Beadle's Dime Library No. 415

1886 · 32 pages

"The Red Jaguar's Mission," attributed to W. H. Manning, is a South California tale opening with premeditated murder. Paul Nettleton, son of the wealthy Commodore Nettleton, shoots his servant Bill Peters inside ruined convent grounds near Coast Castle and buries the body in a pre-dug excavation. Nettleton stages Peters's disappearance by capsizing a boat in Nigger Arm, then discovers he has lost his revolver—the murder weapon—possibly at the convent. The narrative establishes that Nettleton has returned from six years of travel in the Americas to his father's California estate, ostensibly to settle. His sister Barbara is about to marry Palmer Hague. The story promises further complications, suggesting the revolver will surface as evidence. Genre conventions include suspenseful plotting and the mystery of why Nettleton killed his loyal servant.

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