British Mystery Classics

At the Central Criminal Court, an eager crowd awaits the trial of Victoria Lamartine, an active participant in the Resistance during the war. She is now employed at the Family Hotel in Soho, where Major Eric Thoseby has been found murdered. Thoseby is believed to have fathered Lamartine's child, and the prosecution insist that his death is revenge for his abandonment of Lamartine and her arrest by the Gestapo. A last-minute change in Lamartine's defence counsel grants solicitor Nap Rumbold just eight days to prove her innocence.

A playwright is murdered, seemingly in connection with the suspected blackmail of his friend—a rising young MP who, without explanation, disappeared from public view before his untimely death. With a number of high-profile suspects to investigate, the key to solving the case rests on a written clue left behind by the killer....

Ten years ago, Mary Morstan’s father, an officer in an Indian regiment, vanished. Four years later, elegant pearls began to arrive, six in total, and now she holds an invitation to meet her mysterious anonymous benefactor. As Miss Morstan shares this peculiar tale with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, she urges the detectives to accompany her. Her only clues to her father’s disappearance: a map of a fortress with the names of four strangers and an assertion that she’s been dreadfully wronged.

Overworked locum Dr. Jervis is called to the bedside of a gentleman who refuses to see a doctor except on the condition that the doctor must be told neither his name nor his address. After a strange ride in a closed carriage, Jervis finds his patient apparently suffering the effects of morphine poisoning, and departs with a sense of uneasiness. Anxious to trace the man again, Jervis consults his old friend and colleague, the eminent scientific investigator Dr. John Thorndyke.