Melville Davisson Post created his famous character, Randolph Mason, in 1894. Mason was a highly skilled and unscrupulous lawyer who used the law to defeat the ends of justice. Generally in the stories in this book he shows the villain how to circumvent the law. Melville Davisson Post (1869-1930) was a lawyer, political insider, and candidate for President of the United States (Democrat, 1924). He was one of the really great writers of the detective short story and is ranked in the same class as Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.