A Dapper, Ingenious Chap

Thirty years ago, The Dial Press issued The Adventures of Lester Leith, an Ellery Queen-edited, hardcover collection of Erle Stanley Gardner’s delightful tales featuring Leith, the audacious “Robin Hood of detectives” who “robbed crooks ‘of their ill-gotten spoils’ and gave the proceeds to deserving charities--less ‘20 percent for costs of collection.’” It’s been a while since I thumbed through those Leith adventures. But Evan Lewis’ posting today of “The Crimson Mask,” a Lester Leith novelette from 1931, got me to pick up that Dial Press edition again--which, by the way, didn’t include “The Crimson Mask” among its five tales.