The Draycott Murder Mystery

On a storm-lashed night in the village of Keys, John Leslie returns to his lonely farmhouse to find a dead woman slumped over the writing table in his sitting room, her head fatally wounded and the front door standing open. A fleeting figure at the window, a possible watcher in the flower-bed, and Leslie's own baffling absence all turn the discovery into an immediate murder mystery, not least because he cannot explain how the woman came to be there. When Sergeant Brace and the local policeman George Gunnet arrive, they probe every detail of the house, the body, and Leslie's movements, while the eerie calm of the room suggests a killing that was sudden, intimate, and perhaps committed by someone the victim knew. As the investigation widens, Brace uncovers footprints, a hidden sleeper in the barn loft, and signs that a tramp may have been lurking nearby. A doctor identifies the victim as Miss Allen's sister and confirms she was shot only hours earlier, deepening the village's unease and Leslie's suspicion. Meanwhile, Fayre pursues the doctor, Gregg, through garages and motoring clues, chasing a hired car, a missing vehicle, and a possible suspect named Page. Each new lead only multiplies the uncertainty, drawing the story into a tense web of rural secrecy, shifting alibis, and concealed histories. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.