The Black Company : A mystery story by W. B. M. Ferguson
"The Black Company" by W. B. M. Ferguson is a mystery novel written in the early 20th century. Told in a witty first person, it follows ex–Princeton star and reluctant heir Peter Lawton—posing as chauffeur Henry Joyce—as he battles alcoholism, slips into a new life serving the imperious Theodore Varney and his perceptive niece Brenda, and stumbles onto a shadowy cabal whose chess-coded signals hint at a larger conspiracy. The opening of
the novel traces a chaotic night that begins with a drunken dare and a wild solo drive from Princeton, during which the narrator clashes with a bronze-faced stranger and a young woman in a luxury car, and is then knocked out and robbed by a mysterious man. Awakening at a farmer’s, he seizes a chance to assume the identity of “Henry Joyce,” is hired as Brenda’s uncle’s chauffeur, and promises her he will stay sober. A newspaper report convinces the world that “Peter Lawton” died in a wreck, prompting him to remain “dead” and fight his addiction while working in secrecy. He meets the caustic, chess-obsessed Varney, senses the old man’s hidden vice, crosses paths with the slippery Arnold Frean, and receives a cryptic note that leads to a roadhouse rendezvous with a lifeless-eyed contact, Corby, who toasts “The Black Company” in buttermilk and reveals Frean as a new recruit under watch; returning home, the narrator earns Brenda’s trust and agrees to let Varney win at chess. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Read or download for free
For an overview of the different reading options, see our Reading Guide
| Reading Options | Url | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read now! | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77438.html.images | 429 kB | |||
| EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77438.epub3.images | 321 kB | |||
| EPUB (older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77438.epub.images | 320 kB | |||
| EPUB (no images, older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77438.epub.noimages | 269 kB | |||
| Kindle | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77438.kf8.images | 367 kB | |||
| older Kindles | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77438.kindle.images | 341 kB | |||
| Plain Text UTF-8 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77438.txt.utf-8 | 407 kB | |||
| Download HTML (zip) | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/77438/pg77438-h.zip | 250 kB | |||
| There may be more files related to this item. | |||||
Similar Books
About this eBook
| Author | Ferguson, W. B. M. (William Blair Morton), 1882-1967 |
|---|---|
| LoC No. | 24008569 |
| Title | The Black Company : A mystery story |
| Original Publication | New York: Chelsea House, 1924. |
| Credits | Tim Miller, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature |
| Subject | Detective and mystery stories |
| Subject | Love stories |
| Subject | Criminals -- Fiction |
| Subject | Millionaires -- Fiction |
| Subject | United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction |
| Subject | Temperance -- Fiction |
| Subject | Gangs -- Fiction |
| Subject | Wagers -- Fiction |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 77438 |
| Release Date | Dec 10, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 419 downloads in the last 30 days. |
| Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free! | |