R.A.J. Walling’s sleuth Mr. Tolefree is called in by a man dealing with an eccentric family to buy a long-held antique, but not to investigate anything to do with the purchase, but rather to figure out the strange goings-on the buyer experienced while staying at the family home. Mr. Tolefree ends up a guest there himself and comes upon a corpse in a secret passage — a corpse that disappears after he tells one of his hosts. Mr. Tolefree continues pushing however he can to solve the mystery, though the family would like nothing more than to hush up any scandal and indeed insist that the supposed corpse was a hallucination, or at least a mistaken impression of a person hiding in the passage. I grew rather tired of Mr. Tolefree’s circumspection, but Walling’s writing was good enough to carry it off. Mildly recommended.

Book 2 for 2021.