A bit snobbish and a trifle high-strung, Sybil Foster prides herself on owning the finest estate in Upper Quintern and hiring the best gardener. In fact, she is rapturous over the new asparagus beds when a visit from her unwelcome stepson sends...
As particular about her horses as she was casual about her lovers, young Dulcie Harkness courted trouble — and found it in a lonely and dangerous jump. What will her death reveal? Young Roderick Alleyn (Ricky) is the object of special...
“The body” was discovered by Inspector Roderick Alleyn himself, old friend of the deceased, eighty-three-year-old Miss Emily Pride. Miss Pride had been looking for trouble: the sole inheritor of a tiny island, site of a miraculous spring, she...
A cry of mourning, intolerably loud, rose from beyond the willows and hung on the night air. A thrush whirred out of the thicket close to her face, and the cry broke and wavered again. It was the howl of a dog. She pushed through the thicket into...
Suspicion runs rampant among the gentry of an English village, as Inspector Alleyn tries to find a method in murder — before a crafty killer can strike...
Peering into the early morning dark as his train neared its destination, Alleyn glimpsed a horrifying tableau. A lighted window masked by a spring blind. A woman falling against the blind and releasing it. Farther back in the room, a man in a...
The guests ranged themselves at both sides of the door, like the chorus in a grand opera, A figure appeared in the entrance. It was not Mary Bellamy, but Florence. As if to keep the scene relentlessly theatrical, she began to cry out in a small,...
“Gas!” Parry Percival said under his breath. Martyn, who thought the Doctor was doing well, glanced indignantly at Parry and was astonished to see that he looked frightened. “ ‘—therefore,’ ” the Doctor was saying arrogantly,...
Hyacinths… mad singing… Scattered pearls… and a strangled beauty every ten days… Inspector Alleyn believed the killer was on a sleek cruiser bound for South Africa. It was now the tenth day out, and everyone, including the famed Alleyn, felt...
Sir Henry Ancred, the celebrated Shakespearian actor, wishes to have his portrait painted in the role of Macbeth by Agatha Troy, the famous artist. Amid a welter of practical jokes, Sir Henry dies and Chief Inspector Alleyn is called in to...