FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS
Inspector French and the Sea Mystery
Published by COLLINS CRIME CLUB
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by Wm Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1928
Copyright © Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts 1928
Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008190675
Ebook Edition © January 2017 ISBN: 9780008190682
Version 2016-12-09
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Mr Morgan Meets Tragedy
Chapter 2: Inspector French Gets Busy
Chapter 3: Experimental Detection
Chapter 5: Messrs Berlyn and Pyke
Chapter 6: The Despatch of the Crate
Chapter 10: London’s Further Contribution
Chapter 11: John Gurney, Night Watchman
Chapter 14: French Turns Fisherman
Chapter 18: On Hampstead Heath
Chapter 19: The Bitterness of Death
The Burry Inlet, on the south coast of Wales, looks its best from the sea. At least so thought Mr Morgan, as he sat in the sternsheets of his boat, a fishing line between his fingers, while his son, Evan, pulled lazily over the still water.
In truth the prospect on this pleasant autumn evening would have pleased a man less biased by pride of fatherland than Mr Morgan. The Inlet at full tide forms a wide sheet of water, penetrating in an easterly direction some ten miles into the land, with the county of Carmarthen to the north and the Gower Peninsula to the south. The shores are flat, but rounded hills rise inland which merge to form an undulating horizon of high ground. Here and there along the coast are sand-dunes, whose greys and yellows show up in contrast to the green of the grasslands and the woods beyond.
To the south-east, over by Salthouse Point and Penclawdd, Mr Morgan could see every detail of house and sand-dune,