Cecil John Charles Street (1884-1964) was an impressively productive author of Golden Age crime fiction. As John Rhode, he created a series of about 70 books with Dr. Lancelot Priestley, published between 1925 and 1961. He also wrote short stories, stand-alone novels, stage plays, and non-fiction under this pseudonym. Under the name Miles Burton, he wrote about 60 novels between 1930 and 1960 featuring Desmond Merrion and Inspector John Arnold. As Cecil Waye, he wrote a brief series of four novels about Christopher Perrin, a private investigator in London.

For more about Street and his extensive body of work, see Masters of the Humdrum Mystery: Cecil John Charles Street, Freeman Wills Crofts, Alfred Walter Stewart and the English Detective Novel by Curtis Evans (McFarland, 2012).

Dean Street Press reprinted all four of the Waye books as part of their revitalization of Golden Age detective fiction. They include helpful introductions by crime historian Henry Medawar. The fourth book is The Prime Minister’s Pencil (Hodder & Stoughton, 1933; Dean Street Press, 2021), which shows Christopher Perrin in fine fettle. His detective agency is so successful he has had to hire a partner.

This particular case begins when Miss Millicent Rushburton, daughter of politician Sir Ethelred Rushburton requests Perrin’s help in locating her father’s secretary, Cuthbert Solway, who vanished during a visit to London. The usual quick inquiries revealed nothing so Perrin turned the matter over to the police, who found Solway a day or two later, dead, on the grounds of Rushburton’s country house. No cause of death was apparent, but the post mortem determined he had died of a tropical disease. How he contracted it was a mystery.

Perrin was still mulling over the peculiar facts surrounding Solway’s death when the police urgently requested his presence at the House of Commons. Mr. Wedderley, the charismatic prime minister who was holding the government and the country together by sheer force of will, had been killed and his secretary Durrant rendered unconscious. No one else was present and no one could say what exactly happened.

Medawar points out in his introduction that Street was a master of unorthodox murder methods (murder by hedgehog?) and that he was fond of locked room mysteries. This one is so completely unguessable that fans of fair play mysteries should not rush to add this title to their TBR list. No one is going to begin to guess the solution. Not that this is not an entertaining book, it definitely is, but logically structured hints are woefully absent.

References to the economic peril the country faced without the prime minister parallel the lingering effects of the real-life financial crisis in which the world was immersed at the time this book was written. Essential reading for students of Rhode/Burton/Waye and optional for everyone else.