Character guide

Basil Grant

major

Also known as Grant, Professor Chadd, Chadd, the immovable Chadd

Basil lives among swords, armour, and fantastic books in a garret above the slums, welcoming any human face but needing none. His brother Rupert dismisses him as a dreamer, yet Basil's legal mind and unsettling habit of seeing straight into souls make him the quiet engine behind every case. His refusal to accept the obvious explanation is what keeps the Club of Queer Trades from remaining merely a puzzle.

Rupert Grant

major

Also known as young Rupert Grant, Mr. Grant, Grant, Mr. Rupert Grant

Rupert is the working detective of the pair, brisk, self-assured, and fond of announcing a culprit before the facts have finished arriving. He loves his brother but cannot quite believe that a man who never leaves his attic could out-think a professional. His confident misreadings of each queer trade give the stories their comic engine, and his gradual humbling is the arc that carries the book.

Major Brown

supporting

Also known as Major Brown Rabelais, Major, the Major, Brown

Major Brown Rabelais is a solid, unremarkable man of routine until strange flowers, stranger visitors, and a plot against his life convince him he is being hunted. What he cannot see is that the whole affair is a service someone is selling, and that he is the customer. His bewilderment at being the centre of an incomprehensible drama makes him the perfect introduction to the Club's logic.

Lieutenant Drummond Keith

supporting

Also known as Keith, Lieutenant Keith, Drummond Keith, the immaculate Lieutenant Keith

Lieutenant Keith conducts business with a polish and precision that reads as sinister to anyone expecting an ordinary estate agent. He shows houses at odd hours, says unsettling things, and seems to be playing a game no one else has been told the rules of. Whether he is a scoundrel or simply a man with a trade no one has thought of yet is precisely the question the Grants must answer.

P. G. Northover

supporting

Also known as Northover, Mr. P. G. Northover, Mr. Northover

Northover presents himself with the calm of someone who has nothing to hide, yet his business touches on the most delicate thing a man owns: his good name. He moves through the story as both suspect and benefactor, and the Grants cannot decide which. His trade is one of the strangest in the Club, and understanding it means understanding what people will pay to be thought well of.

Mr. Montmorency

supporting

Also known as Montmorency, P. Montmorency

Montmorency arrives with the air of a man who has seen something he cannot explain and is not sure he wants to. His account of a clergyman's strange behaviour sets the brothers arguing before the facts are even in. He matters because his case is the first to show how a perfectly rational sequence of events can look, from the outside, exactly like a haunting.

Reverend Mr. Shorter

supporting

Also known as Mr. Shorter, Reverend Shorter, Shorter, Rev. Ellis Shorter

Reverend Mr. Shorter arrives at the Club's dim Norfolk Street offices as a soft-spoken visitor in spectacles, the sort of caller no one would think to question. Yet his errand turns on a secret he can barely bring himself to name, and his evident distress sits oddly against the Club's cheerful eccentricity. His visit draws the narrator and Basil Grant into one of the Club's queerest cases, testing whether a clergyman's awful confession is what it seems.

Mr. Bingham

minor

Also known as Bingham, the meek Bingham, the despairing Bingham

A meek man entangled in the affairs of Professor Chadd's club.

Burrows

minor

Also known as Mr. Burrows, The gigantic Burrows

A large man involved in the strange seclusion of an old lady.

Lord Beaumont

minor

Also known as old Beaumont, Beaumont

An elderly nobleman whose household harbors a queer trade secret.

Greenwood

minor

Also known as The bewildered Greenwood, Mr. Greenwood

A bewildered man who seeks Basil's help with a reputation problem.

Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh

minor

Also known as Sir Walter, dear old Cholmondeliegh, Cholmondeliegh

A jolly old baronet who appears in the house agent's story.

Wimpole

minor

Also known as Mr. Wimpole

A man who assists in the strange case of the great reputation.

Captain Fraser

minor

A captain who appears in the house agent's peculiar speculation.

Dr. Colman

minor

Also known as Colman

A doctor who appears in the story of the great reputation.

Miss Chadd

minor

Also known as the eldest Miss Chadd

Basil's sister, who is involved in the old lady's seclusion.

Miss Mowbray

minor

Also known as a Miss Mowbray

A young woman connected to the vicar's visit mystery.

Jasper Drummond

minor

Also known as Drummond, Mr. Jasper Drummond

A relative of Lieutenant Keith involved in the house agent affair.

Miss James

minor

Also known as James

A woman involved in the old lady's eccentric seclusion.

Miss Brett

minor

A woman who appears in the vicar's visit story.

Mr. Swinburne

minor

Also known as Swinburne

A man mentioned in connection with the great reputation case.

Lady Beaumont

minor

Also known as Beaumont

Lord Beaumont's wife, involved in the old lady's seclusion.

Muriel Beaumont

minor

A young woman connected to the Beaumont household.

Mr. Hopson

minor

A man who appears in the house agent's story.

Colonel Hawker

minor

Also known as Hawker

A colonel mentioned in the major's adventure.