The more Simon learns about his uncle the less he regrets his death, but having fallen head over heels in love with one of the women involved he has to know who did it. After the police have gone away, Simon begins finding little bits of evidence which lead him to believe that someone has gotten away with murder-from a torn bit of The New Statesman to a decorative earring to a set of six very unusual records among Druse's famous collection. But his American nephew Simon Crane arrives at his flat ready to meet his British uncle for the first time, hoping for an introduction to the British literary world, only to find Druse's dead body. Not for the police or anyone the least bit official-his death is conveniently ruled an accident resulting from an insecure window sash. He delighted in making women fall in love with him and then turning their emotions into a subtle weapon against them because as he told the radio audience on his last recorded session of 'The National Quiz Team': Love does not exist.Ĭyprian Druse dead was a problem. But Cyprian Druse alive was also a world-class cad.

Druse was a self-made expert on it all and considered none of it to be much good. No one's work was exempt from literary geniuses to mystery authors to poets. (Miss Pritchard p.102)Ĭyprian Druse was a well-known literary critic who excelled in skewering lesser mortals (known as authors) and revealing their shortcoming to the reading public. Murder only interests me when I feel I could have done it myself.

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