What Happened at Hazelwood

Rating:
Summary: "Now does he feel his secret murders sticking on his hands"
Review: "What Happened at Hazelwood" (1946) is notable in that it is a mystery that does not feature Michael Innes's most famous detective, Sir John Appleby, but rather Appleby's successor at New Scotland Yard, Detective-Inspector Thomas Cadover. The new Inspector is a bit of a dry stick compared to the irrepressible Appleby---he refers to his predecessor as 'the wayward Appleby'---but Cadover is slowly acquiring Appleby's habit of uttering mystifying non sequiturs (at least they seem like non sequiturs at the time of utterance). He has also acquired his predecessor's yellow Bentley (which surprised me, because I'm positive Appleby was still driving it after he retired--see "Appleby's Other Story"), and a young Watson named Harold, who narrates the middle portion of this mystery.

The narrator for Parts I and III is Nicolette, former actress and wife of the soon-to-be-deceased Sir George Simney, who is murdered in the traditional manner, by a blunt object in his own library at midnight, during a snowstorm, while his butler is lurking just outside the library door.

Sir George is one of this author's most unsavoury baronets. He tormented his relatives, slept with a shotgun by his side, seduced half the countryside, and abused his beautiful wife. Needless to say, he had many enemies, including the local rector and, of course, his own flesh-and-blood. In fact Nicolette is surprised to learn that her husband has more relatives than she bargained for, when three Australian Simneys show up one evening while the British members of the family are hurling imprecations and sherry round the dinner table.

Twenty-seven hours later, after mysterious references to that 'Dismal Swamp' business, and the seduction of one of his new and unwelcome guests, Sir George is dead.

Now the redoubtable Detective-Inspector Cadover and his assistant, Harold must sort through quite a long list of suspects, including all of the family members at Hazelwood, and must also track down the suspect who left a trail of footprints in the snow outside the window of the deceased's library. Another mystery to be solved is the identity of the lurker behind the Temple of Diana, where Sir George was busy seducing his Australian guest's wife (Hint: it wasn't her husband).

This is a very elegant mystery, with the exception of the bad baronet himself, and I think you will find it easy to forgive Innes's unlikely murderer once you learn the full truth of "What Happened at Hazelwood."