The fifteen cells by Stuart Martin
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"The fifteen cells" by Stuart Martin is a collection of crime stories written in the late 1920s. Framed by a tense prison-room standoff, it follows a Governor who, under the eye of a gun-wielding visitor intent on freeing a condemned man, tells case histories to prove that every criminal makes one fatal mistake. The tone blends procedure with psychology, as vivid, twisty tales show how clever schemes collapse at a single overlooked
detail. The opening of The fifteen cells establishes the routine of a prison on the eve of an execution, then shatters it when a visitor—Steve Jenkins, partner of the condemned Floxton—confronts the Governor with a forged reprieve and an escape plan. To stall him, the Governor proposes recounting the latest admissions: first, David Fleming and his razor-sharp wife, who try to trap a “jewelry dealer” that is actually a detective, only to be caught when her story slips (she returned from “fetching coal” without any), and the officer, having overheard their murder plot, brings reinforcements. Next, master thief John Dennison executes a flawless inside job and plants false clues, but when a private investigator needles his jealousy with a lie about his wife running off with their courier, Dennison blurts a confession—just as his wife rings to say the handoff is safe and their tickets (in the Hughes alias) are ready. The third tale begins with seaman Samuel Vining stabbing a man and fleeing toward the coast, only to be betrayed by dust, trampled corn, tracking dogs, and his own exhaustion as he hides in a cliff cave above Hastings, the sea—his hoped-for escape—just out of reach. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Martin, Stuart, 1882- |
|---|---|
| Title | The fifteen cells |
| Original Publication | New York: Harper & Brothers, 1928. |
| Credits | Tim Miller, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PR: Language and Literatures: English literature |
| Subject | Detective and mystery stories |
| Subject | Criminals -- Fiction |
| Subject | Storytelling -- Fiction |
| Subject | Crime -- Fiction |
| Subject | Prisons -- Fiction |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 78778 |
| Release Date | May 28, 2026 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 682 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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