[Ludovic Travers 29] • The Case of the Corporal's Leave

*It wasn't I who discovered the body. I want to make that perfectly clear, if only for the benefit of a couple of club acquaintances of mine.*

Ludovic Travers, special investigator for Scotland Yard, commits murder? No--but at the end of this novel you will understand why he might claim to have done so.

Sir William Pelle has become a missing person, and Superintendent Wharton of the Yard is prioritizing his recovery. But when Pelle is found murdered, there are serious questions to answer. Was the well-to-do jewellery-handler the victim of a well-planned robbery? And why was the corpse partly covered in sugar?

Several of the enigmatic figures formerly surrounding the deceased are going to repay close scrutiny; as is the importance of the army corporal who keeps weaving in and out of the story. It will take all Travers's customary acuity to bring the case to a successful conclusion--and eventually to explain his assertion of committing murder himself.

*The Case of the Corporal's Leave* was originally published in 1945. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.