(American Title: The Boomerang Clue)

A man walks off the edge of a cliff in the fog, on a golf course in Wales. Bobby Jones (fourth son of a local vicar) is doing his best to make the dying man comfortable, when the man suddenly opens his eyes and gasps out with his dying breath, "Why didn't they ask Evans?" This obscure phrase leads Bobby and his friend Frankie (Lady Frances to strangers) on a twisted and almost deadly adventure as they try to discover the true identity of the dead man, and the meaning of his unusual last words.

Bobby and Frankie have two leads: (1) After Bobby told the relatives of the dead man (Mr. and Mrs. Pritchard) about his last words, he first receives a job offer in South America, and then is almost poisoned with morphia; and (2) Bobby saw that the dead man had a picture of a haunting face in his pocket, but the picture published in the paper was not the same picture—which meant that Roger Bassington-ffrench, who sat with the body after Bobby left to keep an appointment, must have changed the picture!

Bobby and Frankie decide to follow their second lead and investigate Roger Bassington-ffrench. Frankie arranges to have an "accident" in front of the Bassington-ffrench home, so that she can convalesce there and snoop around for clues. While there she learns that Roger lives with his brother Henry and Henry’s wife Sylvia, and also that a "sanatorium" for drug addicts is next door, run by a sinister-looking Dr. Nicholson. When Bobby arrives on the scene he realizes that Dr. Nicholson’s wife, Moira, is the haunting face from the picture that disappeared.

As Frankie and Bobby unravel the mystery little by little, they fall into the hands of the enemy, barely escape, fall into the hands of the enemy again, and finally solve the whole case. As the pieces are about to fall into place, Frankie and Bobby find themselves asking the same question as the dying man: "Why didn’t they ask Evans?"

Spoilers ahead! Scroll down for the full spoilers on this book.

The villains are actually Roger Bassington-ffrench and Moira Nicholson. They are members of a gang of drug smugglers and con artists.

John Savage, a wealthy and well-known big game hunter meets a Mrs. Templeton (actually Moira Nicholson) on a cross-Atlantic cruise. He goes to stay at the cottage where she and her unfeeling "husband" live. Once he’s there, Roger Bassington-ffrench dresses up like Savage and visits a few doctors, saying that he’s sure he has cancer (thus setting the stage for a suicide). Then, while Savage is drugged upstairs, Bassington-ffrench, still disguised as Savage, invites a lawyer to come draw out a will that leaves all Savage’s fortune to Mrs. Templeton. The will is witnessed by the aged and nearly blind gardener and the mentally-dim cook. Then Savage is given an overdose; Mr. and Mrs. Templeton announce he has committed "suicide." Doctors confirm that Savage was convinced he was dying of cancer.

However, Savage’s will seems very fishy to his close friend, Alan Carstairs. Carstairs comes to England with a photo of "Mrs. Templeton" (actually Moira Nicholson) to investigate the situation, and one question struck him—the parlormaid, Evans, was in the next room when Savage wrote his will, but the gardener and cook were asked to witness the will ... why didn’t they ask Evans? Carstairs managed to track Evans to Wales, but Roger Bassington-ffrench tailed him and pushed him off the cliff. Then after Bobby discovers the body, Bassington-ffrench joins him and agrees to wait with the body for help, so that Bobby can keep an appointment. While left alone with the body, Bassington-ffrench replace’s Moira’s picture with the picture of another gang member. This gang member identifies the dead man as "Alex Pritchard," so that no one will connect him with Carstairs or Savage.

As Frankie and Bobby figure all this out, they are finally asking Carstairs’s question: "Why wasn’t the parlormaid asked to witness Savage’s will? Why didn’t they ask Evans?" (The answer: Evans was sharp and had good eyesight, so she might have spotted that the man making the will was not really Savage). Frankie asks the local post office for Evans’s current address, and learns that she is now Mrs. Roberts, and is in service at Bobby’s father’s Vicarage! No wonder the gang were so anxious to get Bobby out of the picture! But in the end, Bobby and Frankie foil a murder attempt by Moira and turn both her and Bassington-ffrench over to the police.

This is one of Agatha Christie's earlier books, and I like it because the heroes, Bobby and Frankie, are plain folks who allow their curiosity and ingenuity to lead them where they may. Also there’s romance and jealousy with Frankie and Bobby realizing their friendship may be something more.

I think one of the signifiers that this is an early Christie book is both the romance and the use of a gang; later Christie books steer clear of gangs or other forms of organized crime (with one notable exception: The Pale Horse). But Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? shows that Christie is already a master mystery-writer; it's a first rate mystery and when you learn who the villains are, you will slap your hand to your head and realize you had all the clues you needed to solve the mystery.

Hillary's rating: