At the Villa Rose

A. E. W. Mason — actor, Member of Parliament, and future chief of naval intelligence in Spain — invented Inspector Hanaud in 1910 as a deliberate anti-Holmes: fat, jovial, and endlessly interested in people. At Aix-les-Bains a young Englishman falls for the companion of a wealthy widow; by morning the widow is murdered and the girl has vanished, and everyone knows exactly what to think — everyone ...