Heads You Lose by Christianna Brand

Stephen Pendock was entertaining guests at his home, Pigeonsford, in Cornwall.  Lady Hart, who had been a friend of his family for years, was there with her two granddaughters Fran and Venetia. Henry Gold, Venetia's husband, was also there as was James Nicoll who was a rather sleepy looking young man who was in the British Army and spending his leave with Pendock.

Grace Morland was on the porch of the house painting yet another picture of the church tower in the snow. Grace rented a cottage from Pendock, and was in love with him. Fran came out of the house to look at the picture, and she exclaimed that Grace was painting a picture of the woods where a kitchen maid had been killed the previous summer. The poor girl had been beheaded with a large scythe, and the murderer had never been found. Grace hated Fran because Pendock, who was fifty, was in love with Fran who was lovely and only in her twenties. Indeed, Grace disliked everybody in the party except for Pendock.
 
 The group moved into the house to have tea, and Fran showed off her new and stylish hat. Grace had reached the end of her patience at this point and her jealousy of Fran showed when Grace said that she "wouldn't be seen dead in a ditch" in that hat. After this comment, Grace left the gathering and returned home. The group had dinner and played cards until ten thirty, and then apparently all went to bed.  Late in the night, Bunsen, the butler, returned from visiting his sick sister and found the body of Grace Morland, dead in a ditch and wearing Fran's hat. Grace had been decapitated.

Enter Inspector Cockrill, "a little brown man" who was said to have a heart of gold under his gruff exterior. He was know to the residents of the village as Cockie.  He had know Grace Morland for many years and thought of her as a "sentimental goat". The day after Grace was murdered, a young woman who had been staying with Grace showed up at Pendock's house. She was Pippi Le May who was Grace's cousin, and a slightly successful character actress on the West End stage. That evening, Miss Le May was also murdered and decapitated.

We now have six people who could be possible murderers, Pendock, Fran, Venetia, Henry, James, and Lady Hart. The butler, Bunsen, had been eliminated from suspicion.  None of them believed that any of the others could have committed the crimes. Both Pendock and James are in love with Fran, would like to marry her, and fear very much for her safety. Family secrets are exposed as the investigation contines.  Cockie and the members of the group come up with ways that the murder could have been committed; all of these are in one way or another unsatisfactory. I found the solution of the murders to be somewhat unsatisfactory, but it was unexpected.

This book was written in 1940, and is currently available an an ebook.  It was the first appearance of Inspector Cockrill. In this book, he is so relaxed, and so accepted by the group, that he seems to be more of a friend of the family than a police detective.

I have read this book for the 2015 Vintage Mystery Bingo Challenge in the category of a book set in England or the US.

Nine Times Nine by Anthony Boucher

Ahasver was the leader of the religious group The Children of Light. Ahasver, wearing his trademark yellow robe, declared himself to be the Wandering Jew, and proclaimed that the gospels of the Bible were wrong, and that he preached the true gospel which was written by Joseph of Arimathea and which he had found in a Tibetan lamasery.

Wolfe Harrigan had written a book Fleece my Sheep which exposed religious rackets such as that of Ahasver. On Easter Sunday, Wolfe Harrigan was murdered in a locked room and witnesses looking through a window clearly saw Ahasver in the room but no one saw him enter or leave that room. There were one hundred and eight witnesses who would testify that Ahasver was at the Temple of Light at the time that the murder was committed.

Matt Duncan was a writer who had just been employed by Wolfe Harrigan to help in his research on phony religious groups. The Harrigans were a wealthy family. Ellen Harrigan was quite religious and contributed to Catholic charities especially to the convent of the Sisters of Martha of Bethany for whom she had recently donated funds for a new chapel. R. Joseph Harrigan had been an attorney, but was currently engaged in speaking on politics to many and varied groups. Arthur and Mary Harrigan were the children of Wolfe. Mary had been determined to go into a convent until Sister Ursula of the Sisters of Martha of Bethany talked her out of the idea.  As the investigation of the crime continue, Sister Ursula asked for information which had been found. Indeed, she was the only one who understood a clue which the dying Wolfe had left to the identity of his murderer.

Detective Lieutenant Terrance Marshall was the policeman investigating the case of Wolfe Harrigan's murder. Marshall had been a Rhodes Scholar and an all-American football player. Instead of accepting a teaching position, he had joined the Los Angeles police force as  a patrolman and had worked his way up. Marshall and Matt Duncan joined forces to try and figure out how Wolfe Harrigan could have been murdered in a locked room. They carefully analyzed the various methods in which such a murder could have been committed which were given in the book The Three Coffins by John Dickson Carr. Their analysis, however, failed to find a way that the murder could have been done. It was Sister Ursula who finally figured out how the murder was committed.

This book was written in 1940 with Boucher using the pen name H. H. Holmes. He dedicated the book to John Dickson Carr. Fortunately, it is still in print.