The Mystery of the Black Box

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

A lurid melodrama which, although it is evidently meant to be taken seriously, reads like a deliberate burlesque. Its hero is a Sherlock-Holmes detective, whose enterprises include a discovery of a gang of note-forgers who have a weak-minded banker in their power. The banker has a "big black box", and he box has a "mystery" in its contents, which begin by being valuable Indian jewellery, which afterwards consist of the dead body of the banker, and end by turning into the body of one of the murderous villains of the piece. By the aid of various disguises the super-detective worms out all these and other secrets, which compromise missing proofs of marriage, evidences of parentage and also heirship of vast property for himself and his eventual bride, the owners of the "big black box". A nonsensical nightmare of a sensational story, with no offence save its silliness. Recommended for licence. Ernest A. Bendall.