The crime code by William Le Queux
"The Crime Code" by William Le Queux is a crime-thriller novel written in the early 20th century. It likely follows Lionel Hipwell, a rising Foreign Office man and would‑be MP, who becomes a fugitive after a fatal street struggle and is swept into a labyrinth of jewel thieves, espionage, and high-stakes intrigue that stretches from London’s underworld to Continental diplomatic salons. The opening of the story introduces Lionel’s privileged background, secret engagement,
and gambling habit before a rainy-night scuffle in Bloomsbury leaves a man dead and Lionel fleeing in panic. He disguises himself as a lorry-driver, returns to London under an alias, and hides in shabby Camberwell lodgings, where a sharp-eyed fellow tenant, Lisely Hatten, begins to suspect him. After a clandestine meeting with his sympathetic father—and fresh press reports revealing the victim was a notorious burglar—Lionel blunders, in a dense fog, into a nearby house where a foreign gang is dividing stolen jewels; Lisely is among them, and they brand Lionel a police spy, planning to blind him. Drugged during the ordeal, he awakens abruptly at a glittering British Embassy dinner in Rome—bewildered, in diplomatic uniform, dancing with the captivating Contessina Angela—before returning to his hotel, where a Swiss-letter awaits, closing this disorienting, high-tension beginning. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Read or download for free
For an overview of the different reading options, see our Reading Guide
| Reading Options | Url | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read now! | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78372.html.images | 477 kB | |||
| EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78372.epub3.images | 1.3 MB | |||
| EPUB (older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78372.epub.images | 1.3 MB | |||
| EPUB (no images, older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78372.epub.noimages | 309 kB | |||
| Kindle | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78372.kf8.images | 1.5 MB | |||
| older Kindles | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78372.kindle.images | 1.5 MB | |||
| Plain Text UTF-8 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78372.txt.utf-8 | 442 kB | |||
| Download HTML (zip) | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/78372/pg78372-h.zip | 1.4 MB | |||
| There may be more files related to this item. | |||||
Similar Books
About this eBook
| Author | Le Queux, William, 1864-1927 |
|---|---|
| Title | The crime code |
| Original Publication | New York: The Macaulay Company, 1928. |
| Note | English edition (Hodder and Stoughton) has title: Double nought. |
| Credits | an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PR: Language and Literatures: English literature |
| Subject | Detective and mystery stories |
| Subject | London (England) -- Fiction |
| Subject | Criminals -- Fiction |
| Subject | Gangs -- Fiction |
| Subject | Thrillers (Fiction) |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 78372 |
| Release Date | Apr 6, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 988 downloads in the last 30 days. |
| Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free! | |