The Unexpected Corpse

"Nobody should be routed from a comfortable bed before breakfast to inspect a corpse- particularly when she isn't accustomed to corpses. Clutching my silk housecoat about me, I surveyed the vividly pajamaed, ragdollish figure of Bert De Series and wished I were four hundred and fifty miles away in Toronto." Thus starts the narration of a Toronto office worker, Dereth McBain, who had been permemptorily summoned by her old chum Judy Scarlett to visit Judy at Lake Cottage. The paths of the two girls had separated since their school days ten years before. Judy was a well-known stylist with a successful dress business; the guests at her house party, including twin brothers Tony and Toby Pembury, were strangers to Dereth, as was the corpse, who had been Judy's business manager. Anonymous letters, blackmail and assorted red herrings figure in this A-1 baffler.