It was not until the fifth death in Long Greeting that Miss Tidy made
up her mind to go to the police.
It was not a sense of civic duty that compelled her, but the arrival of
two letters that made it clear her life was in danger. The local
villagers had been agitated for months over whether the seemingly
unconnected deaths were the suicides they appeared to be. Better to say
nothing of her intentions though, not even to her immediate circle: the
staff of the Minerva hat shop who worked for her, or Léonie, her old
Breton maid. Nor would she mention the letters to her interested
neighbours or the rector, who had buried four of the victims, or even to
Owen Greatorex, the novelist of international reputation, who seemed
disarmingly gentle. For who was to be trusted?
Scotland Yard is soon on the scene but more deaths occur before
Detective-Inspector Raikes puts the pieces together.
Dorothy Bowers (1902-48) was a champion of "fair play" mysteries, in
which all the clues are cunningly displayed within the story. The Bells
at Old Bailey (1947). was her fifth and last novel. Bowers died in 1948
from tuberculosis, having been inducted the prestigious Detection Club a
few months earlier.