Duplicate Death by Georgette Heyer

A most mysterious murder occurred during a bridge party given by Lady Haddington at her house in London.  Of course, it was a very large bridge party - forty people or so were attending. Dan Seaton-Carew was strangled with a length of wire while seated in a room by himself and talking on the telephone. There were those at the bridge party who were very important for the narrative. There was Lady Haddington and her very beautiful, spoiled and selfish daughter Cynthia. It was said that Seaton-Carew was very interested in Cynthia. There was Beulah Birtley, Lady Haddington's secretary, who had some mysterious connection to Seaton-Carew. Beulah did indeed have a secret, and was not in the upper levels of society, but she was in love with Timothy Harte who was in an upper level and who was in love with her.

Also present was highly strung Sydney Butterwick who really seemed to mourn the death of Seaton-Carew, hardly anybody else did. It seems that Sydney was gay, but this term is not used in this book. There was Lady Poulton-Nest who also seemed to have a connection to the dead man. One which her husband, Lord Nest, did not seem to know any thing about. There were also the servants who were present. The butler always seemed a bit suspicious to me.

Chief Inspector Hemingway and his assistant Inspector Grant were called to investigate the case. First they had to figure out how the murder was done since nobody was seen to enter the room where Seaton-Carew was using the phone. Then they, of course, had to question a large number of people in order to find out who the murderer was. Then another murder took place in just the same manner as to duplicate the first. In a way, this narrowed down the list of suspects, and Chief Inspector Hemingway determined the identity of the murderer.
 

This book was published in 1951. I have always enjoyed Georgette Heyer's mystery novels. They are well written and have a good bit of wit. It is a shame that her regency romances were preferred by the reading public. I do wish that she had written more mystery novels.