Mr Gabb, your son did not commit suicide. He was murdered.'Simon Gabb has everything - or so it seems: a beautiful house on a large estate, a flourishing business and two sons, both evidently endowed with the capacity to carry on the family firm. One is brilliant and inventive, the other dependable and efficient. And yet something is manifestly wrong. A secret invention, on which his business is engaged for the government, becomes known to those who have no right to such information. But how and where did the leak occur? It is a conundrum which creates suspicion and dissension within the family and engulfs everyone who dines with them one Saturday night. The next morning, Gabb's elder son, Giles, who, despite his oddities of behaviour, has shown such promise, is found dead by the lake. Smouldering emotions at once flare up, further deepening the mystery that Inspector Mallett must unravel.Mary Fitt was the pseudonym of Kathleen Freeman...

It is not for you to exact vengeance on my behalf. Remember that.'When successful novelist Christabel Strange dies suddenly aged 32, the bequests are hard to fathom. She leaves one wing of the ancestral home to good friend Marcia Wentworth for her ongoing use; the rest of the house remains in the hands of her mother, grandmother and siblings. Christabel made it known that Marcia would write her biography, but leaves her sixteen volumes of meticulous diaries to wily eccentric Grandmother Strange, who loathes Marcia and refuses to allow her to see them. Dr George Caradew, Christabel's childhood friend, finds himself between opposing and increasingly hostile camps, and begins to wonder why Christabel behaved in such a peculiar way, and whether her death was really due to a fever. The possibility of foul play becomes a certainty when another murder occurs and a volume of the diaries is stolen. Gradually, Caradew pieces together the clues to Christabel's hidden...

'When a man has three separate notices by three different women inserted in the local paper, and he's my own namesake besides, I feel I owe him something.'Sequential death notices appear for Robert Raynald: one by his mother, one by his estranged wife, one by his daughter. This odd approach draws the attention of Superintendent Mallett and his friend Dr. Fitzbrown. The inquest had decided that Raynald shot himself whilst temporarily insane, but his daughter Geraldine is not convinced and presents enough evidence to arouse the investigator within Mallett. Raynald's story is presented in flashbacks, as Mallett and Fitzbrown build a picture of his life through the people who knew him best. Requiem for Robert combines the excitement of a detective story with a haunting reading of character.Mary Fitt was the pseudonym of Kathleen Freeman (1897-1959), a classical scholar who taught Greek at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire in...

All these people who thought themselves securely in possession are now going to be dependent on the caprice of this young man.'During a blinding rainstorm, Jake Seaborne takes a wrong turn and arrives at Ullstone Hall, where is he is initially mistaken for 'Hugo', the new heir to the family estate. It seems Hugo is the offspring of the late Mr Ullstone's first marriage in India, but the children of his second marriage have never met him. In short, the Ullstone family destiny is now in the hands of a complete stranger. A friend, Sir Frederick Lawson (who it turns out knows Jake's family) has been asked to act as a "sort of buffer" for Hugo on his arrival, but Lawton cannot stay and Jake agrees to act in that role until he can return. But not everything is as it appears to be, and when the handsome and charming Hugo arrives, trouble follows and before long three people are dead.Mary Fitt was the pseudonym of Kathleen Freeman (1897-1959) a classical...

'Is it wise to evoke these memories-to raise these ghosts-after all these years?'After attending a burial in an old country churchyard, Superintendent Mallett and his friends are struck by the sight of two elderly ladies, regally dressed in black and accompanied by their uniformed chauffeur, placing an elaborate wreath on the graveyard's most imposing monument. The vicar confirms that the Misses de Boulter of Chetwode Lodge have placed fresh flowers on the tomb of their father and brother every week for the last fifty years. In the opposite corner of the churchyard lies the small, neglected grave of one Mary Dazill. In flashbacks, we learn how everything goes wrong in the lives of the two sisters when their father brings the enigmatic Mary home and proposes to marry her. Soon, murder ensues, and a fatalistic mystery with the emotional echoes of a Greek tragedy.Mary Fitt was the pseudonym of Kathleen Freeman (1897-1959), a classical scholar...

"You must admit I make a good murderer. Nobody thinks of me." Not every woman can collect her dethroned lovers and their wives into one room, but then Claribel was not 'every woman'. Things happened at her parties and so one swallowed the latest baits and joined all the other poor fish. But having given her party, having collected her bevy of expectant friends, having displayed her three mysterious lovelies, it was painfully bad tactics to make them play a murder game. All sorts of curious things were liable to happen when one let loose such a motley throng in a darkened house. So really it was Claribel's fault, and she had only herself to blame when things did happen. A fairy tale with a sting in its tail.Mary Fitt was the pseudonym of Kathleen Freeman (1897-1959) a classical scholar who taught Greek at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire in Cardiff. Starting in 1937, she wrote 27 mysteries and a number of...

'Augustus knows he is inconveniencing a great many people, and he is enjoying this. He will not change his mind.'Augustus Gale was a man in love-with a woman of genius who had been dead for over a century. So great was his dedication to the memory of playwright Joan Farmer that Augustus bought her ancestral home, steeped himself in the local history, and attempted to enforce a Regency-style lifestyle on his entire household. This macabre devotion poisoned his life as well as the lives of his son and daughter, his beautiful second wife, and even his devoted mother. Yet it was a strictly confined historical obsession. When a party of archaeologists sought permission to excavate a rare Roman mosaic pavement on Augustus's land, disrupting his homage to Joan, they were met with a blunt, contemptuous and destructive refusal. It might be said that Augustus Gale was a man who "asked for it", but whose was the hand that fed him the poison?Mary Fitt...