THERE WILL BE TEN TEACUPS AT NUMBER 4, BERWICK TERRACE, W. 8 ON WEDNESDAY, JULY 31^ST, AT 5 P.M. PRECISELY. THE PRESENCE OF THE METROPOLITAN POLICE IS RESPECTFULLY REQUESTED.

Thus was the note, echoing a similar crime from two years previously, that drew Chief Inspector Masters and Scotland Yard to the scene of the most impossible crime. Sergeant Pollard was right outside the room when he heard the two shots – there was no way that the murderer could have escaped, nowhere the murderer could have hidden – and yet all that was in the room was a dead body, a smoking gun and ten teacups.

It falls to Sir Henry Merrivale to unmask the most cunning murderer he has ever encountered – one who can vanish into thin air…

The latest John Dickson Carr/Carter Dickson title to be reissued by the British Library in their Crime Classics range, I thought that even though I’ve reviewed it before and helped JJ pick a lot of holes in the plot before. However, it’s always up there on the list of Carr’s finest achievements, so I thought I’d take another look at it and see how picky I was being this time.

Actually… not at all. I wasn’t even bothered by unlikely feat of sportsmanship that is crucial to the plot.

It’s a masterpiece of plotting – see the cluefinder in the denouement – and while there are plot holes if you think too hard, that’s true about a lot of mysteries, especially one as meticulously put together as this one.

So, does it deserve to be in the Top Ten Locked Room Mysteries of all time? Well, it’s certainly better, in my opinion, than Carr’s alleged masterpiece, The Hollow Man (which also features a disappearing murderer), but I still think The Judas Window and Till Death Do Us Part are better. But there’s not much in it.

This was a really interesting exercise in how one’s mood when reading affects how picky you get when reading. I absolutely loved it this time through – and it’s definitely a must-read for fans of locked room mysteries. It also got a predictably great introduction by Martin Edwards, so well done, British Library – now do The Judas Window!