Beadle's Dime Library No. 481

Museum Catalog Note "The Bogus Nephew," by Leon Lewis, is a detective mystery serial appearing in this January 1888 issue of *The Silent Sleuths*. The story concerns Percy Wyville, a young man newly arrived in New York from Nova Scotia to claim a million-and-a-half-dollar inheritance from his uncle Claude. Meanwhile, his uncle Dr. John Wyville in Philadelphia, financially ruined through stock speculation and swindling, resolves to murder Percy to prevent losing the money. Arming himself with prussic acid, a revolver, and a blackjack, Dr. Wyville travels to New York. A mysterious lodger named Hartle, observing the doctor's suspicious preparations, alerts Percy's intended fiancée's father, Captain Hanson. At his hotel, Percy encounters a striking doppelgänger: Mr. Garson, a penniless debtor who bears such remarkable physical resemblance that the two are nearly indistinguishable.