The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley

Louis Tracy sets his puzzle on a summer morning in Hertfordshire, where an artist has come to paint an Elizabethan mansion before a projected railway spoils the view. John Trenholme is on the estate’s public right of way when he hears the shot that kills Mortimer Fenley, a private banker, on his own doorstep. Scotland Yard sends Superintendent James Leander Winter and Inspector Charles Francois Furneaux, known there as the Big ‘Un and the Little ‘Un, into a household thick with motive: two sons who cannot stand each other, both drawn to their father’s young ward, an invalid wife who never leaves the house, and a theft of securities at the bank. The shot came from a wood across the park, yet the likeliest suspect stood indoors when it was fired. Two mismatched detectives argue their way toward one answer.