A splash of chloroform . . .

The drunken man was staggering -- but he was quite alive, when the thoughtful gentleman stumbled upon him in the thick Melbourne night, and hailed a cab to take him home.

By the time the cabdriver was in the proper neighborhood and was turning around to ask directions, the cabbie discovered he was driving around an unconscious man . . . slumped forward with a chemical-soaked handkerchief tied around his mouth! Unconscious -- or dead!

New Zealand lawyer and writer Fergus Hume achieved immediate, widespread attention for his first novel, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, when it first appeared in 1886. This remarkable novel, when published in England, became more the talk of London than even Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet, issued soon thereafter. Hume's other detective novels included The Opal Serpent and The Silent House.