
to dress, not his own clothes and shoes,
but the garments of somebody else and
the bag OF somebody else, instead Of the
one containing his own valuable papers.
There's your puzzle for you, ana It
seems all the more battling because Of
its very simplicity. The criminal must
be one of the little group Of people all
described, who boarded the Washington
car Naturally, every reader becomes d
detective on his own hook, certain-sure
that he has the one correct solution And
Mrs Rinehart just sits back with her. sly
and subtle smile-and let's one think so!
Her fun will come to see him sit uD
with a jerk of surprise when she dis
closes her secret in the last astonishing
chapter.
banners of humor and the sinister storm
signals of mystery are streaming through
out this story. the flag of romance tles
bfavely. too On the fateful Pullman on
which the hero takes passage there IS
also "a blue-eyed and brown haired Isabel
whom he sees and loves. The Man in
Lever Ten thus makes a threefOld APP
peal upon the reader, who is at once
absorbed by its unusual mystery, cheered
by its delightful humor and charmed by
its love interest. And a thTeefOld cord,
SAYS Ecclesiastes, is not quickly broken.