The crime code

About this book

"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.