Uploaded December 2022 | Updated September 2026, 4 days ago
Paul Beck, the "rule of thumb detective", is called in to investigate the mysterious death of a man found dead in a locked railway compartment, his head crushed in by a violent blow. An accidental fall, or is another party involved? And does the pungent smell of asafoetida have anything to do with the mystery...?
Narrated/performed by Simon Stanhope, aka Bitesized Audio. If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, there are a few ways you can support me:
* Occasional/one-off support via Buy Me a Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/bitesizedaudio
* Monthly support on Patreon: patreon.com/bitesizedaudio
* Visit my Bandcamp page to hear more of my performances of classic stories, and you can purchase and download high quality audio files to listen offline: bitesizedaudio.bandcamp.com
* Become a Bitesized Audio Classics member on YouTube, from $1 per month with various benefits:
youtube.com/c/BitesizedAudioClassics/join
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:20 The Story begins
00:41:19 Credits, thanks and further listening
Matthias McDonnell Bodkin (1850–1933) was born in County Galway, Ireland, the second son of a doctor. Over the course of a long career he was a journalist, newspaper editor, barrister (QC during the reign of Victoria), county court Judge (for County Clare) and, for a brief period (1892–95), a Member of Parliament for North Roscommon, sitting in the House of Commons as an Irish Nationalist during Gladstone's fourth and final term as prime minister. Somehow alongside all this he managed to find time to write fiction, which he produced quite prolifically from the 1890s through to the late 1920s.
In this capacity he created two popular "rivals of Sherlock Holmes": Paul Beck, "the rule of thumb detective", who made his debut in 1897, and Dora Myrl, "the lady detective", whose adventures appeared in 1900. He subsequently had the ingenious idea of having them meet and work together, get married and produce a son (Paul Beck junior) who became a detective in his own right, appearing in stories from 1911 onwards. His other fictional output included a trilogy of historical novels set at the time of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, one of which ('Lord Edward Fitzgerald', 1896) was dedicated to William Gladstone, as well as several other novels, both contemporary and historical. He also published plays, works of history and some political journalism.
'The Unseen Hand' first appeared in the Royal Magazine in December 1907, as part of the serial entitled 'The Quests of Paul Beck' which ran monthly from March 1907 to February 1908.
Recording © Bitesized Audio 2022.
Paul Beck, the "rule of thumb detective", is called in to investigate the mysterious death of a man found dead in a locked railway compartment, his head crushed in by a violent blow. An accidental fall, or is another party involved? And does the pungent smell of asafoetida have anything to do with the mystery...?
Narrated/performed by Simon Stanhope, aka Bitesized Audio. If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, there are a few ways you can support me:
* Occasional/one-off support via Buy Me a Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/bitesizedaudio
* Monthly support on Patreon: patreon.com/bitesizedaudio
* Visit my Bandcamp page to hear more of my performances of classic stories, and you can purchase and download high quality audio files to listen offline: bitesizedaudio.bandcamp.com
* Become a Bitesized Audio Classics member on YouTube, from $1 per month with various benefits:
youtube.com/c/BitesizedAudioClassics/join
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:20 The Story begins
00:41:19 Credits, thanks and further listening
Matthias McDonnell Bodkin (1850–1933) was born in County Galway, Ireland, the second son of a doctor. Over the course of a long career he was a journalist, newspaper editor, barrister (QC during the reign of Victoria), county court Judge (for County Clare) and, for a brief period (1892–95), a Member of Parliament for North Roscommon, sitting in the House of Commons as an Irish Nationalist during Gladstone's fourth and final term as prime minister. Somehow alongside all this he managed to find time to write fiction, which he produced quite prolifically from the 1890s through to the late 1920s.
In this capacity he created two popular "rivals of Sherlock Holmes": Paul Beck, "the rule of thumb detective", who made his debut in 1897, and Dora Myrl, "the lady detective", whose adventures appeared in 1900. He subsequently had the ingenious idea of having them meet and work together, get married and produce a son (Paul Beck junior) who became a detective in his own right, appearing in stories from 1911 onwards. His other fictional output included a trilogy of historical novels set at the time of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, one of which ('Lord Edward Fitzgerald', 1896) was dedicated to William Gladstone, as well as several other novels, both contemporary and historical. He also published plays, works of history and some political journalism.
'The Unseen Hand' first appeared in the Royal Magazine in December 1907, as part of the serial entitled 'The Quests of Paul Beck' which ran monthly from March 1907 to February 1908.
Recording © Bitesized Audio 2022.
