McAllister and his Double E-Book

Arthur Train

• Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

In "McAllister and his Double," Arthur Train presents a compelling exploration of identity and moral ambiguity within the context of a legal thriller. The narrative follows the protagonist, McAllister, as he grapples with a doppelg√§nger who disrupts his life and career. Train's prose is characterized by sharp wit and an incisive examination of the human psyche, deftly intertwining elements of humor and suspense. Positioned within the early 20th-century American literary scene, this work reflects the growing cultural fascination with duality, the self, and the nature of justice, mirroring contemporary societal concerns regarding ethics and integrity. Arthur Train, an accomplished lawyer and author, drew upon his extensive legal background to craft this engrossing tale. His experiences in the courtroom undoubtedly informed the intricate legal scenarios and character dilemmas faced by McAllister, showcasing Train's unique blend of literary talent and legal insight. Train's own life, marked by notable achievements and a keen understanding of human nature, provides an authentic foundation for the exploration of the complex themes presented in this narrative. "McAllister and his Double" is a must-read for enthusiasts of psychological thrillers and legal dramas. Readers will find themselves captivated by Train's masterful storytelling, as well as the perpetual tension between self-perception and external reality. This book invites reflection on the deeper facets of identity, making it a profound experience that resonates well beyond the final page. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance.

Leseprobe

Arthur Train

McAllister and his Double

Enriched edition. A Tale of Mistaken Identity and Legal Intrigue in Old New York

In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience.

Introduction, Studies and Commentaries by Zoe Hart

Edited and published by Good Press, 2022

[email protected]

EAN 4064066405038

Table of Contents

Introduction

Historical Context

Synopsis (Selection)

McAllister and his Double

Analysis

Reflection

Memorable Quotes

Introduction

Table of Contents

McAllister and his Double gathers a sequence of Arthur Train’s McAllister tales, bringing together the pieces listed here as a single-author collection unified by recurring characters and a shared professional world. The scope is deliberately focused: these are self-contained narrative works presented to be read as a coherent run of stories rather than as a general survey of everything Train wrote. Read together, they allow the reader to follow the series’ continuing preoccupations and its variations in tone from case to case. The collection’s purpose is to preserve their cumulative effect and to make the McAllister material accessible in one place.

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This collection is composed of short fiction centered on legal situations and their human consequences. Each title offers an independent plot and can be approached on its own terms, yet the set gains force through repetition of setting, professional ritual, and the distinctive constraints of adversarial procedure. Train’s writing is associated with the courtroom story and with the dramatization of argument, testimony, and inference, and these texts reflect that orientation. The pieces move between investigation, advocacy, and judgment, where the decisive moments are often not physical contests but contests of explanation.

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The unifying figure is McAllister, whose presence provides continuity across shifting circumstances: holidays, travel, thefts, disputes, and the kinds of puzzles that turn on identity, motive, and proof. The collection title points to one of the series’ enduring interests in doubleness—how a person can be represented, misrepresented, or divided between public role and private intention. Even when a narrative is driven by an object such as a trunk or a diamond, the deeper tension typically lies in what the object makes visible about character and responsibility. The stories repeatedly return to the question of what can be known and what must be argued.

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A stylistic signature throughout these works is their attention to the mechanics of justice: the careful weighing of facts, the strategic framing of a narrative, and the friction between common sense and technical rule. Train’s legal training informs the texture of the stories without requiring specialist knowledge from the reader. The best effects come from procedural clarity and from the disciplined pacing of a case unfolding. Instead of relying on ornate description, the prose tends toward functional detail, sharp turns in reasoning, and the practical vocabulary of offices, courtrooms, and documents, where small discrepancies can carry large consequences and certainty is always provisional until tested.

Historical Context

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Arthur Train wrote the McAllister stories during the Progressive Era in the United States, when rapid urbanization and corporate consolidation sharpened public concern about law, political patronage, and unequal access to justice. New York City, a frequent implied setting, had recently been reshaped by consolidation in 1898 and by the growth of Wall Street’s influence in national life. Readers in the 1900s and early 1910s encountered courtroom narratives amid debates over municipal reform, antitrust enforcement, and the credibility of elites. This climate made a witty, morally self-assured lawyer-protagonist both appealing and controversial.

analysis of the collection’s backdrop also benefits from Train’s professional context as a Harvard-trained lawyer and former assistant district attorney in New York County, serving under evolving prosecutorial norms at the turn of the century. The period saw professionalization in policing and prosecution alongside sensational journalism that magnified trials into mass entertainment. These changes shaped contemporary expectations that legal outcomes should be both procedurally correct and publicly legible. Train’s fiction draws on that tension, presenting advocacy as a craft performed under scrutiny, where reputations rise and fall through narrative control as much as through evidence.

By the time these stories circulated, American criminal justice had been influenced by reforms associated with figures such as Theodore Roosevelt, whose earlier New York roles and later presidency (1901–1909) symbolized efficiency and anti-corruption rhetoric. Yet the era also witnessed persistent machine politics and selective enforcement, conditions that made legal maneuvering plausible and often necessary within fiction. Train’s recurring interest in clever defenses, strategic prosecutions, and the gray zones of responsibility reflects a society negotiating between moral certainty and pragmatic outcomes. Contemporary audiences recognized these dilemmas in headline cases and in the daily realities of urban courts.

International mobility and jurisdictional complexity also shaped the collection. Transatlantic travel had become routine for wealthy Americans by the early twentieth century, while U.S. immigration at Ellis Island peaked in the years before World War I, intensifying attention to identity, documentation, and border control. At the same time, formal mechanisms for returning suspects across borders grew more significant; the United States had multiple extradition treaties in force, including with Britain, and relied on evolving diplomatic practice. Such developments make plots about mistaken identity, fugitives, and cross-border pursuit feel timely rather than fanciful.

The legal framework underpinning Train’s scenarios reflects common-law traditions and their modernization. New York’s courts were balancing inherited evidentiary rules with emerging scientific and administrative methods, while professional ethics became a public topic in bar associations and law schools. The period’s fascination with “scientific” approaches to society—seen in criminology, psychology, and social survey work—intersected with anxieties about whether law could keep pace with complexity. Train often positions McAllister as a guide through technicalities, turning procedural details into narrative suspense and reinforcing the idea that modern life required expert interpretation.

Economic volatility and conspicuous consumption in the Gilded Age’s aftermath provided fertile ground for stories featuring gems, inheritances, and financial temptation. The Panic of 1907, for example, exposed vulnerabilities in banking and heightened awareness of fraud, speculation, and elite impunity. Luxury objects circulated through international markets and private networks, and high-profile thefts were widely reported. Against this backdrop, Train’s use of valuable property as a catalyst for crime aligns with broader questions about the moral meaning of wealth. Readers could readily connect courtroom disputes over ownership to contemporary debates about trust-busting and regulation.

Shifting social norms around marriage and gender roles also informed reception. The early twentieth century saw expanding opportunities for women in education and employment, along with organized activism that culminated in the Nineteenth Amendment’s ratification in 1920. Even before that victory, divorce, marital property, and social respectability were frequent subjects of public argument and legal change across states. Train’s legal puzzles involving domestic arrangements and reputation resonate with these tensions, portraying the law as both arbiter and instrument of social order. Contemporary readers would have recognized how private life increasingly had public, litigable consequences.

Finally, the collection reflects a print culture shaped by magazines and the short-story market, where brisk plotting and topical allusion were rewarded. The same era produced popular detective and legal fiction that responded to a growing middle-class readership seeking both entertainment and instruction about modern institutions. Progressive Era journalism exposed corruption, while fiction often restored confidence by demonstrating that skill and principle could still prevail in court. Train’s perspective—sympathetic to professional expertise yet alert to hypocrisy—fit this niche. As war approached in Europe after 1914, the stories’ focus on orderly adjudication also carried an implicit reassurance about stability in law.

Synopsis (Selection)

Table of Contents

McAllister stories (McAllister's Christmas; McAllister's Data of Ethics; McAllister's Marriage)

These legal tales center on Ephraim Tutt’s wry, self-possessed associate McAllister, whose small domestic or professional crises become vehicles for courtroom ingenuity and practical ethics.

Lightly comic but morally pointed, they revisit Train’s recurring motifs—logic as performance, the gap between law and justice, and character revealed through negotiation rather than melodrama.

Criminal cases and courtroom stratagems (The Jailbird; In the Course of Justice; Extradition)

A set of procedural-minded stories in which defendants, lawyers, and officials maneuver through arrest, trial, and cross-border consequences, emphasizing how outcomes hinge on rules as much as facts.

The tone is brisk and ironic, repeatedly highlighting Train’s signature concern with institutional friction—jurisdiction, technicalities, and the uneasy balance between public order and individual fairness.

Identity, doubles, and deceptive appearances (The Baron de Ville; The Escape of Wilkins)

These plots turn on disguise, reinvention, or mistaken impressions, using the tension between who someone seems to be and who they are to drive the conflict.

More overtly twist-driven than the courtroom pieces, they foreground Train’s interest in credibility, social masks, and the fragile trust that legal and personal systems rely on.

Valuables, theft, and the moral weight of property (The Governor-General's Trunk; The Maximilian Diamond; The Golden Touch)

Each story pivots on a coveted object—baggage, gems, or sudden wealth—drawing lawyers and schemers into disputes where possession and proof become the real battlegrounds.

With a cool, puzzle-like style, Train links material desire to ethical compromise, returning to the motif that the law often measures ownership more cleanly than motive.

McAllister and his Double

Main Table of Contents

McAllister's Christmas

The Baron de Ville

The Escape of Wilkins

The Governor-General's Trunk

The Golden Touch

McAllister's Data of Ethics

McAllister's Marriage

The Jailbird

In the Course of Justice

The Maximilian Diamond

Extradition

McAllister's Christmas

I

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McALLISTER was out of sorts. All the afternoon he had sat in the club window and watched the Christmas shoppers hurrying by with their bundles. He thanked God he had no brats to buy moo-cows and bow-wows for. The very nonchalance of these victims of a fate that had given them families irritated him[1q]. McAllister was a clubman, pure and simple; that is to say though neither simple nor pure, he was a clubman and nothing more. He had occupied the same seat by the same window during the greater part of his earthly existence, and they were the same seat and window that his father had filled before him. His select and exclusive circle called him "Chubby," and his five-and-forty years of terrapin and cocktails had given him a graceful rotundity of person that did not belie the name. They had also endowed him with a cheerful though somewhat florid countenance, and a permanent sense of well-being.

As the afternoon wore on and the pedestrians became fewer, McAllister sank deeper and deeper into gloom. The club was deserted[3q]. Everybody had gone out of town to spend Christmas with someone else, and the Winthrops, on whom he had counted for a certainty, had failed for some reason to invite him. He had waited confidently until the last minute, and now he was stranded, alone.

It began to snow softly, gently. McAllister threw himself disconsolately into a leathern armchair by the smouldering logs on the six-foot hearth. A servant in livery entered, pulled down the shades, and after touching a button that threw a subdued radiance over the room, withdrew noiselessly.

"Come back here, Peter!" growled McAllister. "Anybody in the club?"

"Only Mr. Tomlinson, sir."

McAllister swore under his breath.

"Yes, sir," replied Peter.

McAllister shot a quick glance at him.

"I didn't say anything. You may go."

This time Peter got almost to the door.

"Er—Peter; ask Mr. Tomlinson if he will dine with me."

Peter presently returned with the intelligence that Mr. Tomlinson would be delighted.

"Of course," grumbled McAllister to himself. "No one ever knew Tomlinson to refuse anything."

He ordered dinner, and then took up an evening paper in which an effort had been made to conceal the absence of news by summarizing the achievements of the past year. Staring head-lines invited his notice to

A YEAR OF PROGRESS.

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What the Tenement-House CommissionAccomplished.

FURTHER NEED OF PRISON REFORM.

He threw down the paper in disgust. This reform made him sick[2q]. Tenements and prisons! Why were the papers always talking about tenements and prisons? They were a great deal better than the people who lived in them deserved. He recalled Wilkins, his valet, who had stolen his black pearl scarf-pin. It increased his ill-humor. Hang Wilkins! The thief was probably out by this time and wearing the pin. It had been a matter of jest among his friends that the servant had looked not unlike his master. McAllister winced at the thought.

"Dinner is served," said Peter.

An hour and a half later, Tomlinson and McAllister, having finished a sumptuous repast, stared stupidly at each other across their liqueurs. They were stuffed and bored. Tomlinson was a thin man who knew everything positively. McAllister hated him. He always felt when in his company like the woman who invariably answered her husband's remarks by "'Tain't so! It's just the opposite!" Tomlinson was trying to make conversation by repeating assertively what he had read in the evening press.

"Now, our prisons," he announced authoritatively. "Why, it is outrageous! The people are crowded in like cattle; the food is loathsome. It's a disgrace to a civilized city!"

This was the last straw to McAllister.

"Look here," he snapped back at Tomlinson, who shrank behind his cigar at the vehemence of the attack, "what do you know about it? I tell you it's all rot! It's all politics! Our tenements are all right, and so are our prisons. The law of supply and demand regulates the tenements; and who pays for the prisons, I'd like to know? We pay for 'em, and the scamps that rob us live in 'em for nothing. The Tombs is a great deal better than most second-class hotels on the Continent. I know! I had a valet once that— Oh, what's the use! I'd be glad to spend Christmas in no worse place. Reform! Stuff! Don't tell me!" He sank back purple in the face.

"What do you know about it? I tell you it's all rot!"

"Oh, of course—if you know!" Tomlinson hesitated politely, remembering that McAllister had signed for the dinner.

"Well, I do know," affirmed McAllister.

II

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"No-el! No-el! No-el! No-el!" rang out the bells, as McAllister left the club at twelve o'clock and started down the avenue.

"No-el! No-el!" hummed McAllister. "Pretty old air!" he thought. He had almost forgotten that it was Christmas morning. As he felt his way gingerly over the stone sidewalks, the bells were ringing all around him. First one chime, then another. "No-el! No-el! No-el! No-el!" They ceased, leaving the melody floating on the moist night air.

The snow began to fall irregularly in patchy flakes, then gradually turned to rain. First a soft, wet mist, that dimmed the electric lights and shrouded the hotel windows; then a fine sprinkle; at last the chill rain of a winter's night. McAllister turned up his coat-collar and looked about for a cab. It was too late. He hurried hastily down the avenue. Soon a welcome sight met his eye—a coupé, a night-hawk, crawling slowly down the block, on the lookout, no doubt, for belated Christmas revellers. Without superfluous introduction McAllister made a dive for the door, shouted his address, and jumped inside. The driver, but half-roused from his lethargy, muttered something unintelligible and pulled in his horse. At the same moment the dark figure of a man swiftly emerged from a side street, ran up to the cab, opened the door, threw in a heavy object upon McAllister's feet, and followed it with himself.

"Let her go!" he cried, slamming the door. The driver, without hesitation, lashed his horse and started at a furious gallop down the slippery avenue.

Then for the first time the stranger perceived McAllister. There was a muttered curse, a gleam of steel as they flashed by a street-lamp, and the clubman felt the cold muzzle of a revolver against his cheek.

"Speak, and I'll blow yer head off!"

The cab swayed and swerved in all directions, and the driver retained his seat with difficulty. McAllister, clinging to the sides of the rocking vehicle, expected every moment to be either shot or thrown out and killed.

"Don't move!" hissed his companion.

McAllister tried with difficulty not to move.

Suddenly there came a shrill whistle, followed by the clatter of hoofs. A figure on horseback dashed by. The driver, endeavoring to rein in his now maddened beast, lost his balance and pitched overboard. There was a confusion of shouts, a blue flash, a loud report. The horse sprang into the air and fell, kicking, upon the pavement; the cab crashed upon its side; amid a shower of glass the door parted company with its hinges, and the stranger, placing his heel on McAllister's stomach, leaped quickly into the darkness. A moment later, having recovered a part of his scattered senses, our hero, thrusting himself through the shattered framework of the cab, staggered to his feet. He remembered dimly afterward having expected to create a mild sensation among the spectators by announcing, in response to their polite inquiries as to his safety, that he was "quite uninjured." Instead, however, the glare of a policeman's lantern was turned upon his dishevelled countenance, and a hoarse voice shouted:

"Throw up your hands!"

"Throw up your hands!"

He threw them up. Like the Phœnix rising from its ashes, McAllister emerged from the débris which surrounded him. On either side of the cab he beheld a policeman with a levelled revolver. A mounted officer stood sentinel beside the smoking body of the horse.

"No tricks, now!" continued the voice. "Pull your feet out of that mess, and keep your hands up! Slip on the nippers, Tom. Better go through him here. They always manage to lose somethin' goin' over."

McAllister wondered where "Over" was. Before he could protest, he was unceremoniously seated upon the body of the dead horse and the officers were going rapidly through his clothes.

"Thought so!" muttered Tom, as he drew out of McAllister's coat-pocket a revolver and a jimmy. "Just as well to unballast 'em at the start." A black calico mask and a small bottle filled with a colorless liquid followed.

Tom drew a quick breath.

"So you're one of those, are ye?" he added with an oath.

The victim of this astounding adventure had not yet spoken. Now he stammered:

"Look here! Who do you think I am? This is all a mistake."

Tom did not deign to reply.

The officer on horseback had dismounted and was poking among the pieces of cab.

"What's this here?" he inquired, as he dragged a large bundle covered with black cloth into the circle of light, and, untying a bit of cord, poured its contents upon the pavement. A glittering silver service rolled out upon the asphalt and reflected the glow of the lanterns.

"Gee! look at all the swag!" cried Tom. "I wonder where he melts it up."

Faintly at first, then nearer and nearer, came the harsh clanging of the "hurry up" wagon.

"Get up!" directed Tom, punctuating his order with mild kicks. Then, as the driver reined up the panting horses alongside, the officer grabbed his prisoner by the coat-collar and yanked him to his feet.

"Jump in," he said roughly.

"My God!" exclaimed our friend half-aloud, "where are they going to take me?"

"To the Tombs—for Christmas!" answered Tom.

III

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McAllister, hatless, stumbled into the wagon and was thrust forcibly into a corner. Above the steady drum of the rain upon the waterproof cover he could hear the officers outside packing up the silverware and discussing their capture.

The hot japanned tin of the wagon-lamps smelled abominably. The heavy breathing of the horses, together with the sickening odor of rubber and damp straw, told him that this was no dream, but a frightful reality.

"He's a bad un!" came Tom's voice in tones of caution. "You can see his lay is the gentleman racket. Wait till he gets to the precinct and hear the steer he'll give the sergeant. He's a wise un, and don't you forget it!"

As the wagon started, the officers swung on to the steps behind. McAllister, crouching in the straw by the driver's seat, tried to understand what had happened. Apart from a few bruises and a cut on his forehead he had escaped injury, and, while considerably shaken up, was physically little the worse for his adventure. His head, however, ached badly. What he suffered from most was a new and strange sensation of helplessness. It was as if he had stepped into another world, in which he—McAllister, of the Colophon Club—did not belong and the language of which he did not speak. The ignominy of his position crushed him. Never again, should this disgrace become known, could he bring himself to enter the portals of the club. To be the hero of an exciting adventure with a burglar in a runaway cab was one matter, but to be arrested, haled to prison and locked up, was quite another. Once before the proper authorities, it would be simple enough to explain who and what he was, but the question that troubled him was how to avoid publicity. He remembered the bills in his pocket. Fortunately they were still there. In spite of the handcuffs, he wormed them out and surreptitiously held up the roll. The guard started visibly, and, turning away his head, allowed McAllister to thrust the wad into his hand.

"Can't I square this, somehow?" whispered our hero, hesitatingly.

The guard broke into a loud guffaw. "Get on to him!" he laughed. "He's at it already, Tom. Look at the dough he took out of his pants! You're right about his lay." He turned fiercely upon McAllister, who, dazed by this sudden turn of affairs, once more retreated into his corner.

The three officers counted the money ostentatiously by the light of a lantern.

"Eighty plunks! Thought we was cheap, didn't he?" remarked the guard scornfully. "No; eighty plunks won't square this job for you! It'll take nearer eight years. No more monkey business, now! You've struck the wrong combine!"

McAllister saw that he had been guilty of a terrible faux pas. Any explanation to these officers was clearly impossible. With an official it would be different. He had once met a police commissioner at dinner, and remembered that he had seemed really almost like a gentleman.

The wagon drew up at a police station, and presently McAllister found himself in a small room, at one end of which iron bars ran from floor to ceiling. A kerosene lamp cast a dim light over a weather-beaten desk, behind which, half-asleep, reclined an officer on night duty. A single other chair and four large octagonal stone receptacles were the only remaining furniture.

The man behind the desk opened his eyes, yawned, and stared stupidly at the officers. A clock directly overhead struck "one" with harsh, vibrant clang.

"Wot yer got?" inquired the sergeant.

"A second-story man," answered the guard.

"He took to a cab," explained Tom, "and him and his partner give us a fierce chase down the avenoo. O'Halloran shot the horse, and the cab was all knocked to hell. The other fellow clawed out before we could nab him. But we got this one all right."

"Hi, there, McCarthy!" shouted the sergeant to someone in the dim vast beyond. "Come and open up." He examined McAllister with a degree of interest. "Quite a swell guy!" he commented. "Them dress clothes must have been real pretty onc't."

McAllister stood with soaked and rumpled hair, hatless and collarless, his coat torn and splashed, and his shirt-bosom bloody and covered with mud. He wanted to cry, for the first time in thirty-five years.

"Wot's yer name?" asked the sergeant.

The prisoner remained stiffly mute. He would have suffered anything rather than disclose himself.

"Where do yer live?"

Still no answer. The sergeant gave vent to a grim laugh.

"Mum, eh?" He scribbled something in the blotter upon the desk before him. Then he raised his eyes and scrutinized McAllister's face. Suddenly he jumped to his feet.