'As a maker of watertight puzzles, Mr Connington has no superior' Daily Mail
The Constable was content to call it a suicide pact. All the evidence was there. The bodies of John Barratt and Mrs Callis were discovered in a lovers' nook among some bracken.
Beside them was a pistol with Barratt's fingerprints on it, and torn up letters in the handwriting of Barratt and Mrs Callis were scattered around. Arrangements for the elopement had apparently been complete. Why had their plans fallen through? Why had they turned their backs on the railway station with tickets to London in their pockets?
Sir Clinton Driffield is not so sure that the obvious solution is the right one ...
Alfred Walter Stewart (1880-1947), who wrote under the pen name J. J. Connington, was born in Glasgow, the youngest of three sons of Reverend Dr Stewart. He graduated from Glasgow University and pursued an academic career as a chemistry professor, working for the Admiralty during the First World War. Known for his ingenious and carefully worked-out puzzles and in-depth character development, he was admired by a host of his better-known contemporaries, including Dorothy L. Sayers and John Dickson Carr, who both paid tribute to his influence on their work. He married Jessie Lily Courts in 1916 and they had one daughter.