Inspector French and the Starvel Hollow Tragedy. Freeman Crofts Wills

      

      FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS

       Inspector French and the Starvel Hollow Tragedy

       Copyright

      Published by COLLINS CRIME CLUB

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by Wm Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1927

      Copyright © Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts 1927

      Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008190644

      Ebook Edition © January 2017 ISBN: 9780008190651

      Version 2016-12-08

       Dedication

      TO

      MY WIFE

      WHO SUGGESTED THE IDEA FROM WHICH

      THIS STORY GREW

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Chapter 1: The Tragedy

       Chapter 2: The Inquest

       Chapter 3: Mr Tarkington Develops a Theory

       Chapter 4: Inspector French Goes North

       Chapter 5: French Picks Up a Clue

      

       Chapter 6: Talloires, Lac D’Annecy

      

       Chapter 7: Posthumous Evidence

      

       Chapter 8: Dr Philpot’s Story

      

       Chapter 9: The Value of Analysis

      

       Chapter 10: Whymper Speaks at Last

      

       Chapter 11: A Startling Theory

      

       Chapter 12: A Somewhat Gruesome Chapter

      

       Chapter 13: The Piece of Yellow Clay

      

       Chapter 14: The Secret of the Moor

      

       Chapter 15: French Baits his Trap

      

       Chapter 16: A Double Recall

      

       Chapter 17: Concerning Wedding Rings

      

       Chapter 18: Cumulative Evidence

      

       Chapter 19: The Last Lap

      

       Chapter 20: Conclusion

      

       About the Author

      

       Also in this Series

      

       About the Publisher

       1

       The Tragedy

      Ruth Averill moved slowly across the drawing room at Starvel, and stood dejectedly at the window, looking out at the Scotch firs swaying in the wind and the sheets of rain driving across the untidy lawn before the house.

      The view was even more depressing than usual on this gloomy autumn afternoon. Beyond the grass-grown drive and the broken-down paling of posts and wire which bounded the grounds, lay the open moor, wild and lonely and forbidding. A tumble of dun-coloured sedgy grass with darker smudges where rock outcropped, it stretched up, bleak and dreary,