The Belfry Murder: A Golden Age Mystery

When Mary Borlase, English governess of the little Countess Nadine, escapes from Russia during the Great War, she brings with her jewels belonging to the ill-fated Romanoffs, including a famous emerald, the Eye of Nero. Mary dies of pneumonia a few days after reaching England, in a room over her brother's antique shop. What has become of the now missing jewels? Has she hidden them somewhere, or entrusted them to someone before her death? Years later a Russian waiter sells a secret twice over, and pays the ultimate price. The search for the emerald has begun. For a man calling himself Mr. Brown, and his gang, it is first an adventure, but becomes a matter of life and death. For Martin Drury, chicken-farming in Sussex it brings the gleam of romance and a chance of knight errantry. And for Inspector Hugh Collier of Scotland Yard, young and ambitious, backing his intuitions against the opinions of his superiors, it is a case full of pitfalls, whose issues might spell promotion--or a fatal mark against his name. was originally published in 1933. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.