J. Farjeon Jefferson

From the Collins Crime Club archive, the first original novel to feature Ben the Cockney tramp, the unorthodox detective character created by J. Jefferson Farjeon, author of Mystery in White.Strange things are happening in the untenanted houses of Jowle Street. There are unaccountable creakings and weird knockings on the door of No.29, where a homeless ex-sailor has taken up residence. But even stranger things are happening in the House Opposite, from where a beautiful woman in an evening gown...

Ben the tramp’s uncanny knack of running into trouble is unsurpassed in the final crime thriller written for him by J. Jefferson Farjeon.On a grey afternoon he was destined never to forget, Ben sat down on a park seat and proceeded to think, not of cabbages and kings, but of numbers, lucky and unlucky. But it wasn’t Ben’s lucky day, or that of the nondescript-looking stranger sitting at the other end of the bench – murdered before his very eyes! That was the prelude to the most uncomfortable and...

The first book featuring Ben, the lovable, humorous ex-sailor and down-at-heels rascal who can’t help running into trouble.Ben is back home from the Merchant Navy, penniless as usual and looking for digs in fog-bound London. Taking shelter in an abandoned old house, he stumbles across a dead body – and scarpers. Running into a detective, Gilbert Fordyce, the reluctant Ben is persuaded to return to the house and investigate the mystery of the corpse – which promptly disappears! The vacant No.17...

Ben the tramp is back at sea, a stowaway bound for Spain in the company of a wanted man – the Hammersmith murderer.Ben, wandering hungry through the foggy back alleys of Limehouse, is spooked by news of an old man murdered in Hammersmith – and runs! He crosses a plank, slips through an iron door, and goes to sea with the coal. But so does the man who did the murder, and a very pretty lady who did not. On the way, the Atlanta loses a stowaway, a pickpocket, a murderer, a super-crook, a wealthy...

Ben the tramp, self-confessed coward and ex-sailor, is back in the Merchant Service and shipwrecked in the Pacific.Ben the tramp, self-confessed coward and ex-sailor, is back in the Merchant Service and shipwrecked in the Pacific.Tired of being homeless and down on his luck, the incorrigible Ben has taken a job as a stoker on a cruise ship. But his luck doesn’t last long when they are all shipwrecked in the Pacific. Seen through Ben’s eyes, the uncharted island is a hive of cannibals,...

Ben the tramp, the awkward Cockney with no home and no surname, turns detective again – and runs straight into trouble.Ben encounters a dead man on a London bridge and is promptly rescued from the same fate by a posh lady in a limousine. But like most posh ladies of Ben’s acquaintance, this one isn’t what she seems. Seeking escape from a gang of international conspirators, Ben is whisked off to the mountains of Scotland to thwart the schemes of a poisonous organisation and finds himself in very...

With his usual knack of getting into trouble, Ben the tramp finds himself hunted by the law and the lawless.in this breathless adventure.Returning home to his Cockney roots after a trip to Spain, Ben meets a mysterious stranger on a cross-Channel steamer and is promised a job. On arrival at Southampton they take a taxi. Ben gets out to post a letter, but on returning to the cab finds the stranger has been murdered! Pursued by a mysterious foreigner, Ben escapes his clutches, only to find the...

Ben the tramp, with his usual genius for trouble, runs into danger when he finds a dead body and decides to help out.Ben knew that whenever his thumbs were itching, something ‘orrible’ was about to happen. Sure enough, on one foggy afternoon of itchy thumbs, the hapless Ben is implicated in criminal activity by the police – the kind of mistake it isn’t easy to explain. Doing a runner, Ben hides in the basement of a deserted house, where he discovers the body of a well-dressed man, shot through...