The Corbin necklace

A valuable string of pearls puts the Corbin family under strain as Judith prepares for her country wedding. Her thirteen-year-old brother, Punch, worries that newspaper publicity has made their grandmother's intended gift an easy target. He discusses its safety with a family friend recovering from a broken leg in a nearby cottage. The injured neighbor becomes the narrator of a mystery in which Punch's visits bring news of the household and its increasingly awkward affairs.

Henry Kitchell Webster links the question of the necklace's whereabouts to the power it carries within the family. The formidable grandmother controls the fortune, while her daughter-in-law Victoria has her own difficult relationship with the pearls. Conversations, private suspicions and wedding preparations give the detective story its social setting. Readers can follow both the practical puzzle of keeping a famous jewel safe and the tensions surrounding a gift that means different things to different generations.