The tomb of Ts'in — Reading Notes

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In Category - Exploration Survival Adventure Tales

Authors: Wallace, Edgar, 1875-1932 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2025 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Detective and mystery stories; Adventure stories; Police -- Fiction; China -- Fiction; Tombs -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 56,502

Reading time 246 min

Text sections 6

The source record for The tomb of Ts'in — Reading Notes measures this digital text at 56,502 words, 4 hr 6 min estimated reading time, and 6 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 16.1 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Detective and mystery stories,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #76418

Edgar Wallace's 1918 mystery follows detective Tillizinni through a Chinese tomb-robbery plot, narrated by a self-deprecating friend who admits Tillizinni's own English would have made 'a greater and a better book.' The story's voice shifts between the narrator's dry asides and Tillizinni's theatrical, pen-flourishing interrogations.

Editorial Edition Score 4.7/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg76418

Read the Text

on. He was tall and straight, his shoulders were thrown back, his chin had that upward lift which seems part of the physiognomy of all who have followed a soldier’s career. His face, lean and well-featured, was tanned with the tan of strong suns and keen cold winds, and though the day was chilly and a boisterous breeze swept across the bare spaces of the Park, he wore neither overcoat nor muffler. The upturned moustache and the shaggy eyebrows suggested truculence; the threadbare suit, for all its evidence of pressing and ironing, suggested that he had found patches of life none too productive.

A close examination might have revealed little darns at the extremities of his trousers, for he had a trick of brushing his heels together as he walked--a trick disastrous to garments already enduring more than their normal share of wear.

He walked carelessly, swinging his gold-headed malacca cane--incongruously magnificent--and whistling softly and musically as he moved.

The Park was almost deserted, for it was dusk, and the weather conditions were neither ideal nor inviting. Occasionally the gusty wind bore down a flake or two of snow and the skies overhead were sullen and grey.

He had reached the Ranger’s House before he examined a cheap metal watch, which was affixed to his person by no more pretentious guard than a broad ribbon, bearing a suspicious resemblance to a lady’s shoe-lace.

The watch had stopped--he arrested his progress to wind it, deliberately and with great earnestness. This done, he continued his stroll, bearing down towards the Serpentine.

He stood for a few moments cheerfully contemplating the dreary stretch of water, and three sad water-fowl, which came paddling toward him in the hope of sustenance, paddled away again, sadder than ever, for he offered no greater assistance to life than a cheerful chirrup.

He turned as a sharp footstep came to him from the gravelled path. A girl was walking quickly toward him from the Kensington end of the Park. Something in her face attracted his attention--if ever fear was written in a human countenance it was written in hers. Then, into view round a clump of bushes, came three men. They were small of stature, and it needed no second glance to tell him their nationality, for despite their European dress and their hard Derby hats, they wore their clothes in the négligé style which the Oriental alone can assume.

The girl saw the tall man and came towards him.

“I’m so sorry to trouble,” she said breathlessly, “but these men have been following me for two days--but never so openly----”

She stopped and appeared to be on the verge of tears.

He bowed, a little slyly, and glanced at the three Chinamen, who now stood a dozen paces away, as though uncertain as to what was the next best move.

With a jerk of his head he beckoned them, and after a moment’s consultation they obeyed the gesture.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“No savee,” lisped one of the men. “No savee them pidjin.”

He exchanged a few rapid sentences with his companions and a smile flickered momentarily at the corner of the tall man’s mouth and vanished.

“What for you walkee this piecee lady all same time?” he asked.

Again the sotto-voce conference and the leader of the three shook his head.

“No makee walkee samee time,” he said. “Makee walkee John allee samee, piecee lady no b’long.”

The tall man nodded. He took from his waistcoat pocket a light blue porcelain disc and laid it on the palm of his hand and the three Chinamen walked nearer and examined it. They were puzzled by the demonstration.

“No savee,” said the spokesman.

Captain Talham replaced the button in his pocket.

“Why do you follow this lady, you dogs?” he asked quickly, and the men shrank back, for he spoke in the hissing Cantonese dialect.

“Excellent lord,” said the speaker humbly, “we are magnificent students walking as is our custom in the evening, and we have not the felicity of having seen this gracious and beautiful lady before.”

“You lie,” said the tall man calmly; “for if that were so, why did you say, ‘Let us go away until this pig is out of sight, and then we will follow the woman?’”

The man he addressed was silent.

“Now you shall tell me what you mean,” said Captain Talham and drew from his pocket the sky-blue button, fingering it thoughtfully.

This time the men saw and understood, and, as if at a signal, they bowed low, recognising in the inquisitor a mandarin of the Fourth or Military Class.

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Edgar Wallace's The Tomb of Ts'in opens with an unusual framing device: an unnamed narrator who claims he is telling the story at the request of the celebrated detective Tillizinni, because Tillizinni's own written English would have been too flawed to do it justice. The narrator remarks that Tillizinni 'speaks and writes the three Arabics' and seven Chinese dialects, yet finds English 'a tongue which more than any other baffles and overawes him.' This self-conscious apology for style immediately signals that the book's interest lies as much in how the story is told as in what happens.

The excerpts show a narrative voice that is wry, digressive, and fond of ironic understatement. The narrator describes Tillizinni as 'surely the most talkative man in the world,' and the detective himself, when he appears, speaks in elaborate, stage-managed sentences—pointing his remarks 'with little flourishes which were peculiarly his.' The prose shifts between the narrator's clipped observations and Tillizinni's more ornate, almost theatrical dialogue, creating a deliberate contrast in pace and tone.

A Narrator Who Apologises for Style

The introduction establishes a narrator who is acutely aware of the limitations of his own medium. He tells us that if Tillizinni had written the story himself, 'it might have made a greater and a better book,' but that the detective's English is too full of pitfalls. This is not mere modesty; it is a structural choice. The narrator positions himself as a necessary filter, someone who can render Tillizinni's genius in readable prose. The effect is to make the reader conscious of the act of narration itself.

Throughout the excerpts, the narrator maintains a dry, slightly amused tone. He describes Tillizinni's habit of pointing his remarks 'with little flourishes' from a fountain pen, and notes that the detective 'strolled to the other end of the room, his hands in his pockets, his dark brow puckered in a thoughtful frown.' These small physical details break up the exposition and give the prose a measured, observational quality. The narrator never hurries; he lets scenes unfold at their own pace, even when the plot involves burglary, murder, and secret societies.

Tillizinni's Theatrical Interrogations

When Tillizinni himself speaks, the prose changes gear. His dialogue is elaborate and almost theatrical, full of deliberate pauses and flourishes. In one excerpt, he confronts an old man named De Costa, describing how he burgled the man's house and found evidence of a conspiracy. He speaks in long, carefully constructed sentences: 'I came to seek a certain dossier containing a document which I had every reason to believe was in your possession.' The rhythm is formal, almost legalistic, but undercut by the physical comedy of the fountain pen dripping ink on De Costa's shirtfront.

Tillizinni's method is to build a case step by step, revealing information in a controlled, almost teasing manner. He tells De Costa that two men in his pay stole a document from the Chinese Embassy, and that one of them killed a Chinaman who called himself 'Star above the Yamen.' The detective's voice is calm and precise, but the narrator's interjections—'Not a muscle of the old man's face moved'—remind us that this is a performance. The pace slows to allow every gesture and reaction to register.

Pace and the Weight of Detail

The excerpts reveal a story that moves between two speeds: the narrator's relaxed, almost conversational pacing, and Tillizinni's more deliberate, forensic unfolding of clues. The opening chapters, judging by the table of contents, introduce characters and settings—Captain Ted Talham, Mr. Soo, the amulet of jade—before the plot accelerates into abduction and tomb-location. But even in the later scenes, the prose lingers on small details: the 'fountain pen from the desk,' the 'white shirt-front,' the 'half-sheets of notepaper' in the wastepaper basket.

This attention to physical objects gives the mystery a tangible weight. Tillizinni's deductions are built from blotted addresses and ink drops, not from abstract leaps. The narrator's voice ensures that the reader never loses sight of the material world—the rooms by the canal, the yamen of T'si Soo—even as the plot moves toward the supernatural-sounding 'cavern of the dead.' The result is a detective story that is as much about the texture of evidence as about the solution.

Readers coming to The Tomb of Ts'in should pay attention to who is speaking and when. The narrator's voice is not neutral; it shapes how we perceive Tillizinni's brilliance and the story's exotic setting. The shifts between the narrator's dry asides and Tillizinni's theatrical monologues create a rhythm that rewards close reading. The mystery itself—involving the tomb of the first Chinese emperor, a secret society, and a stolen document—unfolds through these contrasting voices, making the telling as important as the tale.

Reading Tillizinni's grand, mispronounced confessions, I thought how much the honest, stumbling narrator saw that the polished detective missed. There's something similar in watching history's losers speak plainly in The Duke of Stockbridge: A Romance of Shays' Rebellion — Key Ideas to Explore—the failed voice often holds the truer story. That old 1918 page-fray still haunts me, softly.