This book, like the White Priory Murders (12/14 post), is a Sir Henry Merrivale “locked room” murder in which the room is created by a house surrounded by a field of unbroken snow. That book, however, was a Christmas mystery and this one is a New Year’s mystery.

On December 29, the house party at the creepy mansion outside London consists of Dwight Stanhope, financier; his wife, a retired actress; their two daughters, Susan (the good, quiet one) and Christabel (the overly-dramatic, self-centered one); Vince, Christabel’s crush and every hostess’s favorite houseguest who dances marvelously and is charming to the ladies, and plays every sport known to man with the gentlemen and isn’t smart enough to make them worry that they look foolish next to him; and Nick Wood. Nick Wood is a bit of a mystery: he arrived, saying that Mr. Stanhope had invited him, and he dresses alright, and he went to a very good school with Vince, which tells the family that he is of the right class to be there as a guest, but no one has met him before – even, it seems, Mr. Stanhope.

When the book starts, Betty is giving Nick a tour of the home which is enormous, elegant, and a little creepy – and the characters, who all seem to harbor secrets. Nick and Betty, hidden behind a curtain in the home theatre where a magic show for local children will be held on New Year’s Eve, overhear a conversation between Stanhope and a dinner guest, who is trying to persuade Stanhope into financially supporting an expedition he is getting up to a Central American cenote into which the pre-Columbian people cast their gold. This expedition, called The Gilded Man (El Dorado), is like the Oak Island Excavation: many parties have attempted to discover the secret treasure, many men have died, and no treasure has been found. Stanhope declines, implying that he is hard up for cash.

It is snowing outside. The snow picks up in earnest after their dinner guest goes home and the family goes to bed, causing one of those deep hushes that falling snow does cause, even in the city. At 3:30 am, a terrible metallic crash echoes through the house, awakening Nick. Nick makes his way through the dark house to the dining room, where Stanhope has recently moved three expensive paintings from the secured gallery upstairs. Upon turning on the lights in the dining room, Nick finds

• a) a dead body of a masked man, a burglar
• b) the entire silver contents of the sideboard scattered around the blood-drenched room
• c) his host’s El Greco (which portrays the El Dorado legend) removed from the wall and partially removed from the frame
• d) a hole cut into the glass of the French door, allowing felonious entrance; and
• e) outside the door, footprints in the freshly fallen snow, crossing the patio and disappearing into the untouched drifts on the lawn.

When Nick and the butler turn the body over to remove the mask to see who it is, it’s Dwight Stanhope! Nick announces he is in the police and sends the quickly arriving family to sit in the living room. But then the butler points out that, when they turned the body over, the mouth ended up next to a polished silver plate and it is now gently fogging – Dwight Stanhope is still alive, although badly injured. They call for a doctor, the butler goes check the doors and windows, and Nick retires to the library for a little light interrogation.

During that conversation, Nick reveals that Stanhope had approached the great Sir Henry Merrivale because he was afraid that someone was going to burgle his house. Sir Henry Merrivale assumed that Stanhope was perhaps going to steal his own paintings for the insurance money, and brought in Inspector Masters, who delegated the job to Nick. Is that why Stanhope had dressed like a burglar? Did he climb down the fire escape rope ladder from his bedroom window, and broken into his home?

The doctor arrives and states that Stanhope’s worst injuries are not from the knife wound – which missed all the major organs and was so narrow that it bled little – but from being kicked in the head and stamped on. Christabel reveals that Stanhope suffered from severe osteoporosis and Nick realizes that there is no way that Stanhope would have risked a fall, climbing down a rope ladder. So how did he get out of the house, for there is only one set of footsteps across the terrace to the dining room doors? This is complicated by the butler returning to confirm that all doors and windows on the main floor and the 1st floor (2nd floor for us Americans) are locked, and there are no footsteps leading away from them in the snow.

Enter Sir Henry Merrivale.

However H.M. is almost immediately distracted by the magical equipment of the stage magician, The Great Karfoozalem, who has been delayed by the snow. You never know what Merrivale is up to when he does crazy stuff, like break into the equipment and insist that he will fill in for the magician so the New Year’s show can go on. Dickson is the master of distraction, weaving spooky stories and atmosphere, love stories, red herring theories that Merrivale dispels, and the outrageous slapstick antics of H.M. himself. Dickson slips the clues into this chaotic mess so subtly that you may not even notice them until the end of the book when Merrivale reveals that the murderer is…

Ha! You didn’t think I was going to actually tell you?