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Linley. Linley was created by Lord Dunsany (Joseph Jorkens) and appeared in nine short stories and one story collection from 1932 to 1952, beginning with “The Two Bottles of Relish” (Time & Tide, Nov. 12, 1932).

Linley is an Armchair Detective. He is a quiet, thoughtful Englishman who rents a flat with Smethers, a traveling salesman for the condiment Numnumo. Linley is an Oxford man who comes to London to think for a few months and to enjoy his chess games–Linley is a chess aficionado and believes that chess games are ten times as hard as crime–but Smethers begins bringing tricky murder cases to Linley’s attention, and Linley eventually solves them. During the war, Linley goes to work for British Intelligence, uncovering German espionage schemes and helping catch German spies. Linley is not superhumanly intelligent, but he is both smart and clever, and he has a sizable amount of intuition. He is Watsoned by Smethers, who is more active and plucky than Dr. Watson and sometimes, unconsciously, provides the inspiration for the solution to a crime.

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