The Chase of the Golden Plate was Jacques Futrelle's first published book-length story featuring the arrogant, cocaine-taking, large-headed Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen, nicknamed 'The Thinking Machine'. A high-society fancy-dress party falls victim to a robbery - confusions of identity, long-held grudges, romance and honour all appear in the excitement that follows. Jacques Futrelle was an American journalist and detective-story writer and Van Dusen was his most famous detective character, appearing in a number of his works. Futrelle died in 1912 aboard the Titanic, after he had made sure that his wife had secured a space in a lifeboat.