The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond is G. K. Chesterton's final collection of detective stories, published after his death in 1936. The main characters in the book are Mr. Pond, his friend Captain Peter Gahagan, a romantic and impulsive Irishman, and a well-known government official, Sir Hubert Wotton. Also mentioned in more than one chapter are Violet Varney, an actress, and her sister Joan, to whom Gahagan proposes after being suspected of having an affair with Lord Crome's wife in "Ring of Lovers". Joan, now married to Gahagan, appears in the framing sequence of "A Tall Story". (wikipedia.org)