Nemesis at Raynham Parva (aka Grim Vengeance) by J. J. Conningham (1929)

by Mary

Late at night Sir Clinton Driffield is on his way to visit his sister Mrs Anne Thornaby of Fern Lodge near the titular village. His headlights suddenly pick out a car with two men engaged in a vicious fight beside it. A woman with a suitcase stands nearby. The donnybrook ends when he stops and the victor drives off. So does the trounced man after the woman refuses his command to get into his car. She will not accept a lift or any sort of help from Sir Clinton and waits at the roadside until he departs.

Shocking news awaits him at Fern Lodge. Despite general expectations his niece Elsie would marry Rex Brandon she's gone off and married Argentinian Vicente Francia without telling anyone. Needless to say her mother is terribly upset but even so the couple are staying at Fern Lodge until they depart for his home country. Three friends of Elsie's who will be traveling with them are also in residence. There's Estelle Scotswood, one of her oldest friends, who will accompany the couple so Elsie will have an English companion while settling into her new home, and sisters Noreen and Linda Anstruther, a musical duo who'll stay with the newly-weds before taking up appearances arranged by Francia.

Next morning more startling news arrives. During the night a local constable had come across the wreck of one of the cars involved in the incident Sir Clinton witnessed, the driver's body lying not far off. Local farmer's son Teddy Barford stands beside it, covered in blood. Quick-tempered Teddy had threatened the dead man, who'd offered to take Teddy's sweetheart to London on the grounds she could do better for herself there, the absolute cad. Not to mention Teddy told the constable he'd settled the score he had against the dead man and had been arrested on the spot.

The narrative steadily darkens, ultimately forming a tangle including more than one person with a motive for murder. Both genders smoke a great deal -- note gentlemen always asked permission to light up! -- and a box of matches forms a pivotal turning point in an increasingly complex plot More deaths, the white slave trade, an undercover agent with the League of Nations, a seemingly unsolvable moral and ethical dilemma, a quest for revenge, and the architecture of Fern Lodge all play their parts in the mystery. I did not guess whodunnit and was amazed when the culprit was revealed. I acknowledge this fact by awarding Nemesis at Raynham Parva an A.

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