September 1908–1911
YOUNG BECK, A CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK
Paul Beck Jr., the son of sleuth
Paul Beck, embarks upon his own detective career. There are references to a
cricket-playing gentleman thief named Baffles, and Paul Jr.’s best friend,
Charlie Kirkwood, remarks to Paul Sr., “I think I remember once, long before I
had the pleasure of knowing you personally, reading a case of yours in which
the famous Baffles imitated the finger marks of an absent burglar with
India-rubber gloves.” Paul Sr. also comments, “No monkey has turned up in a
burglary since the mystery of the Rue Morgue, so it must be a man.”
Collection of short stories written
by Charles Kirkwood, edited by M. McDonnell Bodkin, 1912. “Baffles” is meant to
be A. J. Raffles. The elder Beck’s encounter with Raffles is unrecorded. Paul
Sr.’s comments treat Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue” as an historical event.
Paul Beck, Jr. is in his twenties, and is allegedly Paul Sr.’s son by Dora Myrl.
However, Paul Sr. was identified as forty-one-years-old when he married Dora
during the events of The Capture of Paul Beck, which
also took place in 1908. Rick Lai writes, “Paul is now in his early sixties
while Dora is about forty. I suspect that Paul Sr. had an earlier marriage when
he was about nineteen. For some reason, Paul Sr. didn’t want this first wife
discussed; possibly she was a crook. Kirkwood must have been instructed to make
misleading chronological assertions and pretend that Paul Jr. was Dora’s son.”
