Coroner’s Pidgin (Albert Campion, 12), Margery Allingham. Open Road Media (ISBN:
9781504087230), 2023 (First published in 1945).

Summary: Back from war, Campion finds a corpse in his bed, brought to his flat by an aristocratic lady protecting her son.

He’s been away on a secret mission even he didn’t fully understand. He stops off at his flat for a bath before catching a train to the country to be reunited with Amanda, now his wife. Then he hears voices and activity in his flat. One is his servant Lugg. The other is an aristocratic lady by the sound of her voice. They are in his bedroom. When he emerges, he finds a woman in his bed. Dead.

He doesn’t want to know. He just wants to catch his train. But its too late. The lady is Lady Carados, mother of his friend Johnny Carados, a war hero. The dead girl was found in Johnny’s bed, just before he is to arrive home and marry. Inconvenient. Lugg is the Air Warden in Carados Square and has access to the ambulance. Lady Carados, a force of nature, had enlisted him to get the body out of the way. They hadn’t expected Campion to turn up.

What was made to look like a suicide was murder. And as he investigates, her death emerges as part of a bigger plot. There have been other deaths. Not only that, they are part of an art theft ring with ties back to the Nazis. Although he is a war hero, Chief Inspector Oates has traced the threads back to Johnny Carados. This is despite all the efforts of Lady Carados and Johnny’s friends to shield him. Even Campion refuses to believe it.

Like many of Allingham’s mystery, this one has lots of twists and turns, including the discovery of a rare wine vintage, and the near death of a wine expert from an analgesic given him by Johnny. Then there is a bit of charm in the form of Lugg’s pet pig and good humor in the form of a country woman who has unwittingly provided her lodgings for the stolen art. Meanwhile, Campion just wants to get back to Amanda…