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, Inspector Hanslet, and Inspector Jimmy Waghorn, published between 1925 and 1961. He also wrote short stories, stand-alone novels, stage plays, and non-fiction under this pseudonym. As Cecil Waye, he wrote four novels about Christopher and Vivienne Perrin, private investigators in London. Under the name Miles Burton, he wrote about 60 novels between 1930 and 1960 featuring Desmond Merrion and Inspector Henry Arnold.

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).

Dr. Priestley was Street’s most enduring creation. A former mathematics professor, he is a sort of armchair forensics specialist at the time of the stories, only interested in the cases that Inspector Hanslet and Inspector Jimmy Waghorn bring him if they offer an intriguing puzzle. Personalities don’t interest him and he says so. This portrayal reminded me of Nero Wolfe, whose first appearance was about ten years later than Dr. Priestley’s.

The forty-third title about Priestley is an excellent example of his intellectual problem-solving. In Death in Harley Street (Collins Crime Club, 1946), Priestley examines the death of Dr. Richard Ernest Knapp Mawsley, an eminent medical specialist. Dr. Mawsley received word of an inheritance from a former patient one afternoon and shortly afterwards entered his workroom and injected himself with a fatal dose of strychnine. No one who knew him considered him the least bit suicidal and he was gleeful about the unexpected bequest. The remaining people in the office could vouch for the whereabouts of the others at all times and there were no strangers present. The coroner had no alternative but to rule the death accidental.

What follows is a deeply detailed investigation by Inspector Waghorn, who turned over every conceivable rock to learn what he could about the doctor and those around him. Priestley himself did a bit of field work, a rare occurrence. As usual, I could not possibly guess the outcome and neither did his assistants. 

This story mentions monetary amounts frequently. Contemporary readers will find it helpful to convert the sums into present-day pounds to understand the context. For instance the bequest Dr. Mawsley received was 5000 pounds, which in 2023 is worth about 160,000 pounds, explaining why he was so pleased.

A sound example of a classic Golden Age detective story.