The Hunchback of Westminster

William Le Queux

Up to that time, I remember, my big brass plate, with the legend Mr Hugh Glynn, Secret Investigator, had only succeeded in drawing a very average and ordinary amount of business. True, I had had several profitable cases in which wives wanted to know what happened to their husbands when they didnt come home at the usual hours, and employers were anxious to discover certain leakages through which had disappeared a percentage of their cash; but for the most part my work had been shockingly humdrum, and already I had begun to regret the whim that had prompted me, after reading certain latter-day romances, to throw up my career as a barrister in Grays Inn to emulate the romancers heroes in real life.

The Invasion of 1910

William Le Queux, H.W. Wilson

The Invasion of 1910 is a novel written mainly by William Le Queux (along with H. W. Wilson providing the naval chapters). It is centered on an invasion by the Germans, who have managed to land a sizable invasion force on the East Coast of England. They reach London and occupy half the city. A junior Member of Parliament organizes a resistance movement, the League of Defenders and the Germans seem unable to combat this and tighten their control of London, and suddenly find themselves faced with a popular uprising. Finally a newly-formed British Army marches to liberate London. First published in 1906 this is one of the best-known examples of invasion literature, viewed by some as an example of pre-World War I Germanophobia but considered by others as prescient as it warned of the need to prepare for war with Germany.

The Lady in the Car. In Which the Amours of a Mysterious Motorist are Related

William Le Queux

The Prince broke open a big box of choice Petroffs, selected one, lit it slowly, and walked pensively to the window. He was in a good mood that morning, for he had just got rid of a troublesome visitor.

The Lost Million

William Le Queux

See! Itsits in my kit-bag, over there! The thingthe Thing at which the whole world will stand aghast! The thin, white-faced, grey-bearded man lying on his back in bed roused himself with difficulty, and with skinny finger pointed at his strong but battered old leather bag lying in the corner of the small hotel bedroom.

The Mysterious Mr. Miller

William Le Queux

We were standing together in the small shabby bedroom of the boarding-house wherein I lived in Granville Gardens, facing the recreation ground close to Shepherds Bush Railway Station. The stifling July day was at an end, and the narrow room was lit by the soft hazy glow of the fast-fading London sunset. Through the open window came the shouts of children at play upon the green opposite, mingled with the chatter of the passers-by and the ever-increasing whirr of the electric trams. Within that faded, smoke-grimed chamber of the dead was silence. Upon the bed between us lay the dead strangerthe man who was a mystery.

The Mysterious Three

William Le Queux

We all got up from tea in the hall, made our way to the drawing-room, and thence into the morning-room, which opened out of it. There was plenty of daylight still. James came in after us, and went straight up to a framed panel portrait which stood with others on a small table in a remote corner. It showed a tall handsome, clean-shaved man of three or four and thirty, of fine physique, seated astride a chair, his arms folded across the back of the chair as he faced the camera.

The Mystery of the Green Ray

William Le Queux

The youth in the multi-coloured blazer laughed. Youd have to come and be a nurse, he suggested. Oh, Id go as a drummer-boy. Id look fine in uniform, wouldnt I? the waitress simpered in return. Dennis Burnham swallowed his liqueur in one savage gulp, pushed back his chair, and rose from the table.

The Veiled Man. Being an Account of the Risks and Adventures of Sidi Ahamadou, Sheikh of the Azjar Marauders of the Great Sahara

William Le Queux

I am a Veiled Man. Openly, I confess myself a vagabond and a brigand. Living here, in the heart of the Great Desert, six moons march from Algiers, and a thousand miles beyond the French outposts, theft is, with my nomadic tribe, their natural industrya branch of education, in fact. We augment the meagreness of our herds by extorting ransoms from some of our neighbours, and completely despoiling others. Mention of the name of Ahamadou causes the face of the traveller on any of the caravan routes between the Atlas mountains and Lake Tsâd to pale beneath its bronze, for as sheikh of the most powerful piratical tribe in the Sahara, I have earned an unenviable notoriety as leader of The Breath of the Wind, while the Arabs themselves have bestowed upon my people three epithets which epitomise their psychology: Thieves, Hyenas, and Abandoned of Allah.