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"Not another murder!"
"You've said it."
Kindly Reverend John Clare pays a social call upon the saturnine Simon Killick at his forbidding house, The Grange. Killick is a virtual recluse who relies on three dogs and a parrot for company.
Killick is soon found murdered in his home, while in a nearby wood a local schoolboy, Toby, discovers a dying stranger whose last words refer to a "kneeling woman." This kick-starts a complicated case for the local police and it is not long before Scotland Yard, in the form of Inspector Collier, is called in. Yet more murders follow-this time by poisoned chocolates. Are all the deaths connected, and is the "kneeling woman" the link? What might Sir Henry Webber, the new owner of Brock Hall, know about the case, or, for that matter, his snobbish wife Beryl, and their two ghastly sons? Or odd jobs man Tommy Yates, or Florrie Soper, cook at the Hall, who adores Edgar Wallace thrillers and is intent on marrying Tommy.
At least Collier has the eager assistance of Toby . . . and his widowed mother Sandra. Has love finally entered the life of Inspector Collier? Let's just say Sandra and, especially, Toby reappear in the next Inspector Collier case, Death in the Dark.
The Mystery of the Kneeling Woman was first published in 1936. This new edition includes an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.
About the author
Katherine Dalton Renoir ('Moray Dalton') was born in Hammersmith, London in 1881, the only child of a Canadian father and English mother.The author wrote two well-received early novels, Olive in Italy (1909), and The Sword of Love (1920). However, her career in crime fiction did not begin until 1924, after which Moray Dalton published twenty-nine mysteries, the last in 1951. The majority of these feature her recurring sleuths, Scotland Yard inspector Hugh Collier and private inquiry agent Hermann Glide.Moray Dalton married Louis Jean Renoir in 1921, and the couple had a son a year later. The author lived on the south coast of England for the majority of her life following the marriage. She died in Worthing, West Sussex, in 1963.
