Detective stories from the Strand Book

I. The Great Detectives
1. G. K. Chesterton: "The Vampire of the Village" - Father Brown is called in to solve a cold case: the murder of an actor in a conservative village. A story that uses GKC's religious hobby-horse to good effect.
2. Agatha Christie: "The Dream" - Hercule Poirot is called to consult about a recurring dream of suicide, and solves a murder.
3. A. E. W. Mason: "The Ginger King" - Monsieur Hanaud solves a case of arson with the help of a ginger cat.
4. E. C. Bentley: "The Ministering Angel" - Philip Trent finds clues in a rock garden which lead to The Hunting of the Snark and a missing will.
5. H. Warner Allen: "Tokay of the Comet Year" - Oenophile Mr. Clerihew unmasks a BolsheviK agent based on the wines he serves.
II. Legal Niceties
6. W. Somerset Maugham: "A Point of Law" - an interesting story about a dying woman who, after a lifetime tending to her invalid father, marries a fortune-hunter, but the titular legal point is rather too obscure to make a satisfying resolution.
7. Will Scott: "Not Guilty" - A murderess has herself arrested, tried, and acquitted for the murder of her husband before the evidence proving her guilt can be discovered.
8. Sapper: "The Idol's Eye" - a murder is committed under color of an accursed piece of glass, supposedly an eye stolen from a Tibetan idol.
9. Seamark: "The Perfect Crime" - a bank clerk creates a double life for two years before embezzling 40,000 pounds. The slip-up that leads to his capture is believable, but anticlimactic.
10. Augustus Muir: "The Intruder" - a tale of burglary with several reframings in its <4 pages.
11. Richard Keverin: "Cast-Iron Alibi" - a reformed female cat burglar seems to be committing more robberies. Anticipates To Catch A Thief
IV. Rouges, Knaves, and Fortune Hunters
12. Aldous Huxley: "A Deal in Old Masters" - An imaginative art dealer sells an 18th century Venetian portrait to a nouveau riche client based on its romantic backstory. The ending is not as twisty as it imagines itself to be.
13. A. J. Alan: "Private Water" - The witty voice of the narrator is the only distinguishing feature of this humorous tale of suburban problems and smuggling.
14. D. L. Murray: "A Gift from the Nabob" - Beau Brummel attains a precious pearl because he knows the kind of face to pull when examining it.
15. J. Maclaren-Ross: "The Episcopal Seat" - A witty portrait of a Falstaffian rogue.
V. Mostly Murder
16. W. W. Jacobs: "The Interruption" - An uxoricide and a blackmailing servant engage in a battle of wits to the death.
17. Edgar Wallace: "The Chobham Affair" - A double murder is explained a this coincidence-heavy tale. The set up is rather rough, detailing the career of one of the victims rather than starting with the discovery of the bodies.
18. Hylton Cleaver: "By Kind Permission of the Murdered Man" - A terminally ill man plans to make his suicide look like murder; he is actually murdered, but his hidden confession exonerates the killer. A clever story that exemplifies the attractions and limitations of the genre.
19. Marguerite Steen: "In View of the Audience" - An elaborate variation on "return to the scene of the crime". I would say that a story is in trouble when one character in it says to another, "Look here, although this allusive style of yours is very - what's it - provocative, hadn't you better get down to brass tacks and tell me the whole tale, straight through?"
20. Quentin Reynolds: "The Man Who Dreamed Too Much" - Friends of an apparent suicide reunite on the seventh anniversary of the death to confront the murderer.
21. Loel Yeo: "Inquest" - Apparently the only known work of this writer; a well-crafted tale of murder and non-inheritance, with an unusual motive.
VI. The Master
22. Arthur Conan Doyle: "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" - Holmes and Watson cross to the wrong side of the law in dealing with a blackmailer.
23. Arthur Conan Doyle: "The Adventure of the Creeping Man" - The only Holmes story, I believe, rendered untenable by its faulty science. Monkey gland injections!
24. Arthur Conan Doyle: "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane" - One of two (as I recall) Watson-less stories, narrated by Holmes.
25. Ronald Knox: "The Adventure of the First Class Carriage" - Hardly the "nearly faultless" imitation of the master's style the editor promised, it suffers even compared with the three bottom-drawer Doyle stories which precede it. The Latin tag at the end carries with it the air of the seminary, perhaps a fitting bookend to the Father Brown story that opened the volume.