It was to be a fitting centerpiece of the Chinese themed suite in the new home of the financier, Boyd Armstrong, an ornate Chinese wedding chest, a gift of the explorer Major Hardy. When the chest is opened at the party held for the unveiling of the chest, to the surprise and horror of all those in attendance, the chest was found to contain the body of their host, victim of a gunshot to the head. Chief Inspector Pointer is promptly called in, but he finds himself presented with a baffling puzzle. Not only must he discover who amongst the many suspects killed Armstrong, he must first discover...

A Chief Inspector Pointer Mystery
Sir Adam Youdale, K.C. was Britain's preeminent barrister, at least for the defense. If there was anyone who could get his clients off, it was Sir Adam. Yet when the lawyer is found dead at Westwood, his home in Wimbledon, it is the barrister who becomes the center of a murder investigation. When Scotland Yard's finest, Chief Inspector Pointer, takes over the case, he finds that he has plenty of clues, perhaps too many, and a plethora of suspects as well. He soon realizes, though, that one clue is missing from the crime scene, the clue that will provide...

A Chief Inspector Pointer Mystery
The four Cautley cousins, Major Howard Cautley, Lionel, Jack, and Fabian could not have been more different, a wealthy businessman, explorer, architect, and mystic respectively. But the cousins, while they might argue amongst themselves, could always be counted on to stick together. This certainly appeared to be the case when the Major is killed in a seeming accident by his own shotgun. The local police, very familiar with the family, are reluctant to suspect the surviving cousins of murder. Chief Inspector Pointer, though, when consulted over a pearl...

A Chief Inspector Pointer Mystery

Farthing was one of the oldest and finest houses in England, and, as with many ancient houses it came with legends attached to this. A particularly gruesome one dated back to the time of Queen Mary when the then current owner of the house, denounced his own wife as a heretic in order to retain possession of the estate. Shortly after he met his own doom. Since that time, a sequence of three eerie laughs has presaged the death of the most recent owner. When Chief Inspector Pointer is approached to investigate when the laughs have sounded twice, he...

A Chief Inspector Pointer Mystery
To help make ends meet, Mr. Hillock was in the habit of renting out rooms at his farm to artistic types down in the Sussex countryside looking for a rustic retreat. He wasn't particularly keen on art, nor the attention paid to his two daughters, but the money came in handy. However, when one of his boarders is found with his head bashed in this arrangement is thrown into disarray. Superintendent Gibbs, the county policeman called in to investigate the death enlists the help of one of the other boarders, a writer of mystery plays, to help him out, but...

A Chief Inspector Pointer Mystery
Charles Dawnay was a devoted husband, a loving father, and an honest and successful man of business. His one quirk, if it could be called that, was that he kept a meticulous diary in which he noted every appointment and encounter both past and future. Therefore, when his body was found with its head bashed in, the police had every hope that the diary might provide a clue as to who the last person to see him alive might be, as that person might well prove to be the murderer. However, when the diary is examined, it proves to be written in an indecipherable...

A Chief Inspector Pointer Mystery
Chief Inspector Pointer finds himself looking into the suspected suicide of the owner of a chain of high-end hair dressing salons. The only thing suspicious about the death is a tenuous link to the earlier brutal murder of a woman at a cottage called The Clearing in Lincolnshire. The clues in that case are sparse, and while there are suspects, none would seem to have a motive strong enough to fit the nature of the crime, and none of them had any connection the subject of his own investigation. The inspector, however, becomes convinced that there is a...

A Chief Inspector Pointer Mystery
When Sergeant Peel, a Scotland Yard detective goes missing while on special duty on the coast of Suffolk, Chief Inspector Pointer dispatches private inquiry agent Hugh Duncan to investigate. Duncan fails to find the detective, but almost immediately discovers a body buried in the sand by the shore as well as evidence of a smuggling operation. Trying to determine if Peel's disappearance related to the murder, Duncan soon finds himself embroiled in a much more complicated affair involving Arab politics and a long lost treasure as he investigates a . . ....