LATEST NOVELS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 56, 9 March 1929, Page 21

LATEST NOVELS

A Mystery Solved,

"The House on Tollard Ridge," by John Bhodc (London: Geoffrey Bles) is a detective story in which the author has used the latest inventions of science to create and unravel a murder mystery which from the outset indicates that the work was not that of an ordinary criminal. In the opening chapters a highly successful "atmosphere" is created about the lonely house which stands on Tollard Ridge, almost completely hidden from all eyes by a thick belt of trees. One day its one occupant is found dead, and little is left by way of a due. Working under great difficulties, Superintendent King, of the local police, hits upon the trail of the alleged murderer, and the attention of the reader is held! while the detective hunts his man out of England and arrests him on the high seas, A. trial and condemnation follow, but it is, so to speak, at the eleventh hour, when the i detective is waiting for the death sentence to be carried out on the prisoner, that the intricate detective work commences. 'Dr. Priestly, criminologist, scientist, and keen and shrewd observer, becomes interested in the case, and from a chance remark he hears at the trial evolves a theory which even to his own mind seems too fantastic to be given credence. He sets out to verify ! his ideas,- and then he meets with a series of strange adventures in the eerie house on the hill. Whisperings, at one time hardly audible and then quite distinct; filling the rooms and meaning nothing, and then forming a definite word, keep the doctor^ puzzled, and the mystery deepens when the gloomy house is responsible for a second murder. ". . . . The minutes ticked slowly by as the two men sat silently side by side upon the bed. The fitful breeze moaned almost humanly in the! branches of the fir trees; somewhere a waving twig tapped persistently upon the roof, with the sound as of a lost spirit demanding entrance. The house was full of faint, mysterious noises, seeming now far. away, now startlingly close at hand. More than once King started and looked . inquiringly at the 'professor. He could have sworn that stealthy footsteps were, ascending the staircase; or advancing upon them along the carpeted corridor. ... In tense silence :they sat, straining their ears to the ghostly 1 sound of this strange whispering, while the inarticulate voice of it seemed slowly to resolve itself into spoken syllables. . X voice, such as no human being had ever possessed, incalculably far away,'coming from all sides of the room at once, was hidden in that whispering..,.. . . Again,, it trailed away, as though overcome in the struggle to force its way to earth. . . And then suddenly the whispering ceased, and a strange, uncanny silence fell upon the room, broken only by the mournful moaning of the wind outside. 5' It is sufficient to add that Dr. Priestly's theory is warranted. A Tale of the Outdoors. In "Blue Eyes and Grey"- (London: Hodder and Stoughton) Baroness Orczy, the authoress of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and other popular novels, has seleeted'a theme for her story unusual and attractive. To young Amos Beyvin,^the son of wealthy English parents, his visit to Canada was all too short, but when the big liner drew away from the pier at Montreal the picture he carried with him was that of a young girl's slim, trim figure which kept on waving through the fog. Amos intended to keep that picture engraven on his memory till ho returned.to Canada to claim his bride, but fate said otherwise. Back in London he again entered the wild round of social entertainment, parties, and night clubs, and his career was brought to a sudden stoppage when .a night club was raided, and Amos, while endeavouring to assist one of the ladies to escape, killed a policeman. Dartmoor loomed up in the future, and all time, but. by a strange trick fate gave Amos a chance, and he had the opportunity of reading in the newspapers the account of his own death. In the free land of Canada.he determined to seek his fortune and mend his broken life, and consequently time found him a dweller of the forest, a lover of Nature, and a man with a new spirit. Even in the New World, however, the shadow still followed him. The authoress not only' completely rehabilitates her_ hero, but introduces him, under dramatic circumstances, to his former sweetheart, and then adds a pair of villains whose main object is to secure.the girl's fortune. Amos is the girl's only hope, but he is ever threatened with exposure, and is forced to stand aside. The story is not without romance, the authoress interweaving a pretty love theme with considerable skill. After many difficulties have; been overcome the young couple attain happinesg, and the regeneration of the young soul is completed. The authoress claims that the story is a true one in its main facts, though for obvious reasons she has modified even the incidents in^ order'to preserve the anonymity of the principal characters.