Mr. American

No one knew who Mark Franklin was when he disembarked at Liverpool in 1909 with a copy of Shakespeare's works, an old Mexican charro saddle, and two long-barrelled Remingtons in his battered luggage. He was just another American, tall and gently spoken and alone, and what he was looking for none of them could guess, although they wondered - at Scotland Yard, in City offices, in the glittering theatreland of the West End, in the highest circles of Society and in the humble bar parlour of the little pub at Castle Lancing. To all of them, royalty and rustics, squires and suffragettes, the women who loved him and the men who hated and feared him, he remained a disturbing mystery, for while he came from a far frontier in another world, he was not altogether a stranger...even old General Flashman, who could see further than most, never guessed the whole truth.