# The Clue of the Twisted Candle — Character guide

> Key figures in The Clue of the Twisted Candle by Edgar Wallace.

- [Mr. Kara](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters/mr_kara.md): Kara moves through the Lexmans' lives as a generous acquaintance whose charm conceals something predatory; he engineered the introduction between John Lexman and the sinister Vassalaro. Grace admits she is dreadfully afr
- [John Lexman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters/john_lexman.md): Lexman is the popular novelist whose books T. X. Meredith's circle reads, a man of curious, deliberate speech who has traveled through lawless hill villages and witnessed punishments no English drawing room would credit.
- [T. X. Meredith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters/t_x_meredith.md): Thomas Xavier Meredith—Tommy to his friends, Mr. Meredith to the young woman who refuses to be one—is a police officer whose intuition Signor Paulo Coselli called abnormal. He is friend enough to John Lexman to hear his 
- [Grace Lexman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters/grace_lexman.md): Grace met Kara during a prolonged honeymoon at Babbacombe, where his introduction of Vassalaro to her husband set the whole disaster in motion. She confesses to T. X. that Kara once proposed to her and that she is dreadf
- [Superintendent Mansus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters/mansus.md): Mansus is the steady official presence beside Meredith—waiting outside the death chamber for an hour and a half, stooping to pick a revolver cartridge from the grass at the crossroads. Where T. X. leaps by intuition, Man
- [Fred Fisher](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters/fred_fisher.md): Fisher belongs to the small circle around Lexman, which places him near the crime and under the scrutiny of Meredith and Mansus. His friendship with the novelist is precisely what makes suspicion fall on him, and the ten
- [George Gathercole](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters/gathercole.md): Gathercole moves through the Bartholomew establishment as staff whose comings and goings are noticed more than his words. In a household where a daughter slips out at eleven and a butler named Jacks keeps his own counsel
- [Belinda Mary Bartholomew](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters/belinda_mary_bartholomew.md): Belinda Mary Bartholomew moves through the fog of Portman Place with a key and a scheme, congratulating herself on a plan she cannot fully control. She is the story's most dangerous kind of innocent: frightened enough to
- [Mr. Vassalaro](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters/vassalaro.md): Vassalaro lived in the Adelphi for business and in Great James Street for whatever the business was not. His wife had gone four months before his death, and his landlord was still owed six months' rent, which tells you m
- [Miss Holland](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters/miss_holland.md): A secretary or assistant in the story.
- [The Tall Turk](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters/the_tall_turk.md): The Tall Turk appears in the memoir of a prisoner held in Kara's palazzo, where Salvolio's brutality is a nightly entertainment. He is a man of immense strength and few words, and when he decides a scene is over, it is o
- [The Greek](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters/the_greek.md): A mysterious Greek character involved in the plot.
- [Sir George Haley](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters/sir_george_haley.md): A baronet and acquaintance of the Lexmans.
- [Lady Bartholomew](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters/lady_bartholomew.md): Mother of Belinda Mary Bartholomew.
- [Mrs. Beale](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters/mrs_beale.md): A housekeeper or servant who is frightened by events.
- [Sir William Bartholomew](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters/sir_william_bartholomew.md): Father of Belinda Mary Bartholomew.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_clue_of_the_twisted_candle_se/characters