1923 mystery. A young barrister catching the last train home shares
his compartment with two strangers having an unusual conversation.
THen one of them drops dead, and the other runs away…
Plenty of wicked goings-on here. The dead man was a retired
police inspector, and he'd been talking about a criminal who'd slipped
through his fingers, but now seems to be back in society. Fortunately
for Hetherwick the barrister, the fellow left behind a beautiful
granddaughter…
There are mysterious and beautiful women, struck-off doctors,
blackmail, fraud, and plain old theft. The granddaughter has something
to do, rather than just sitting and waiting for the hero to solve the
case. All right, there's also a comedy Jew; is it better that he's a
lithping figure of fun rather than a sinister conspirator? Not much.
What I enjoyed most, though, was something that wouldn't have
signified at all to the original readers: period detail. The last
eastbound (Underground) train at Sloane Square leaves just after
midnight, and has compartments, something I've not seen noted
elsewhere. It's entirely reasonable for someone to say
"The newspaper production seems to have been done from a photograph
which, from its clearness and finish, was probably taken by some
first-class firm in London."
and indeed
"Instead of being an engraved [visiting] card as, by all the
recognised standards, it should have been, it was a printed
card—that was the first thing I noticed."
All right, people are a bit prone to turn up dead just when
interrogating them would have been most useful, but this is an
enjoyable romp with plenty of blind alleys.
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