Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 790

1892 · 16 pages

"The Case of the Dead Alive" by J.C. Cowdrick This detective story features Broadway Billy, a boy detective, and his two young assistants Happy Harry and Silent Seth. An elderly man in childish clothing arrives at Billy's office claiming to be Ruford Hearn, dead and buried for twenty-two years. Despite his apparent insanity, he coherently describes hiding valuable papers in a silver casket buried with him, involving a vast fortune and a plan to test which of his children truly loved him. When Billy presses for details, the old man's mental state deteriorates into complete childishness—he demands to play marbles and reveals his actual name is Thomas Tobias Brown, who lives at Doctor Dray's institution and believes himself eleven years old. A young man shortly arrives seeking the escaped patient. Billy grows suspicious of the visitor's knowledge and intentions regarding the old lunatic.

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