Leaving her home, the isolated house on the Yorkshire moors called Starvel, Ruth Averill heads off to stay with a family friend. Little does she know that she will never see it again: the following evening a fire utterly destroys the building, killing her rich and reclusive uncle, along with the two servants. At first this is seen as nothing but a horrible tragedy—a tragedy that’s compounded when it’s discovered that the vast majority of Ruth’s legacy from her uncle was paper money stored in a safe that didn’t survive the fire. The safe, however, was reputed for being fireproof, and soon an errant £20 note brings Inspector French onto the scene.

This, the third in the Inspector French series, was inspired by a real blaze that occurred near where Freeman Wills Crofts was living; but the layered drama that unfolds after, and Inspector French’s determination to find the next piece of evidence that will uncover the whole mystery, is invention in Crofts’ classic style—but with a little help from his wife.