“The bat! The bat!”One morning, Sir Arthur Scarsdale’s butler is alarmed to find that he cannot rouse his master as usual. Breaking down his bedroom door, Scarsdale’s nephew Shelton discovers to his horror that his uncle has died in the night. The local doctor is adamant that death was due to heart failure, but Shelton, also a newly-qualified doctor, is not so sure. He feels there is something odd about the body - something that causes Faringdon, a noted explorer and Scarsdale's ho...

“If this is a fair specimen of the quiet of the English countryside, give me Poplar or Limehouse! There’s a murder in the shrubbery, and Lord knows what else!”On the day of James Remshaw’s execution three strangers appear in the Sussex village of Malford Bishop and converge on Malford Manor, home of Theodore Hardwick and his daughter Elizabeth. One of the strangers, Poldron, insists on being allowed to rent the Manor and issues veiled threats when he is turned down. Another, Bovey,...

“Why every murderer and lunatic in the whole damned district has got to come and mess about with my kiln I don’t know. How the hell can I make pots?”Patrick Ambleside, the mysterious new guest at the inn in Terracombe on the south Devon coast, is the cause of excited local gossip. Or rather, his luggage is, including as it does an automatic pistol and a large box that is always kept firmly padlocked. The mystery deepens when Ambleside is overheard arguing firecely with another visi...

Receiving a series of threatening anonymous letters, artist James Garrow calls in private detective David Marchant to investigate. Feeling himself unassailable, and more annoyed than worried, Garrow doesn’t truly believe that his life is in danger, despite the writer’s threats. But Garrow's hubris is misplaced and he is soon found murdered in his own study. When Marchant arrives at the house, he discovers a family steeped in secrets. But who committed the murder? The dead man’s second wife...

“You know, there’s a certain piquancy in living with relations who most fervently wish one dead!”James Henstone is an invalid. He is also a vindictive old man who enjoys taunting his servants and relatives. Henstone is cared for by his nephew Mark, but announces his intention to make a will leaving everything to Mark’s second cousin Francis. There is a catch, however - Francis is to lose his place in Henstone's firm, making it impossible to marry his beloved Kathleen until the old ...

“It’s murder all right… With a silver dagger..."When the village police receive a cryptic anonymous note, only later do they realise that it was from a murderer giving prior warning of a bloody crime: the death of Richard Marney, who is fatally stabbed during a fox hunt. Hugh Egmont, jealous of the affection between Richard and his cousin Joan, is the obvious suspect. But Egmont has an alibi - he himself had been duped out of attending the hunt by a false message. Inspector Lyly's ...

“Who would need to employ a gardener to dig a grave?”George Hedges is a simple man, whose life revolves around his work and frequent visits to the local alehouse. After one such visit, he is woken by sounds of an intruder at his remote cottage. Then an unearthly voice in his bedroom threatens him with death. Bound and blindfolded he is taken to an obscure location and told to dig. Initially he thinks the intruder is searching for buried treasure. But then he sees the dead body…...

"They represent an accumulation of knowledge about poisons it would be hard to find in a single building anywhere else..."Professor Charles Roseland is the head of the Juliot Research Centre, a small chemical research institute for newly-qualified scientists. One Friday evening, Roseland leaves to attend a scientific gathering in London. On the following Monday, he is discovered dead in his laboratory at the Research Centre. Initially, it seems that Roseland died of a weak heart, b...

The annual May Day celebrations are an Oxford institution. At 6 a.m. on the first day of May, the Magdalen College Choir gather at the top of Magdalen Tower to give a special performance celebrating the joys of spring. But this year will be a less cosy affair. Just as the singing starts, so does the shooting - and de Valgas, university student and son of a South American dictator, falls down dead. For the journalist Philip Hardman, it is the story of a lifetime - for Chief Inspector Osborn...

"He kills his brother—if he has killed his brother, and if his brother’s killed at all——"Virginia Blakeney is used to walking home at night. But as she makes her way along the lanes from Utton Road station on this particular evening her journey is distrubed by the terrifying sound of dragging footsteps following her in the gloom. Taking a shortcut through the graveyard of Upper Utton Church, her worst fears are confirmed when she sees a skeleton-faced figure digging up one of the g...

"In the still night air the sound had been unmistakable. It had been a shot."Major Shepton is in for a hard night. Leading his Home Guard platoon on nocturnal patrol outside a local factory, the difficulties begin when one of the squad accidentally shoots a suspicious figure. Everyone is amazed when the victim turns out to be a woman, but luckily, she has only suffered a flesh wound. Later that night yet another member of the platoon narrowly escapes a fatal case of arsenic poisoni...

After a few convivial drinks, George Petworth convinces his friend Timothy to accept a foolish bet - can he break into George's uncle's house and steal something without being caught? But after breaking into the wrong house, Timothy gets more than he bargained for when he stumbles upon a dead body in the study. Luckily for him, the police believe his story - for now. But it is only by discovering the real culprit that Timothy will be able truly to clear his name. Meanwhile, Colonel Chedder...