The writer best known as ‘John Rhode’ was born Cecil John Charles Street (1884–1964). He is one of the most prolific writers of the Golden Age, responsible for around 150 novels, published under four pseudonyms. As well as crime fiction, which he took up only after an impressive career as a military propagandist, he wrote short stories and plays, and also translated from the French biographies of Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, a military engineer of the seventeenth century, and the explorer Captain Cook. Street was awarded the Military Cross and the Order of the British Empire for his war work, but is today best known for his crime fiction and the extraordinarily diverse and creative means of murder he devised. While some find John Street’s fiction humdrum, others delight in his ingenuity and the gentle pace with which the mysteries are carefully unravelled. His major series are those published as by ‘John Rhode’, the majority of which feature the sleuth Lancelot Priestley, and as by ‘Miles Burton’, all but six of which feature Desmond Merrion. In a third series, published under the pen name ‘Cecil Waye’, the detectives are siblings, Christopher and Vivienne Perrin.
As well as writing extensively, Street also played a major role in the life of the Detection Club, the dining club for crime writers established by Anthony Berkeley at the end of the 1920s. Most notably, he was responsible for wiring up the eyes of Eric the Skull, the gruesome artefact on which all new members are required to take the Club’s light-hearted oath of allegiance.
‘The Yellow Sphere’ was published by the Sunday Dispatch on 3 April 1938.