Oooh, I was very intrigued with the idea of reading a detective story by the author of Winne the Pooh and I was wondering whether it'd be good or not as this genre is so different to his familiar children's stories. But I loved it, I was not disappointed!
Oooh, I was very intrigued with the idea of reading a detective story by the author of Winne the Pooh and I was wondering whether it’d be good or not as this genre is so different to his familiar children’s stories. But I loved it, I was not disappointed!
I like Milne’s introduction to the novel, with him talking about how much he loves detective stories but how particular he is about them and what criteria he feels each story needs in order to qualify as a good detective story, some of his requirements being no-nonsense language with nobody ‘effecting an egress’ (tee hee, that made me chuckle!), and no romance as he always thinks that more clues could have been gathered in the time spent on romance, that the solution shouldn’t be too scientific as the reader needs to feel they could have logically guessed it, and that there needs to be a Watson-type character so the reader can be privy to the detective’s thought processes throughout the book. And it made me smile when he said he realises that he has now written his perfect detective book but that he can never have the enjoyment of reading it. I also love the old-fashioned font of the book (my copy was published by Vintage), as it looks as if it’s been done on a manual typewriter. I like his view on writing too, as he says ‘the only excuse I have yet discovered for writing anything is that I want to write it’.
I like his first descriptive paragraph and the reflection of how restful it is to hear a lawnmower and to know that someone else is working whilst you’re resting, tee hee. And I do love a murder in a stately home setting, that setting just can’t be beaten with the layout of the numerous rooms, the upstairs downstairs divide of the guests and the servants, the police falling between the two groups in social standing so struggling to have authority over the upper class guests which then gives the opportunity to an amateur from the upper class to investigate and to who the guests then open up to more, plus the whole historical charm of this way of living. And of course, these Golden Age detective stories are so much better (in my view) without modern DNA techniques and the internet, etc, as the solution relies much more attractively on guesswork and instinct, which provides the reader with a much more satisfying read. I can’t help myself from detecting too, jotting down every potential clue and vaguely suspicious incident hoping it will help me to the solution, which is what I’ve done here.
The Red House in Woodham is owned by Mark Ablett, a writer. The servants are commenting on the announcement that Mark’s brother, Robert, will be visiting from Australia after 15 years away and how they’ve never heard mention of this brother before and that Mark seemed shocked when he opened the letter that morning informing him of Robert’s arrival that afternoon, saying to his guests that he wished he didn’t have a brother and that Robert would likely try and borrow money off the guests. Mr Cayley, known as Cay, is Mark’s cousin, educated by him and now a mix of land-agent and secretary and business advisor and companion. He is there at the house when Robert arrives, though the guests of the house are elsewhere playing golf. The guests are Major Rumbold and Bill Beverley and Ruth Norris and Betty Calladine. When he arrives, Robert is gruff to the servant, Audrey, and he also speaks scornfully of Mark when talking about him to her. Audrey can’t find Mark in order to announce Robert’s arrival, and then there is a shot heard in the house! Ooooh, a shot has been heard, it’s starting to get exciting! I wonder if Robert was a criminal, is this why he’s been in Australia all that time? And I chuckled at Audrey regularly saying you could have knocked her down with a feather, and the author’s comment of ‘Feathers, indeed, were a perpetual menace to Audrey’, tee hee, I like this gentle humour in the book.
Meanwhile, Antony Gillingham has just arrived in the village by train. Antony has decided to holiday in Woodham because he liked the look of the train station, but he then realises that his friend Bill Beverley is staying at nearby Red House so decides to visit him there. Antony arrives at The Red House to find Cay banging on the office door and shouting for Mark to unlock it, Cay explaining to Antony that he had heard a shot from within. Antony suggests they go round to the windows, as they will be easier to break in through rather than the door. They run around to the windows and see a body on the floor, so they force the windows open and find Robert shot between the eyes! Antony says that the police should be called, but he also privately thinks that Cay suspects Mark did this murder, with Cay banging on the door which could have possibly warned Mark, and Cay seeming to choose the longer way around the outside of the house to reach the windows which possibly gave Mark time to get away, and Cay’s initial reluctance to contact the police. Grrrr, I was annoyed at the start of this chapter when we seemed to be moving away from the drama just as the shot had been fired, in order to be introduced to Anthony! But I can see now that Anthony was heading to the house and the drama anyway, so we were being taken back there, phew. And Antony is coming across as a cool-headed and sensible and logical person, so I am beginning to think he is going to be our amateur detective, and we also get his thoughts and feelings such as he ‘couldn’t help feeling a thrill of excitement’ and ‘for the first time he wondered if there really had been a revolver shot in this mysterious room’. We also have the author talking to us as well, describing the layout of the rooms, ‘As we stand just inside the door…’ and ‘immediately opposite to us…’, etc, so I presume Anthony isn’t to be the narrator, although we are privy to his thoughts. It’s quite an unusual technique to have the author speaking directly to us, such as with ‘Let us…have a good look at him’ when Antony arrives at the train station, but it’s effective and makes the reader feel involved, I think. And I liked Anthony’s spontaneity in choosing to stay in Woodham just because he liked the train station! However, I’m not sure if it seems a bit suspicious with him suddenly arriving in the area like this.
The other guests at The Red House are sent home, apart from Bill as Antony and Cay think he could be useful. The police arrive, and there is still no sign of Mark. Cay tells the police inspector that Robert had been sent out of the country in disgrace 15 years ago, though he himself doesn’t know what the disgrace was as Mark was ashamed of Robert and rarely talked about him. Cay also says that Robert had written to Mark a few times in the last five years asking for money but he thinks that Mark rarely answered the letters and never sent money. Cay says Mark didn’t show him Robert’s latest letter at first but showed it to him later, and he says that the letter just stated that Robert was coming at about 3pm the next day, and the postmark was London. Cay says that he was sitting in the hall when Mark appeared telling him that Robert had arrived, Cay knew that Audrey had gone outside searching for Mark in order to announce Robert’s arrival so he presumed that Mark must have just heard the bell or the voices in order to know of Robert’s arrival. Cay says Mark then went into the office but told him to stay close as he may need him. Cay says he went into the library and then heard a shot. Antony thinks back and believes he also faintly heard a shot as he approached the house. When the servants are interviewed, one says she heard a man who she presumed was Robert saying that he’d worked his passage over and then Mark saying ‘It’s my turn now, you wait’. Hmmm, I’m thinking that really the main characters/possible suspects are only Mark and Cay and Bill and Antony, which doesn’t seem a very wide circle to choose from. I’m thinking it can’t be Mark (unless the author is doing a sneaky double-bluff), Bill wasn’t there at the time of the murder (the guests all being out) which seems to remove him, Bill can vouch for Antony (having known him some time) so that seems to also remove Antony, so we’re just left then with Cay. And I was wondering if anyone had seen Robert’s letter, as otherwise we only have Mark’s word for the contents of it, but it sounds like Cay did see the letter. And I notice that Cay doesn’t say he actually saw Robert at any point, which seems odd that he didn’t greet him, even just out of curiosity or to try and demonstrate to him that he would be supporting Mark.
Antony has discovered that there were two shorter routes from the hall to the office windows, so he is again puzzled why Cay chose the longest route to reach the office windows, particularly as he remembers that it seemed like Cay thought Mark was the one who had been shot (due to Cay’s relief when he looked at the body and saw it wasn’t Mark) so Anthony imagines that Cay would have wanted to get to the possibly injured Mark as soon as possible. Antony decides he will become a private sleuth and investigate the crime, as he likes to change his profession fairly frequently and has been looking for a new challenge, and he realises that he is in a good unbiased position to investigate this crime as he was on the scene as it unfolded (unlike the police inspector who arrived later) and he doesn’t know Mark or Robert so doesn’t have any bias for or against them. Oooh, could it be that it’s actually Mark who is dead and Robert who is missing, and Cay is trying to conceal this for some reason? Did Robert and Mark look similar, would anyone else be likely to view the body who would know Mark, do the police know him? Audrey seemed to say she recognised Robert as Mark’s brother which implies they looked similar (she did note the contrast between Robert’s ‘rough-looking ill-dressed’ appearance compared to Mark’s ‘dapper…neat’ appearance, but that is just clothes). This could also account for there being no sign of Mark, although where has Robert gone? Oooh, or could the man who appeared at the door as Robert actually be Mark for some reason disguised as Robert, as he and Robert weren’t seen together and Audrey couldn’t find Mark after Robert arrived? In which case, is Cay also involved in this, as he sent Audrey outside looking for Mark, and did he choose the longest route to the office in order to give Mark time to remove his Robert disguise? Perhaps Robert had actually arrived earlier in the day and Mark and Cay had killed him then, so Mark pretended to be Robert in order to make it seem that Robert arrived later. Hmmm, but what would this gain them as Robert’s body is still found lying on the ground in the office (they haven’t tried to conceal it altogether) and the later time of his supposed arrival and death doesn’t really help their alibis as Mark isn’t in sight when the shot is heard and Cay presumably didn’t know that Antony was handily going to appear in order to provide him with an alibi. Going off on another tangent (the one presented to us in the book, that it’s Robert dead and Mark missing), I’m wondering why no-one is thinking Mark may be injured somewhere or in danger, that it could have been someone from outside the house who killed Robert for some reason and that they then could have taken Mark away too. And I’m also remembering that there was also something odd earlier with Antony looking in the two rooms that led from the office while Cay talked to him from the doorway, and Antony feeling surprised that the door wasn’t shut, but Anthony can’t quite recollect in his mind why he felt that surprise. It makes no sense to me, but I’m guessing I should remember this as it could be significant.
Cay tells Antony and Bill that the police inspector has put out a warrant for Mark’s arrest. Cay says he believes that Mark shot Robert by accident, that Robert must have pulled the gun on Mark who wrestled with him and the gun went off killing Robert, and that Mark then panicked and ran away. Antony says this doesn’t fit with the locking of the office door from the inside, as he thinks most doors at The Red House have their keys on the outside so if Mark had accidentally killed Robert and then decided to run away and thought by locking the door this would give him more time then he wouldn’t have wanted to risk opening the door and potentially being seen in order to collect the key, particularly as he had told Cay to be close at hand so there was potentially someone right there to see him. Anthony says this therefore means that Mark must have already taken the key into the room with him and locked himself in with Robert, which makes the killing seem premeditated rather than accidental. Anthony also says the locking of the door doesn’t make sense if it wasn’t to delay discovery of the premeditated killing and give Mark time to escape, as why would Mark choose to lock himself in with someone he disliked, and he had asked Cay to be close at hand in case he called for help so why would he then make it hard for Cay to enter by locking the door. Antony adds that of course if the keys are all on the inside of the doors at The Red House then his theory is wrong, and that he will double-check his theory by checking the doors and keys later in the day, but that he is now going to walk to the inn with Bill to collect his bags. Anthony also adds that he wonders why, if the killing was accidental, Mark ran away instead of calling on Cay for help with the situation. Hmmm, I’m thinking this is Antony being clever and laying a trap for Cay! I think Antony knows full well that the keys are on the outside of the doors and wants to see if Cay will now put them on the inside.
While walking to the inn, Antony questions Bill about Mark and Cay. Bill thinks Mark is quite controlling and quick to take offence, and Cay is quiet and reticent and doesn’t join in fun things including spending time with Angela Norbury in the village who appears to like Cay. Bill says Cay is kept busy by Mark, and both men seem to depend on each other a lot and to be ‘lost’ without each other. Later at dinner, Bill remembers about the keys and then looks and sees that most are on the inside of the doors. That evening, Antony and Bill walk around the grounds to find a place where they can talk privately and won’t be overheard, and Antony then tells Bill he suspects that Cay has moved the keys to the inside of the doors, as Antony had already noticed earlier that most keys were on the outside. Anthony says though, that rather than Mark taking the key inside the room and locking himself in with Robert, he thinks that after the shot was fired Cay locked the office door himself using the key on the outside of the door, so therefore he suspects that Cay knows all about how Robert died that afternoon. Bill then suggests that Cay locked the office door in order to give Mark time to escape after the accidental killing, but Anthony says that he doesn’t think Cay would have advised Mark to run away if it was an accidental killing as he would have known that running would make Mark look guilty, plus if it was an accidental killing and Cay wanted to help Mark he could just have said that he was in the office with them and saw the accident happen. Hmmm, frustratingly Antony seems to be saying a lot about what he thinks didn’t happen with the killing, but not that much about what he thinks did happen! But I’m glad I guessed right about him testing Cay with the keys (even though I can’t understand the significance of the door being locked!)
The private place that Antony and Bill are sitting to chat is the bowling green which is set quite a distance from the house and sunk down so is quite well concealed. Bill has told Antony that Ruth Norris teased them all by pretending to be a ghost and appearing to them all at the bowling green, but Antony begins to wonder how she could have appeared there without being seen crossing the park. He thinks there could be a secret passage which leads into the croquet shed by the bowling green, and this is then confirmed when they suddenly hear a noise from the croquet shed. Anthony realises that Cay is coming along the secret passage in order to check on them, so Bill pretends to talk with Anthony while Antony sneaks to the croquet shed and sees Cay’s head appear. Anthony later tells Bill that he had felt there was something suspicious with how keen Cay was to get rid of the other guests, particularly Ruth, and he realises now that Cay must have been worried that she might speak about the secret passage. Antony therefore wonders if Mark is hiding in the secret passage. Oooh, a secret passage, it’s all getting very delicious! Although is the discovery of this secret passage just a little bit convenient, with Ruth having used it to prank the others and Bill happening to mention this prank to Anthony, would he ever have guessed about the secret passageway otherwise?
The following morning, Cay tells Antony that the police inspector is going to drag the pond, presumably for Mark’s body. Antony speaks with Elsie, the servant who overheard Mark saying to Robert “It’s my turn now, you wait”. Anthony doesn’t feel this was Mark threatening to kill Robert, as Elsie has taken it to mean, as he thinks the wording seems to be Mark implying that something will happen in the future and Robert is to wait and see, however Anthony is interested that Elsie’s evidence seems to confirm that Mark was actually there in the office with Robert. Antony and Bill determine to search for the other end of the secret passage, as the entry in the croquet shed is now locked so they’d have to break it to enter and this would let Cay know they’ve discovered it. They decide the entrance is likely to be in the house and decide they will start looking for it in the library as they can explore there fairly unobtrusively pretending to be looking for a book. Bill also remembers that Mark had redesigned his library about a year ago, so this makes Antony even more certain that the entrance to the secret passageway is in the library and the redesign was done in order to better conceal it. Antony thinks the likeliest place is amongst the dullest books as people would be unlikely to look at those, so he chooses a section of Victorian sermons to search amongst, he also wonders if Mark may have used a particular book to mark the entrance so searches for a book there with a title possibly linked with passageways, and then finds a book called The Narrow Way. They both pull at that part of the bookshelf, and the entrance to the secret passage is revealed! Bill is keen to immediately explore but Anthony says Mark may be in the secret passage and they need firstly to decide what they are going to do as regards Mark, whether to have him arrested or help him to escape. Antony also begins to say there could be something horrible in the secret passage, but he stops himself, saying he won’t think about that. Oooh, does he think Mark’s body may be in the secret passage? And I liked the line, ‘Antony could never resist another person’s bookshelves’, clearly he can’t be the killer if he’s a booklover, tee hee! And Antony mentions Three Men in a Boat, which is one of my favourite books!
Antony and Bill leave the library while they plan things out further, and find the police inspector dragging the pond. But the police inspector says that it was Cay who suggested they drag the pond, and this makes Antony wonder if Cay is intending to hide something in the pond after the police have searched it. Antony and Bill determine to watch the pond that night. Antony then goes with Bill to the rooms off from the office to try and discover why he felt surprised yesterday seeing Cay standing in the open doorway as he had for some reason presumed that the door was shut. He gets Bill to re-enact Cay’s movements when he left Robert’s body to get some water and a sponge, and Antony then realises that the shadows and sunlight meant that for some reason Cay had quietly shut the door on the room he went into so Antony couldn’t see his actions. Anthony thinks Cay must have been opening the window in that room as he had realised that no-one would believe that Mark had escaped out of the window if the window wasn’t open. Oooh, I’m glad we’ve come back to this bit of mysteriousness, I didn’t want it to be forgotten about. Although I can’t see what it means, where has Mark gone if Cay is needing to lead people to believe he escaped through the window, and it implies that Cay knows far more about Mark than he is saying. And I’ve just been looking back at the details given of Mark’s early life to see if there are any clues to explain possible bitterness towards Mark from Robert or Cay (as I am now being influenced by Antony’s suspicion that Mark is a victim and is probably dead). It says Mark was the son of a curate but that a spinster took a shine to him and educated him at her expense, he then went to London and was accruing debts but then the spinster died leaving him all her money which enabled him to clear his debts and buy several properties including The Red House. Hmmm, was there perhaps another relative of the spinster who felt he should have got her money instead of Mark (Mark obviously being a favourite of hers but wasn’t actually a relative)? Could it be that Robert isn’t an actual brother to Mark but is instead a relative of the spinster, and they just called each other brothers when the spinster ‘adopted’ Mark? Or could it be that Cay is related to the spinster so Mark paid for Cay’s education in order to ease his guilt over gaining the money instead of Cay?
Bill and Antony decide to explore the secret passage. Antony goes down it leaving Bill to keep watch, but then Bill hears Cay outside the library door and quickly pushes closed the entrance to the secret passage and grabs a book pretending he is looking up a reference to prove Antony wrong with a quote he has made. Cay stays in the library and begins writing, so Bill knocks a tune on the walls, apparently aimlessly, in an effort to warn Antony not to exit from the passage. Eventually Antony appears in the library doorway, as he had heard Bill’s knocked warning and so went all the way through the secret passage to exit into the croquet shed. He tells Bill that there was no sign of Mark but there was a locked door that he tried to open and called to Mark through the door, but got no response. He tells Bill he suspects Cay is keeping something behind the locked door which he will then throw in the pond that night. Oooh, that was a dramatic chapter, I have to admit I had to glance ahead to find out if Anthony had discovered Mark’s body in the passage, and also that Cay didn’t discover Antony coming back through the passage. This is such a good book!
Cay asks Antony and Bill to take a letter to Angela Norbury for him when they say they are going for a walk, Antony suspects Cay wants them out of the way for a while. Antony chats to Mrs Norbury while Bill chats to Angela. Mrs Norbury says that Angela and Mark were practically engaged and that she had to warn Cay off when she could tell he was falling for Angela. Antony therefore realises that this gives Cay a reason to be jealous of Mark. Mrs Norbury also says something about Mark coming over to tell them his brother was visiting and that this was the day before yesterday. Arrrgh, I’ve lost track now of the days, but did Robert’s letter arrive yesterday morning and he was murdered yesterday afternoon, so does this show that Mark knew about Robert’s visit beforehand? I’m also thinking there is some relevance to Antony noting there is no obvious front door or driveway to the Norbury house and that cars can’t get any closer than the road, but I wonder why this is important?
That night, Antony and Bill hide by the pond and watch Cay drop a bag into the water. They retrieve it after Cay leaves, and it contains Mark’s clothes that he was wearing yesterday and the letter from Robert and the office key and another key that Antony presumes is to the locked cupboard in the secret passage. They go to the cupboard in the secret passage but there are only a few old bottles there. Hmmm, what can these bottles mean, and I had expected there to be something more incriminating in the cupboard after all that build-up. I’m also remembering that when looking at Mark’s clothes in the bag which Cay had thrown in the pond, Anthony had questioned if there were more clothes and had looked on the ground where they had tipped the items and said ‘it’s funny’, so what was he expecting to see that wasn’t there? And again when they’ve locked the cupboard in the secret passage, Anthony looks on the ground saying he’s looking for something that isn’t there, grrr, what could it be? I’m back to my idea that Robert was actually Mark, perhaps as some kind of a joke to the others after Ruth’s ghost prank, but am now wondering if Cay took the opportunity to shoot Mark while he was dressed as Robert so he therefore doesn’t have Mark’s body to get rid of as there aren’t two bodies, there is just Mark’s clothes to get rid of which Mark took off in order to get dressed as Robert.
Antony tells Bill that Mark had known on Monday that Robert was coming as he told the Norburys this information on Monday and then told his guests on Tuesday. Antony talks to Bill again about Mark’s clothes and says the collar was missing but he remembers they found this in the basket in the office, so he wonders why this wasn’t collected with the other clothes that Cay got rid of. Hmmm, so it was this collar that Antony was expecting to see in the bag or outside the cupboard, but what’s the significance of that? Oooh, it is such a good book, such a great mix of tension and action and mystery!
It is the day of the inquest so Antony presumes that he and Bill will leave The Red House after this so he packs to go to the local pub. Bill tells Cay he will go to London but he will actually go to the local pub with Antony. After the inquest, Antony tells Bill he has guessed the solution. He sends Bill to the other inn in the town to find out surreptitiously if a stranger stayed there on Monday night, Bill discovers this was the case and that it was a woman. Grrr, what?! What is the solution that Antony has guessed, and what’s the significance of the woman at the other inn?!
The next day Antony receives a letter from Cay, this is a reply to Antony’s letter to Cay telling Cay he plans to go to Mark’s dentist as he suspects Robert’s body is actually Mark’s. Cay goes on to explain in the letter that it was he who killed Mark. Cay explains that his brother Philip had got into trouble and needed money urgently, so Cay asked to borrow the money from Mark knowing he could pay it back in a few months but Mark refused to lend the money. Cay explains that Mark refused because there was no glory for Mark in helping Philip, that Mark only liked to help people when he could receive recognition for it, as when he helped Cay by paying for his education. Cay explains that his brother was jailed and this destroyed their mother and she died, so he secretly hated Mark from that point. Cay also explains that Mark had become a drunk and Cay was horrified at the thought of Angela Norbury marrying a drunk, so he determined then to kill Mark. He states he suggested to Mark the idea of him playing a trick on Ruth Norris after she had scared him with the ghost, and to do this using the character of Mark’s brother Robert. He explains that Robert had died a few years ago but there was no-one else left in Mark’s family to know about Robert’s demise, so he had suggested that Mark pretended to be Robert and then to beg money from the guests and make them feel uncomfortable, particularly Ruth. Cay explains that Mark liked the idea and shaved off his beard to further look the part, as well blackening his nails and wearing poor clothes that he’d bought for the role. Cay explains that when the servant heard Mark’s voice in the office talking about ‘now it’s my turn, you wait’ he was actually talking to Cay about Ruth and it being her turn to be scared. Cay states he had bought a revolver in London when he went there to post the letter from ‘Robert’, and he shot Mark when he was dressed as Robert. Cay explains he was alarmed when Antony appeared but managed to cope with it. He explains he successfully opened the window in the next room to imply that Mark had escaped that way, he also acknowledges Antony’s alertness about the keys, he also explains about the secret passage saying Mark had used this to enable him to then approach the house as Robert, and Cay also admits to throwing the bag of Mark’s clothes in the pond. Cay then states in the letter that he still has the revolver and that he will be gone by the time Antony reads this letter, that he has no family to disgrace or to mourn him, and that he had hoped to be happy with Angela Norbury but can’t let her marry him now he’s a murderer. Oh wow, it’s all explained, and it seems like clever Antony was spot on with it all! And I feel slightly sorry for Cay, as Mark really doesn’t sound like a nice man. I’m also wondering if the revolver was also what Antony was expecting to find in the bag or cupboard, along with the collar.
Antony shows Cay’s confession to Bill and then explains how he had guessed it all, saying the main clue for him was the importance that Cay had attached to Mark’s clothes, and that finding the collar in the basket implied Mark had dropped it there as Cay wouldn’t have overlooked it himself, so this meant that Mark had therefore changed his clothes himself and Cay had collected them afterwards not realising the collar was in the basket, and also that Mark had changed his clothes secretly as he’d done it in that room rather than in his bedroom. Anthony says it also seemed strange to him that Mark would announce the arrival of Robert if he was intending to murder him. He adds that the empty bottles in the cupboard in the secret passage also prompted him to guess that Mark was a secret drinker and that Cay would therefore disapprove of Angela Norbury being married to a drunk and try to intervene to stop this happening. Antony says he also noted that ‘Robert’ had seemed to go out of his way to speak to the gardener, but had only been seen and spoken to within the grounds not by the man in the lodge at the edge of the grounds, so he guessed from this that ‘Robert’ hadn’t come from outside. Antony admits to Bill that sending him to ask questions at the other inn after the inquest was just to give him time to think quietly through everything. Anthony doesn’t know if Cay has shot himself, but he says he would feel relieved if Cay had taken a possible way out, and he thinks that Cay’s crime would have eventually been suspected when time went on and there was no sign of Mark or his body. Anthony says he is puzzled about why Mark told the Norburys about Robert, but presumes this was just in case Angela Norbury heard from one of the guests about Robert’s upcoming arrival and then said that Mark had never mentioned Robert’s existence to her, Anthony says he guesses that Cay suggested this tactic to Mark as Cay wanted to ensure as many people knew about Robert as possible but he had described this to Mark as a way to ensure the joke wasn’t spoilt. Anthony and Bill wonder about whether to tell the police about Cay’s guilt, they presume they should but wonder if Cay may have left another confession which will mean they won’t have to tell the tale themselves.
Well, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am sad to reach the end, it was a really good read and a great solution. I am also grateful for Milne’s thoroughness in explaining every last little bit too, he obviously knows the annoyance when you’re left with unanswered puzzles! I’m bothered a little that we don’t have a resolution about Cay’s end though, I know it sounds like he shot himself but we don’t know this for sure. And I do wonder if there should have perhaps been a few more suspects, as it felt from the start that it could only really have been Cay or Mark, unless there was the twist that either Antony or Bill weren’t good guys. I was really impressed with Milne as a detective writer though, I had wondered what this book would be like but I was heartened by the methodical way he was determined to include all his favourite bits of detective stories and I liked that he clearly was a detective story fan. I thoroughly wish that Milne had written more detective books, I feel a bit lost now not being able to pick up and read another of his. Although, having looked further into the books that Milne wrote, Four Days Wonder sounds a bit like a murder mystery as there is a dead body which features in it, although it is described as a ‘comedy mystery’. In fact, I hadn’t realised how many other books he’d written, until I’ve just looked now, and I’m tempted to try more of them. Chloe Marr, a ‘social comedy’, sounds interesting and quite unusual and the main character ‘nurses a deep secret’, and Two People sounds quite intriguing as well with it being about relationships, oooh and Mr Pim sounds good too with a supposedly dead husband possibly still being alive, and The Rabbits sounds very funny, and his autobiography It’s Too Late Now would be interesting to read too, I imagine, particularly his time in the First World War and Second World War and the famous writers he met and played cricket with! And I’m very tempted to re-read the wonderful Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome, as Antony mentioned it when he and Bill were searching for the secret passage in the library, this is one of my top favourite books and guaranteed to make me laugh out loud!
