The Three Coffins
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First UK edition
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| Author | John Dickson Carr |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Gideon Fell |
| Genre | Mystery, Detective |
| Publisher | Hamish Hamilton (UK) & Harper (USA) |
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Publication date
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1935 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Preceded by | Death-Watch (1935) |
| Followed by | The Arabian Nights Murder (1936) |
The Hollow Man is a famous locked room mystery novel by the American writer John Dickson Carr (1906–1977), published in 1935. It was published in the US under the title The Three Coffins and in 1981 was selected as the best locked room mystery of all time by a panel of 17 mystery authors and reviewers.
Professor Charles Grimaud and his circle are meeting at a tavern when they are interrupted by a mysterious stranger who claims that men can arise from their graves and walk through walls. The stranger, illusionist Pierre Fley, claims to have done it himself, and that he has an even more dangerous brother who wants Grimaud's life. He tells Grimaud to choose which of the two brothers he wants to call on him, and Grimaud angrily tells him to send his brother and be damned.
A few nights later, Grimaud awaits an anticipated visitor in his study. The visitor arrives, wearing a false face, and is escorted to the study by Grimaud's housekeeper. A witness sees Grimaud let the stranger into his study and close the door, and continues to observe the door until a few minutes later when shots from the study are heard. The locked door to the study is broken down and Grimaud is found dying from a gunshot wound, but both the stranger and a weapon are missing, and both the ground below the only window and the roof above it covered with unbroken snow. Taken to a hospital, Grimaud on his deathbed later identifies his brother as his killer and confirms his inexplicable disappearance ("God knows how he got out of that room"), but dies before he can identify the aforementioned brother. Dr. Fell soon discovers that Grimaud and his two brothers (Fley and an unknown person Fell refers to as "brother Henri") had, years earlier, escaped from forced labor in a Transylvanian salt mine by faking their deaths and being buried alive in their coffins.
The next day, the newspaper reports that minutes after Grimaud's shooting, two tourists and a police constable witnessed Pierre Fley walking alone down a broad, deserted, fully enclosed cul-de-sac (looking behind him as if frightened), and they shortly thereafter hear a voice shout "The second bullet is for you!", followed by a gunshot. Fley is found shot in the back at close range, the revolver that killed him (and Grimaud) lying in the snow nearby, with no tracks in the snow but his. Investigation reveals Fley left a note that night saying that he was leaving his performing career and "going back to my grave."
Fell engages in a long investigation, discovering that Grimaud had purchased a large painting of three coffins set in a Transylvanian landscape, in order to deal with his anticipated visitor. Fell also receives confirmation from Transylvanian authorities that years ago, Grimaud and his brothers were imprisoned for committing a large bank robbery, and that in their escape attempt, Grimaud had escaped his coffin but left his brothers to die in theirs. Pierre Fley had been returned to prison to serve out his sentence, but their third brother had died in his coffin.
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Wikipedia