The man who knew by Edgar Wallace

I knew it! I feared for a moment, but Wallace didn't betray me :-D I could not accept that theory, but I was right and 'the man who knows' was wrong :lol:
The man everybody calls "the man who knows" is not a policeman, but a man who likes to investigate and collect facts, and knows lots of things, really a lot. He's called Saul Arthur Mann. When rich John Minute dies, he works to find out who did it. He already knows all the characters involved: Frank Merrill, Minute's nephew; May Nuttal, an orphan, daughter of Minute's best friend, heiress to a lot of money, but in good wealth all her life thanks to Minute's generosity and affection; Jasper Cole, Minute's trusted secretary. First man to be there when Minute is shot is local policeman P.C. Wiseman, who finds Frank there, and this confirms what opinion he already had of the man and of the tragedy: he's sure Frank did it. Frank had been accused of falsifying documents in order to steal John's money (mainly by Jasper, but John deeply trusted Jasper and believed him). After knowing about this, young May had decided to marry Frank, as if it was a crusade, since she was so fond of charity, but Jasper prevented it. Now Jasper too accuses Frank of John's murder. Frank's character is much more open and jovial, while Jasper is quite, mysterious in some way, and keeps his secrets.
Now for the big spoilers, just to warn future me who's reading this :-)
From the start I had my sympathies. I didn't care much for John Minute, but I certainly appreciated his honesty and generosity towards May; May was like a confused child, and in her best moments she knew it, but in the heat of her anger she could make hasty decisions, so sure to be right against the world; Frank and Jasper were the two men that confused her heart: Frank always so nice, open and cheerful, Jasper so serious and with a completely different charm. I had no doubt about my heart, I totally liked and believed Jasper, and was kind of annoyed that Mann, on the contrary, totally believed Merrill, to the end he defended him. I never liked Frank a bit, I kept disliking him even when he was so friends with Mann I started to think and hope that Wallace wouldn't betray me this time :lol: I wouldn't have liked it if Jasper had turned out to be the evil one. I liked Jasper a lot :-)
Anyway, as it often happens in EW's books, the end is full of revelations: John's wife, that had left him years ago, had a son and a daughter:Margaret. She was taken away by Crawley alias sergeant Smith, who then married her to Frank Merrill (!). The son is Jasper (!) who came to stay with John so to try together to find her. He also found his mother, believed dead, and cared for her, which was one of his secrets. Frank was an evil one, who used to beat his wife and who killed two of his chaffeurs, after having used them for his illegal deeds.
The title if this book is like a mocking laugh, because obviously everyone is brought to see  "the man who knows" in that title, and the man so proud of knowing everything, at the end knew only facts, but could not make the right sense of it. Collecting facts it's not enough to make a detective :-p
He was not so smart either, since he believed Frank till the end, even believed that absurd story of another man resembling him so much , he even believed Frank when poor Mrs Merrill told him, face to face with Frank, 'he's my husband', he still continued to believe Frank and wanted to send her alone with him, saying 'you'll be safe with Frank'!! Luckily Jasper came to protect her and to reveal all the truth. May had already decided to marry Jasper, because now she felt more grown-up and no more confused, and had chosen him. Good for you, girl.
At the end Jasper chooses to let Frank go away, instead of having him arrested for the murders of the two chaffeurs, but now that Frank has been beaten he kills himself, not sure how but surely with some poison of some kind. When his guilt is known, officer Wiseman has only one comment: 'I knew it', and he did :lol: so at the end it looks like Officer Wiseman was the true "man who knew" of the book :lol:

Ita: L'uomo che sapeva