The Tragedy of X

The Tragedy of X, published in 1932, is the opening novel of Ellery Queen's "Tragedy" series and one of the representative works of the golden age of classic American detective fiction. The book contains three principal cases. The first takes place on a crowded tram in London during heavy rain: the stockbroker Harley Longstreet is poisoned with a strange weapon in full view of everyone; the passengers witness his death but no one sees the killer strike, no weapon is found at the scene, and a meticulous search by the police turns up nothing. The second murder is even more surprising: the tram conductor, whom the police had regarded as a key figure, is killed by a similar method aboard the ferry on his way home. The third murder occurs on a train. Inspector Sam and Prosecutor Bruno initially handle the case; with no progress, they travel to Hamlet Hall to seek help from the former Shakespearean actor Drury Lane, a man past sixty who left the stage because of deafness. Known as the "Emperor of the Drama," the old actor hears the account of the case and immediately declares that he already knows who the murderer is, but refuses to name the person until the evidence is complete; thereafter he takes part in the investigation and lays out the clues one by one in dramatic public demonstrations. The book strictly follows Queen's "fair play" method: the reader has virtually the same clues as the detective, and the truth is revealed only in the complete deduction at the end. The Chinese edition was translated by Tang Nuo and published by New Star Press in its "Midnight Library·Masters Series"; it is one of the most widely circulated versions in the Chinese-speaking world and, together with The Tragedy of Y, The Tragedy of Z, and The Last Case of Drury Lane, forms the Drury Lane tragedy tetralogy.