The Copper House : $b A detective story

"The Copper House" by Julius Regis is a detective novel written in the early 20th century. Set in neutral Stockholm during the First World War, it pits journalist-sleuth Maurice Wallion and the returning heir Leonard Grath against a clandestine power webbed around the seaside estate known as the Copper House. A coveted political dossier—the Tarraschin memorandum—draws spies, financiers, and hired guns into conflict, with the enigmatic magnate Gabriel Ortiz lurking behind the scenes. Expect tense espionage, sharp psychological duels, and the guarded allure of Sonia Bernin, whose family’s tenancy masks dangerous loyalties. The opening of the story frames Stockholm as a whirlpool of covert forces before cutting to a hotel where Baron Fayerling’s attempt to seize the memorandum from courier Bernard Jenin is coolly foiled by Wallion. In parallel, Leonard Grath learns from his lawyer that mounting debts will force the sale of his ancestral estate to Andrei Bernin, fronted by the pushy Marcus Tassler; he receives a warning letter from Wallion, has his pocketbook stolen and mysteriously returned, and impulsively heads to the Copper House. Wallion recruits a frightened spy, B.22, who hints at a vast scheme led by Ortiz—once a flamboyant “Emperor of the Amazons,” now a war-profiteering mastermind—before bolting in panic. At the estate, Leo is refused entry at gunpoint, slips in through the woods, rescues Sonia Bernin from rough “guards,” and is briskly received by her formidable aunt, Lona Ivanovna. A frantic chase erupts when a pale stranger (likely Jenin) arrives, is pursued by the brutal Rastakov, and vanishes inside; Lona fires a shot, Rastakov ransacks the house, and threatens worse in the name of his unseen “Chief.” The sequence ends with the house fallen eerily silent and Leo, now entangled and shut out of the truth, retreating in shock to his old room.