E. W. Hornung 
Witching Hill 

Classic mystery novel. According to Wikipedia: ‘Ernest William Hornung (7 June 1866 – 22 March 1921), [1] known as Willie, was an English author, most famous for writing the Raffles series of novels about a gentleman thief in late Victorian London… Hornung returned to England in February 1886, and married Constance (‘Connie’) Aimée Monica Doyle (1868–1924), the sister of his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on 27 September 1893.[1] Hornung worked as a journalist and also published the poems Bond and Free and Wooden Crosses in The Times. The character of A. J. Raffles, a ‘gentleman thief’, first appeared in Cassell’s Magazine in 1898 and the stories were later collected as The Amateur Cracksman (1899). Other titles in the series include The Black Mask (1901), A Thief in the Night (1905), and the full-length novel Mr. Justice Raffles (1909). He also co-wrote the play Raffles, The Amateur Cracksman with Eugene Presbrey in 1903.’