The Black Stage by Anthony Gilbert (Collins, 1945) is the 16^th book about the redoubtable solicitor turned detective Arthur Crook. Published as Murder Cheats the Bride in the U.S., it is set immediately after the end of World War II with all of the characters inalterably changed by the war and at a loss as to their way forward.

Cousins Anne Vereker and Peter Vereker converge on Four Acres, the family home, after demobilization. Officially the possession of their widowed aunt, Peter has always expected to inherit the house as the oldest male Vereker and takes a strong interest in its well-being. Aunt Tess is silly and shallow, insulated from the war’s privations by her late husband’s fortune, and subsequently she is the target of every con artist within miles. The current scammer Lewis Bishop has captured her serious interest and has proposed marriage. The household is stunned by his audacity and by Aunt Tess’s foolishness in accepting him.

Bishop moves swiftly to consolidate his hold on Aunt Tess and on her money, first by removing everyone around her. He’s advised the property agent to look for a new position. He prompts the niece of Aunt Tess’s late husband to look for work. The long-time housekeeper is invited to go on an extended vacation, from which she suspects she will not be allowed to return. A scrounging brother-in-law’s request for money is denied.

A supposed pleasant afternoon drive was really Bishop taking Aunt Tess to a lawyer to draft the papers for her to sign her portfolio over to him so that he can manage it more easily, i.e., steal it legally. Silly Aunt Tess doesn’t see a problem and tells her family all about it; they of course are shocked and furious. Bishop is smug and confident rather than ashamed.

It’s then, before this financial hand-off is finalized, that Bishop is shot in the drawing room during a convenient power outage. To cap the family’s outrage, the family diamonds which Aunt Tess flaunted at every opportunity were found in the dead man’s pocket. The police see that everyone in the house had a great motive but they settle on Anne. The elderly family solicitor is unequipped to deal with a capital murder defense and he refers Peter to a capable criminal barrister who sends him to Arthur Crook.

Crook, with his Cockney accent and low-brow ways, offends Aunt Tess; everyone else looks to him to find a killer outside the family. Another murder soon follows, which Anne plainly couldn’t have committed while in jail, and Crook decides to stir up some action with a re-enactment. Gilbert uses a trick that Christie employed in one of her early 1950s mysteries to conceal the killer.

Crook’s sometime sidekick Bill Parsons is present for this investigation. I always think he brings an added dimension to a story, it’s unfortunate he doesn’t appear more often. Another instance of Gilbert hiding the obvious in plain sight;, all of the clues to the killer are available to the reader. On another level, the story highlights the general air of uncertainty in the post-war years, a feeling of doubt about how to proceed in a new world.

Gilbert was at the top of her game in the late 1940s and early 1950s, turning out one great mystery after another. Fortunately for readers, most of her books are available in the secondary market for more or less reasonable prices. I am hoping one of the many publishers who are reprinting the very good crime fiction authors from the first half of the twentieth century will soon turn their attention to Arthur Crook. Recommended.