The Penrose Mystery (1936)
Blurb:
My review:
Penrose,
a
collector “possessed by an insatiable acquisitiveness” and a singular
ignorance
of his possessions, and whose exasperating facetious “conversation is a
sort of
everlasting crossword puzzle,” disappears after a hit-and-run accident,
while
his house is burgled and a cryptic note left.
His cousin and executor, anxious to establish survivorship,
calls in Dr.
Thorndyke, whose understanding of the significance of a fragment of
pottery
leads to the excavation of a Kentish barrow and the discovery of
Penrose
therein, and whose discovery of a connexion between the Billington
Jewel
Robbery and Penrose leads to the discovery of his murderer. The reader hesitates between two
suspects before Dr. Thorndyke solves the conundrum in a most satisfying
manner. Less satisfying is his habit of
repeating his
effects, and Mrs. Pettigrew’s willingness to keep the secret when she
mistrusted Deodatus Pettigrew.
To the R. Austin Freeman Page.