The indiscretions of a lady's maid : Being some strange stories related by…
"The indiscretions of a lady's maid" by William Le Queux is a collection of mystery stories written in the early 20th century. Told through the confessions of Mariette Le Bas, a savvy French lady’s maid, it peers behind elegant doors to reveal flirtations, swindles, thefts, and scandals in high society. Expect brisk, sensational episodes where a servant’s calm eye unmasks the secrets of the fashionable set. At the start of this collection,
Mariette recounts a run of employers whose glossy lives hide sharp intrigues. With the Englehearts in Bayswater and at Monte Carlo, a flirtation with a supposed American millionaire and a butler’s collusion turn into a failed blackmail scheme that backfires, scattering the household and her job. In Bournemouth, the impeccable Lady Allardyce’s hidden drawer of jewels and tools foreshadows the arrest of her “friend” as a master jewel thief—later revealed to be her son. In Grosvenor Street, a newspaper proprietor’s wife entangles herself with a financier; after Mariette tails a visitor, the man is found shot, and a desperate confession shows the killing sprang from a struggle to retrieve explosive political papers—leaving Mariette to supply an alibi and then be quietly paid off. The next episode opens at the Savoy with the cosmopolitan Ashley-Bonds and their enigmatic friends, hinting at fresh intrigue to come. (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/77575.html.images | 456 kB | |||
| EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77575.epub3.images | 405 kB | |||
| EPUB (older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77575.epub.images | 402 kB | |||
| EPUB (no images, older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77575.epub.noimages | 395 kB | |||
| Kindle | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77575.kf8.images | 1.1 MB | |||
| older Kindles | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77575.kindle.images | 1.1 MB | |||
| Plain Text UTF-8 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77575.txt.utf-8 | 404 kB | |||
| Download HTML (zip) | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/77575/pg77575-h.zip | 949 kB | |||
| There may be more files related to this item. | |||||
Similar Books
About this eBook
| Author | Le Queux, William, 1864-1927 |
|---|---|
| Title | The indiscretions of a lady's maid : Being some strange stories related by Mademoiselle Mariette Le Bas, femme-de-chambre |
| Original Publication | London: Eveleigh Nash, 1911. |
| Contents | Madame's gentleman friend -- The wardrobe drawer -- Little Mrs. Otway -- The Noah's ark -- Guilty bonds -- The mystery of Monsieur -- The chamber of secrets -- What was in the strong room -- Concerns two visitors -- Contains some revelations -- A queer ménage -- A peer of the realm -- Concerning Madame's luggage -- Madame and the butler -- The people at Lancaster Gate. |
| Credits | Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PR: Language and Literatures: English literature |
| Subject | Mystery and detective stories |
| Subject | Household employees -- Fiction |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 77575 |
| Release Date | Dec 30, 2025 |
| Most Recently Updated | Jan 1, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 233 downloads in the last 30 days. |
| Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free! | |