The End of Devil Hawker (1930)

The End of Devil Hawker (1930)

Update: 2025-09-29
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Description

This episode, we look at one of Conan Doyle’s last short stories, ‘The End of Devil Hawker’ (1930) which he completed shortly before his death.


You can read the story here.


The show notes will be available at https://bit.ly/DOD67sn (for all shownotes, just replace ‘67’ with the episode number in question).


The episode will shortly be posted to our Youtube channel: www.youtube.com/@doingsofdoyle. Please like and subscribe.


Synopsis


It seems like just another night at Tom Cribb’s London establishment, the Union Arms at the corner of Panton Street, in the first decade of the nineteenth century. The bar is crowded with aristocratic men about town, members of the boxing fraternity and all their assorted followers, hangers-on and hearty rowdies. Cribb himself, still nominally the champion of all England, is there, as is the nascent young poet Lord Byron. Amidst the uproar and chaff, the sinister figure of Sir John Hawker - ‘Devil Hawker’ – holds quiet converse with Sir Charles Trevor over a debt of three thousand pounds. They decide to settle the issue by the turn of a card, a transaction that is witnessed surreptitiously by the sharp bookmaker Billy Jakes, who notices a slight of hand and makes a decision that will cost both him and Hawker dearly…


Next time on Doings of Doyle…


We are joined by Nick Lane, author of several Sherlock Holmes plays for Blackeyed Theatre, to talk about their new production Sherlock Holmes: The Hunt for Moriarty.


Acknowledgements


Thanks to our sponsor, Belanger Books (www.belangerbooks.com), and our supporters on Patreon and Paypal.


Image credits: Thanks to Alexis Barquin at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia for permission to reproduce these images. Please support the encyclopaedia at www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.


Music credit: Sneaky Snitch Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/


YouTube video created by @headlinerapp.

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The End of Devil Hawker (1930)

The End of Devil Hawker (1930)

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