The New Tenant

The New Tenant by E. Phillips Oppenheim

The New Tenant opens at Thurwell Court, where widowed squire Guy Davenant Thurwell and his daughter Helen learn of an unusual application to rent the estate's remote Falcon's Nest cottage: a reclusive bachelor calling himself Bernard Brown. Preferring him to an unwanted local rival, Thurwell lets him the house sight unseen. Months later, at a shooting party luncheon on the cliffs, Sir Geoffrey Kynaston — Helen's fiancé, newly returned to England after years abroad — is found stabbed to death near Falcon's Nest. Brown arrives at the scene showing strange foreknowledge and controlled grief rather than shock. A threatening anonymous letter found on Sir Geoffrey warns him that his past has caught up with him. Helen, who never loved Geoffrey, is stirred more by moral horror than personal grief, and begins covertly studying Brown, whom she suspects. Investigating his cottage, she finds signs a room has been hastily tidied to hide something, including a wet windowsill and books rearranged over a possible stain. Brown, aided by Sir Allan Beaumerville (a celebrated physician), covers for her intrusion. Drawn together despite her suspicion, Helen finds Brown revealing unexpected culture, passion for poetry, and eloquence; he becomes a regular, transformed presence at Thurwell Court dinners. During an emotional walk, he nearly confesses something before catching himself, and when Helen directly asks if he killed Geoffrey, he denies it — but she later witnesses Geoffrey's sister Rachel Kynaston burst in, accuse Brown outright of stalking and murdering her brother over a long-standing feud, and collapse and die of the shock, extracting from Helen a dying vow to avenge Geoffrey. Bound by that oath yet increasingly in love with Brown, Helen secretly hires the detective firm of Levy & Son to investigate him, revealing her suspicions and paying for the inquiry. The unscrupulous Benjamin Levy realizes Brown is actually the celebrated author Bernard Maddison and sees a lucrative opportunity. Meanwhile Brown/Maddison returns to Falcon's Nest to find it broken into and a cabinet of private papers rifled, throwing him into despair over exposure and a nearly fatal fall from the cliff, from which he saves himself. He confides in Sir Allan, who advises him to flee the country, but he refuses. In London, Maddison is revealed in society as the famous writer, and he and Helen's romance develops further; Helen persuades her aunt, Lady Thurwell, to have him to dinner, where he declares his love and she accepts him despite the danger hanging over him. Learning that Levy has been paid to suppress the case, Helen buys back incriminating letters from him for a large sum, not knowing Levy has actually decided to pursue the mystery himself, following Maddison abroad toward Italy to uncover the secret behind his feud with the dead man.

By E. Phillips Oppenheim · First published 1905 · Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Crime · 42 chapters · 90,375 words

First lines

Thurwell Court, by Thurwell-on-the-Sea, lay bathed in the quiet freshness of an early morning. The dewdrops were still sparkling upon the terraced lawns like little globules of flashing silver, and the tumult of noisy songsters from the thick shrubberies alone broke the sweet silence. The peacocks strutting about the grey stone balcony and perched upon the worn balustrade were in deshabille, not being accustomed to display their splendors to an empty paradise, and the few fat blackbirds who were hopping about on the lawn did so in a desultory manner, as though they were only half awake and had turned out under protest. Stillness reigned everywhere, but it was the sweet hush of slowly awakening day rather than the drowsy, languorous quiet of exhausted afternoon. With one's eyes shut one could tell that the pulse of day was only just beginning to beat.

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mystery · suspense · thriller · drama · crime · intrigue · secrets · deception · psychological · relationships · tension · plot twist

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The New Tenant is listed on Textopian as a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim, dated 1905 CE.

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