A. A. Milne is best
known for writing Winnie-the-Pooh stories for his son, Christopher
Robin Milne, in which Christopher and his teddy bear,
Winnie-the-Pooh, play major roles. The first book with stories about
them was a short story collection titled Winnie-the-Pooh which
was first published in 1926. Four years before that, he wrote The
Red House Mystery
which he wrote for his father that enjoyed reading detective stories.
This was the only mystery that he wrote.
This
story is a “locked-room mystery”, which takes place at an English
country house owned by Mark Ablett who liked to have guests stay
there that participated in various sporting activities and games
during there stay. One morning he announce that he just received a
letter form his brother Robert, who had been living in Australia for
the past 15 years, stating that he would be arriving that afternoon
to see Mark. None of the staff or guests had ever heard anything
about Robert, except for Mark and Robert's cousin, and Mark's
right-hand man, Matthew Cayley. Robert was shown to Mark's office
immediately upon arrival, per Mark's instructions, but Mark wasn't in
there at that time. A short time later, a gun shot was heard coming
from the office. Caley went to check in the office, but the door was
locked from the inside and Caley started pounding on the office door
insisting to be let in to see what happened, but with out any
response.
About
the same time, Antony Gillingham, a stranger to all there, but Bill
Beverley shows up to see Bill. When he arrives, Caley is pounding on
the door, Antony asks if there was any other way into the office, and
is immediately taken around to a window outside by Caley. They see a
body lying on the floor and mange to break into the office where
after turning the body over, Caley identifies it to be Robert, but
Mark is nowhere to be found. Unimpressed by the inspector sent to
investigate the crime and having to stay there until after the
inquest, Antony decides to try to solve the case with Bill being his
“Watson.”
I
had part of the result figured out early on, but wasn't sure of some
of the other details. It was fun, and sometimes hilarious, following
Antony and Bill around during their investigation and reading about
some of their hypothesis.
Tim's
Rating: ➷➷➶➶
(Four
out of six arrows)
If
you want to read more about A. A. Milne and useless trivia facts such
as one of his school teachers was H. G. Wells, you can start by
looking at his Wilipedia page at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._A._Milne
