J. Jefferson Farjeon

The first book featuring Ben, the lovable, humorous ex-sailor and down-at-heels rascal who can't help running into trouble. Ben is back home from the Merchant Navy, penniless as usual and looking for digs in fog-bound London. Taking shelter in an abandoned old house, he stumbles across a dead body - and scarpers. Running into a detective, Gilbert Fordyce, the reluctant Ben is persuaded to return to the house and investigate the mystery of the corpse...

Ben the tramp, with his usual genius for trouble, runs into danger when he finds a dead body and decides to help out. Ben knew that whenever his thumbs were itching, something 'orrible' was about to happen. Sure enough, on one foggy afternoon of itchy thumbs, the hapless Ben is implicated in criminal activity by the police - the kind of mistake it isn't easy to explain. Doing a runner, Ben hides in the basement of a deserted house, where he discovers...

An inspector and four uniformed constables arrive one morning, unannounced, at Greystones, the imposing and remote country house of the Elderly family. Inspector Biggs brushes past the immaculate and outraged butler and demands to see John Elderly, head of the family. Behind the dark oak library door is the scene of a struggle; overturned and disarranged furniture, the telephone receiver is off the hook… Where has the master gone? Who has cut the...

Ben the tramp, self-confessed coward and ex-sailor, is back in the Merchant Service and shipwrecked in the Pacific. Ben the tramp, self-confessed coward and ex-sailor, is back in the Merchant Service and shipwrecked in the Pacific. Tired of being homeless and down on his luck, the incorrigible Ben has taken a job as a stoker on a cruise ship. But his luck doesn't last long when they are all shipwrecked in the Pacific. Seen through Ben's eyes, the...

With his usual knack of getting into trouble, Ben the tramp finds himself hunted by the law and the lawless.in this breathless adventure. Returning home to his Cockney roots after a trip to Spain, Ben meets a mysterious stranger on a cross-Channel steamer and is promised a job. On arrival at Southampton they take a taxi. Ben gets out to post a letter, but on returning to the cab finds the stranger has been murdered! Pursued by a mysterious foreigner,...