Death at Swaythling Court

Author’s Note A READER beginning a detective story has two methods open to him in following the narrative. He may regard it simply as a tale and not trouble his head about the solution of the mystery until he reaches it in due course at the final chapter. Or he may treat the book as an exercise in reasoning and pit himself against the author in an attempt to work out the mystery for himself. Unfortunately in many cases his labour is made futile because the author allows his detective to pick up some undescribed clue of supreme importance; and this generally happens in the middle of the book, after the reader has expended much mental energy in working his way through the tangle of incidents. In the present book I have tried to play quite fair by my readers; and I believe that they will have a full knowledge of every essential fact before they reach the last chapter. They may therefore, if they so choose, embark light-heartedly on the task of detection with the assurance that they will at least know as much as the character who is attempting to solve the problem. This statement may perhaps excuse my breach of literary etiquette in putting a prefatory note in front of a mere detective yarn. ―J. J. C