Case of the Missing Minutes

Travers looked down at the thing that sprawled. The head gave a last movement, and there was a faint sound like a tired moan. The time was eight minutes to eight.

Ludovic Travers is approached by his sister after tales of strange doings and horrible night shrieks in a country house called Highways. Travers makes an investigatory visit, where he finds stabbed to death the bizarre old man who was living at the house with his 10-year-old granddaughter. Among the prime suspects are the child’s tutor, and a classical pianist who happens to be in the village on holiday. But airtight alibis abound, hinging on an ingenious manipulation of time. Chief Constable Major Tempest and his subordinates Inspector Carry and Sergeant Polegate are delighted to have the resourceful Travers’s help in finding the murderer.

The Case of the Missing Minutes was originally published in 1937. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“Refreshingly different from that of the general run of detective novels. . .”--Times Literary Supplement