Hawk Herons' Deputy; or, Nixey's Nip

"Hawk Heron's Deputy" *Beadle & Adams dime novel, December 8, 1886* This serial by Jackson Knox (pseudonym "Old Hawk") opens with a murder mystery set at Connecticut's Staylesbridge Hotel. Under-gardener Terence Flynn discovers chambermaid Mattie Braun strangled on a riverbank. Evidence emerges pointing to the hotel's head gardener, Wilfred Aylmer—a ribbon matching Mattie's hair is found in his wood-house, contradicting the initial "tramps and vagabonds" theory. Bernard Nixon, a twenty-one-year-old medical student boarder, becomes the investigator. Mysterious himself—a street orphan trained by detective "Hawk Heron" and bearing distinctive powerful hands ("Nixey's Nip")—he discovers empty envelopes near the body marked with initials M.J.B. and vows to uncover the murder's true motive. Nixon notes the murdered girl resembled a young woman he glimpsed a year prior in New York, the only person ever to capture his heart. After weeks of inquest, testimony exonerates three farmers seen with Mattie the night before her death. Nixon's analytical testimony shifts suspicion toward Aylmer and someone connected to the hotel, overturning the tramp theory.