The Punch and Judy Murders - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Kenwood Blake, introduced in the previous Sir Henry Merrivale mystery The Unicorn Murders, is about to marry his fellow British Secret Service operative, Evelyn Cheyne, 24 hours from now. He is sidetracked by an urgent telegram from Sir Henry asking him to come to Torquay to play an undercover role under an alias by which he is already known, "Robert Butler".

Paul Hogenauer, a German polymath with many skills and interests, has aroused the suspicion of Sir Henry and Colonel Charters, the Chief Constable of the county by his recent interest in ghosts and spiritualism. Sir Henry and Colonel Charters feel that anti-British espionage may underlie recent events, and they suspect the involvement of a German spy known only as L.

A police officer observing Hogenauer's house reports "the room was dark, but that it seemed to be very full of small, moving darts of light flickering round a thing like a flower-pot turned upside down." Blake, as Butler, drives Sir Henry's car to Hogenauer's house and is promptly arrested—to his great surprise, Sir Henry and Colonel Charters disavow any knowledge of his actions.

Blake/Butler escapes, breaks into Hogenauer's house and finds Hogenauer, dead in his easy chair, grinning from the rictus of strychnine and wearing a Turkish fez. A colleague of Hogenauer, Dr. Keppel, is soon found to be dead in a hotel halfway across town, apparently killed simultaneously with Hogenauer. Blake/Butler and his fiancee must stay a step ahead of the police and race around investigating espionage, counterfeiting, spiritualism, and multiple impersonations. Finally Sir Henry examines and discards three complex possible solutions, revealing the murderer just in time for the wedding.

Novels by John Dickson Carr
Sir Henry Merrivale series
Novels
  • The Plague Court Murders (1934)
  • The White Priory Murders (1934)
  • The Red Widow Murders (1935)
  • The Unicorn Murders (1935)
  • The Punch and Judy Murders (1936)
  • The Ten Teacups (1937)
  • The Judas Window (1938)
  • Death in Five Boxes (1938)
  • The Reader is Warned (1939)
  • And So to Murder (1940)
  • Murder in the Submarine Zone (1940)
  • Seeing is Believing (1941)
  • The Gilded Man (1942)
  • She Died a Lady (1943)
  • He Wouldn't Kill Patience (1944)
  • The Curse of the Bronze Lamp (1945)
  • My Late Wives (1946)
  • The Skeleton in the Clock (1948)
  • A Graveyard to Let (1949)
  • Night at the Mocking Widow (1950)
  • Behind the Crimson Blind (1952)
  • The Cavalier's Cup (1953)
Short stories
  • Merrivale, March and Murder (1991)
Gideon Fell series
Novels
  • Hag's Nook (1933)
  • The Mad Hatter Mystery (1933)
  • The Eight of Swords (1934)
  • The Blind Barber (1934)
  • Death-Watch (1935)
  • The Hollow Man (1935)
  • The Arabian Nights Murder (1936)
  • To Wake the Dead (1938)
  • The Crooked Hinge (1938)
  • The Black Spectacles (1939)
  • The Problem of the Wire Cage (1939)
  • The Man Who Could Not Shudder (1940)
  • The Case of the Constant Suicides (1941)
  • Death Turns the Tables (1941)
  • Till Death Do Us Part (1944)
  • He Who Whispers (1946)
  • The Sleeping Sphinx (1947)
  • Below Suspicion (1949)
  • The Dead Man's Knock (1958)
  • In Spite of Thunder (1960)
  • The House at Satan's Elbow (1965)
  • Panic in Box C (1966)
  • Dark of the Moon (1968)
Short story
collections
  • Dr. Fell, Detective, and Other Stories (1947)
  • The Men Who Explained Miracles (1963)
  • Fell and Foul Play (1991)
The Henri Bencolin series
Novels
  • It Walks By Night (1930)
  • Castle Skull (1931)
  • The Lost Gallows (1931)
  • The Waxworks Murder (1932)
  • The Four False Weapons (1937)
Short stories
  • "The Shadow of the Goat"
  • "The Fourth Suspect"
  • "The End of Justice"
  • "Murder In Number Four"
Other novels
As John Dickson Carr
  • Poison In Jest (1932)
  • The Burning Court (1937)
  • The Emperor's Snuff-Box (1942)
  • The Bride of Newgate (1950)
  • The Devil in Velvet (1951)
  • The Nine Wrong Answers (1952)
  • Captain Cut-Throat (1955)
  • Patrick Butler for the Defense (1956)
  • Fire, Burn! (1957)
  • Scandal at High Chimneys: A Victorian Melodrama (1959)
  • The Witch of the Low Tide: An Edwardian Melodrama (1961)
  • The Demoniacs (1962)
  • Most Secret (1964)
  • Papa La-Bas (1968)
  • The Ghosts' High Noon (1970)
  • Deadly Hall (1971)
  • The Hungry Goblin: A Victorian Detective Novel (1972)
As Carter Dickson
  • The Bowstring Murders (1934)
  • The Third Bullet (1937)
  • Drop to His Death (1939), with John Rhode
  • The Department of Queer Complaints (1940)
  • Fear Is the Same (1956)
Other works
As John Dickson Carr
  • The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1949)
  • The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (1954), with Adrian Conan Doyle


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