Dixon Hawke's Case Book No. 20

Dixon Hawke's Case Book No. 20 This issue contains twenty short detective stories organized as cases for the fictional detective Dixon Hawke. The featured story, "A Lesson for a Lady," involves the theft of a diamond pendant valued at eight thousand pounds from Lady Diana Dayton during a lecture at an arts club. The pendant is snatched from her neck when the hall lights mysteriously go out mid-lecture. Hawke, attending as a guest, takes preliminary charge before Chief Inspector Curry arrives. Key plot points include the thief operating in darkness with an accomplice controlling the lights, the pendant's chain being snapped during the theft, and the perpetrator emerging from the front rows within approximately ten seconds. Additional stories include "Damsel Doublecross," "They Never Searched the Rats," "Bullet for a Banker," "The Moon Cried Murder!," "The Ghost Wore Uniform," and others—primarily short crime and mystery tales in the detective-fiction pulp format.