The Peacock Feather Murders (1937)
Blurb:
My review:
In one of the most carefully controlled Dickson novels, H.M., assisted for once not by a half-witted young hero, but by Det.-Sgt. Pollard, Chief Insp. Masters' assistant, does a brilliant job of sorting through the solidly presented characters and clues to work out the truth behind the impossible and seemingly motiveless murders committed by the sinister society of the Ten Teacups (name borrowed from G.K. Chesterton's Club of Queer Trades). The solution is very clever, but is marred by the fact that the victim is a fool, for the gimmick relies on the victim's "standing with his back to the open window [as] a part of the rigid "instructions" he had received from the Teacups," which is nearly as daft as the solution to The Problem of the Wire Cage. The climax in a deserted house, complete with "Conjuror's Chair," is as superb as the evocation of a vividly Chestertonian or Stevensonian London.
Note the use of the murder party in The Sleeping Sphinx (1947), and of the murder for business reasons with jug in Deadly Hall (1971).