FREEMAN, RICHARD AUSTIN

born , 1862, London died Sept. 30, 1943, Gravesend, Kent, Eng. popular English author of novels and short stories featuring the fictional character John Thorndyke, a pathologist-detective. Educated as a physician and surgeon, Freeman practiced in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), where he caught a fever. Eventually forced by ill health to retire from practice (1904), he began to write fiction. The Red Thumb Mark (1907) was the first of many works featuring Thorndyke.