The Four Stragglers

In Short

Beginning in the mud of the Western Front and culminating on a secluded island in the Florida Keys, this high-stakes thriller traces the postwar fortunes of four men bound by survival and greed. As one of their number assumes a false identity to engineer a massive criminal empire, a string of daring jewel heists, international manhunts, and secret identities converges on an eccentric millionaire’s estate. Driven by suspense and shifting betrayals, it endures as a masterclass in early twentieth-century crime fiction, combining wartime trauma with classic hard-boiled intrigue.

The Story

The narrative opens in the chaos of World War I, where four exhausted soldiers—among them a polished Frenchman named Paul Cremarre, a cynical draft-dodger named Runnells, and a ruthless figure known in the underworld as Shadow Varne—find themselves huddled in a shell crater. Bound together by immediate survival, they disperse after the armistice, but their lives remain fatefully intertwined. Years later in London, Shadow Varne has reinvented himself as the refined Captain Francis Newcombe. Posing as a distinguished veteran, Newcombe acts as guardian to Polly Wickes, a former London street girl whom he rescued from poverty to maintain his respectable facade. Beneath this smooth exterior, Newcombe operates a ruthless criminal syndicate, orchestrating high-profile robberies alongside Cremarre and Runnells while Scotland Yard scrambles to connect him to the crimes.

When Newcombe sets his sights on Jonathan P. Marlin, an eccentric American millionaire who has gone mad following severe financial losses, the action shifts to Marlin’s isolated island estate off the coast of Florida. Marlin has hidden hundreds of millions of dollars in banknotes somewhere on his property, obsessed with protecting his fortune from imaginary enemies. Newcombe arrives under the guise of visiting his ward Polly, who is staying on the island with Marlin’s daughter, Dora. Accompanying Newcombe is Howard Locke, a young American bond salesman who quickly falls in love with Polly despite her shame over her impoverished background.

As Newcombe quietly searches for Marlin's secret cache, tension mounts on the island. Mysterious occurrences and threatening messages suggest that someone knows Newcombe’s true identity as Shadow Varne. The psychological warfare escalates when Cremarre is mysteriously murdered on the island, signaling that the conspirators are turning on each other. Meanwhile, Locke discovers the truth about Newcombe’s criminal past and confronts him, ordering the fake captain to leave the island immediately to protect Polly and the Marlin family.

Desperate to secure the hidden fortune before fleeing, Newcombe and his accomplice Runnells track the unhinged Marlin to his secret vault—a heavily reinforced, air-tight chamber built beneath the sea wall, accessible only during low tide. They corner the old man, but their greed proves to be their downfall. Marlin escapes, locking the massive door behind him and trapping both Newcombe and Runnells inside the subterranean vault as the tide rises. Realizing that oxygen is running out and no rescue is coming, Newcombe retains his cold composure while Runnells devolves into frantic terror. Newcombe uses his final bullets on himself, leaving the tides to swallow their remains alongside the shredded banknotes. Back in London and America, Scotland Yard and local authorities search in vain for the missing fortune and the vanished master criminal, while Polly and Locke rebuild their lives together.

How It Unfolds

Blasted into alliance Four ragged, exhausted soldiers huddle together in a battlefield thicket amidst enemy fire. Realizing their shared predicament, they forge an uneasy bond forged solely by the raw necessity of survival.

A gentleman's facade Years after the armistice, Captain Francis Newcombe establishes himself in London society while secretly running a criminal enterprise. Scotland Yard investigates a series of daring thefts, entirely unaware that the respectable captain is the elusive mastermind Shadow Varne.

The Florida retreat Newcombe travels to an isolated island in the Florida Keys under the pretext of visiting his ward, Polly Wickes. He targets the hidden wealth of Jonathan Marlin, a once-wealthy tycoon who has lost his sanity and hidden his fortune.

Love amidst suspicion Howard Locke arrives on the island and falls in love with Polly, who struggles with the stigma of her past as a homeless London flower girl. Meanwhile, strange threats haunt Newcombe, warning him that his past as Shadow Varne has caught up with him.

Murder on the keys Paul Cremarre is found dead on the property, turning the quiet retreat into a pressure cooker of paranoia. Locke uncovers Newcombe's true nature and forces him to pack his bags under threat of exposure.

Trapped by the tide Refusing to leave empty-handed, Newcombe and Runnells locate Marlin's secret sea-vault. The mad millionaire slips away and seals the airtight door, leaving the two criminals to perish in the dark as the ocean covers their secret grave.

The People

• Captain Francis Newcombe (Shadow Varne)

A cold, calculating criminal mastermind who disguises his sociopathic nature behind military polish and aristocratic manners. He seeks absolute wealth and immunity from the law, but his hubris ultimately traps him in the very vault he sought to rob.

• Polly Wickes

Newcombe’s young ward, formerly an impoverished flower seller in Whitechapel. She wants safety, affection, and a life free from the shame of her nameless origins, finding true redemption and love through her relationship with Howard Locke.

• Howard Locke

A straightforward, honorable young American bond salesman. He seeks to protect Polly and the Marlin family, ultimately standing up to Newcombe and orchestrating the mastermind's banishment from the estate.

• Jonathan P. Marlin

A ruined American tycoon driven mad by financial collapse. Obsessed with protecting his vast hoard of paper currency, his paranoid cunning leads him to construct the underwater vault that becomes a trap for his pursuers.

• Paul Cremarre & Runnells

Newcombe’s wartime companions turned criminal cronies. Cremarre relies on suave trickery, while Runnells is driven by low, cowardly survival instincts; both end up destroyed by their association with Shadow Varne.

In Its Own Voice

"Half an hour ago we were each a separate bit of driftwood tossed about out there, and now here we are blown together from the four winds and linked up as close to each other by a common stake--our lives--as ever men could be."

This reflection in the opening war-torn thicket establishes the tenuous fate that binds four strangers together.

"The crimes he has committed would turn your blood cold. He is the most despicable, the most wanton thing that I ever heard of."

A veteran baronet describes the elusive villain Shadow Varne, highlighting the terror that the criminal mastermind instills even within high society.

"I prefer to be doing something, even if it's pretty well a foregone conclusion that it's useless--than sit on the floor and wait."

Trapped in the airless sea-vault, Newcombe maintains his chilling, debonair detachment even as death becomes inevitable.

What It's Really About

Beneath its pulp-mystery surface, the novel explores how trauma and greed reshape human character after catastrophic conflict. The four men who survive the Western Front represent different fractures of post-war society: some seek honest restoration, while others decide that a world capable of such violence permits any moral breach. The narrative contrasts the destructive impulse of criminal greed—personified by Shadow Varne's cold calculation and Jonathan Marlin's defensive madness—with the possibility of personal renewal seen in Polly. It argues that lives built on deceit, hidden identities, and stolen wealth inevitably collapse under the weight of their own secrecy, whereas genuine human connection and openness provide the only real escape from the lingering shadows of the past.

Why Read It Today

This novel offers a compelling blend of early post-World War I hard-boiled intrigue and classic atmospheric mystery. Readers who enjoy vintage thrillers will appreciate Frank L. Packard's skill at maintaining relentless narrative tension, moving smoothly from shadowy London drawing rooms to the claustrophobic, sun-bleached isolation of the Florida Keys.

The story moves at a rapid pace, balancing dynamic action scenes with psychological melodrama. While modern readers may find the dialogue occasionally melodrama-heavy and notice period-typical class attitudes regarding poverty and mental health, the core plot mechanisms hold up remarkably well. The author excels at creating atmosphere—particularly in the harrowing climax within the sea-vault, which delivers a lingering sense of poetic justice. It is a satisfying, suspenseful read for anyone interested in classic 1920s crime fiction and tales of underworld vengeance.

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