Death in Fancy Dress

"Blackmail on a tremendous scale? I see. A dirty business."

The Spider is running a blackmail ring right across England. Jewels are being replaced with paste and victims are committing suicide. The newest target seems to be Hilary Feltham, a young girl with a mind of her own, living with her stepparents at Feltham Abbey. Philpotts of the Home Office needs somebody unofficial on site, and Tony Keith, a lawyer and a World War I veteran has a family connection to the place. Could he just?

Of course he can. He brings along his friend Jeremy Freyne who intends to marry Hilary, even though she's already got two other fiancés in the offing, one of whom is Philpott's official man on site, Arthur Dennis.

It's the other fiancé, Hilary's distant cousin Ralph Feltham, who's murdered on the night of a fancy dress ball.

Was it one of those suitors did the job? Or was someone associated with The Spider's gang?

The solution surprised me, which is always a good thing, but on the whole the setup both took too long and was confusing. It was a hundred pages in (out of a novel of 220 pages) before we got on to events, and even then I had to make a chart of the family relations. I don't know Anthony Gilbert (a pen name for Lucy Malleson) all that well, but is this one of the more highly regarded ones? It did get a British Crime Classics Library reprint. But her more famous detective Arthur Crook came later (and from what I've read, seems better.)

This edition also had two short stories featuring Inspector Field of London. I enjoyed those more than the novel itself.

Vintage Scavenger Hunt

Golden Age (1933). Performer (Dancer)