The late nineteenth and early twentienth century were a fecund period for classical mystery writers. Among the most popular was Baroness Emmuska Orczy. The Old Man in the Corner contains twelve of the stories by Baroness Orczy featuring the mysterious man who sits in the corner of the ABC tea shop fiddling with a piece of string whilst working our the solutions to crimes that have baffled the police. Each case is unfolded during the course of a conversation between the man in the corner and a lady journalist, an ingenious method that avoids the necessity of a clumsy tacked-on explanation of the crime. Relying solely on his vast Holmesian powers of deduction, the strange looking sleuth never deigns to visit the scene of the crime, question a suspect, or examine clues. Nor does he have much faith in conventional police methods and crime solving capabilities.