It’s early in the morning and DS Samuel Slevin of the Wigan Borough
Police is just climbing the steps to the station when Captain Bell tells
him to get to the Royal Hotel where a body awaits him. A man has been
badly mutilated in his bed while his wife slept alongside him. She had
taken Chlorodyne before going to bed, so slept through whatever
happened.
As Slevin and Constable Bowery question the guests of the Royal, it is
suggested that the victim liked young ladies. That brings to the mind
of Bowery an incident he had attended during the evening. A man had
apparently pushed his daughter down the stairs while chasing a man out
of the house. While questioning the young woman at her house, the father
and two ruffians burst in accosting Slevin and Bowery. Fortunately the
policemen got the better of the three and arrested them. Do they now
have the killer?
The post-mortem indicates that the victim had been partially suffocated
before being mutilated. Slevin is left wondering why there was asbestos
dust in the victim’s nostrils.
Slevin is told of the widow having an argument with an actor at her
hotel. He was acting in a nearby theatre and she claimed that he knew
her husband and was offering his condolences. However, when Slevin goes
to his lodging house, he is lying on the floor having just recently
collapsed. Is he another victim?
Author Alan Wright’s murder mystery is not done, for there are a few
more twists and surprises to the plot before all is revealed. A good
quick read.
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