The Puzzle Lock (1925)

Blurb:

My review:

Quite a good Thorndyke collection, comprising nine stories set either in London or on the Kentish coast.  The best story is certainly “Rex v. Burnaby,” which offers a method of poisoning (by belladonna) nearly as clever as John Rhode’s Vegetable Duck.  “Phyllis Annesley’s Peril” is obvious but oh so ingenious in its description of how unbiased witnesses can observe something which isn’t there in all good faith; interestingly, it is related to Sayers’s “The Haunted Policeman” and Carr’s Bride of Newgate.  “The Puzzle Lock,” the title story, is an entertaining account of professional crime (burglary) and a safe that opens to a chronogram, allowing Thorndyke to demonstrate his genius at code-breaking.  In the same way, “A Mystery of the Sand-hills” displays the sleuth’s ability to reason from sand and sea; full of good Thorndykean touches, but the plot is rather obscure.  Analysis of dust and sand found on “The Green Check Jacket” allows Thorndyke to discover two murders caused by a will.  A will is also at the root of the problem in that other account of physical detection, “The Mysterious Visitor.”  The three remaining stories are much weaker.  “A Sower of Pestilence” is too improbable and unmotivated a villain to carry conviction, while the theft of “The Seal of  Nebuchadnezzar” makes for a rather dull tale.  The very worst, though, is “The Apparition of Burling Court,” which is in almost every respect a reworking of “The Mandarin’s Pearl,” and hence not worth the bother.

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