As has been our policy in previous publications of Leo Bruce texts, we have, for the sake of consistency, mostly (though not always) followed the spelling and punctuation of the earliest novels—“shew” is used instead of “show” (when a verb), for example, “realise”, “recognise” and “apologise” (and their permutations) are severally changed to “realize”, “recognize” and “apologize” (and their permutations), direct speech is enclosed within double quotation marks, “’phone” is used for the shortened form of “telephone” instead of “phone”, stops are included with such abbreviations as “Dr.” and “Mr.” and the words “fingerprint” and “potpourri” are unhyphenated—in all texts; furthermore, in Dead for a Ducat these additional changes occur:
“was” has been altered to the subjunctive “were” in “If there was a ‘case’ here, in fact” (Chapter One, page 6), “Experts would examine it and say if it was consistent with suicide” (Ch. One, p. 11), in “hands twisted in her lap as though she was playing” (Ch. Three, p. 29), in “if an issue was joined” (Ch. Four, p. 45), in “as if to see whether it was a joke” (Ch. Five, p. 55), in “as though she was on the verge” (Ch. Six, p. 59), in “Carolus wondered if this was so” (Ch. Ten, p. 107); in “If Carolus was expecting drama” (Ch. Thirteen, p. 132); and in “as though the strain was telling on her” (Ch. Fourteen, p. 149);
superscript numbers for footnotes (Ch. One, p. 7) were replaced with an asterisk and a dagger;
“here” was altered to “there” in “draught which had not been here” (Ch. One, p. 14), in “confirm that they would meet here” (Ch. Two, p. 20), in “solemn man’s presence here” (Ch. Eleven, p. 116) and in “his car was here as a taxi” (Ch. Eleven, p. 118);
“if” was altered to “whether” in “Moore asked her if she could suggest anyone” (Ch. Three, p. 31), in “asked Carolus at once if he meant to drop the case” (Ch. Seven, p. 71), twice in “Carolus wondered if this was so, or if Nockings had crossed the lawn” (Ch. Ten, p. 107), and in “Moore asked Nockings then if he had seen Swillow” (Ch. Eighteen, p. 191);
“do” was inserted before “that” in “Well, they could all that” (Ch. Three, p. 32);
for the sake of consistency, “Eddie” (Chapter Four, p. 37, twice, and Ch. Six, p. 63) was changed to “Eddy”;
“idea” in “You’ve certainly been teaching the young idea how to shoot” (Ch. Six, p. 61), though perhaps mysteriously or even Platonically intentional, was altered to “lad here”;
the y in “’ypocrite” (Ch. Seven, p. 75) was capitalised;
Eddy Bretton’s “Dam silly” (Ch. Seven, p. 77) was, for consistency’s sake, altered to “Dam’ silly”;
“Darryl” (since that character was both absent and deceased) was corrected to “Carolus” in “Boater looked at Darryl rather sharply” (Ch. Eight, p. 81);
“2nd” was altered to “second” in “November 2nd” (Ch. Eight, p. 86);
in “the murder of a rather dull and useless man who seemed to be regretted by no one” (Ch. Nine, p. 93), “who” was altered to “which”;
the comma following “immediately” was relocated to follow “but” in “He did not, however, look in immediately, but standing a little to one side of the window, slowly moved his head till he could see into the room” (Ch. Eleven, p. 115);
a comma was inserted after “myself” in “ ‘Now what in the world,’ I asked myself ‘can this Boater be wanting in my boiler-room?’ (Ch. Eleven, p. 117);
“Darryl” (since Lady Pipford’s son was clearly intended) was corrected to “Jason” in “Lady Pipford called Poppy in and asked her if it was me who had driven Darryl up” (Ch. Twelve, p. 117);
an additional comma was added before “fascinated” in “Watching him fascinated, Carolus counted” (Ch. Thirteen, p. 136);
a comma was inserted after “However” in “However he managed to swallow half a glassful” (Ch. Fifteen, p. 158);
the rather odd “psycho-path’d” is altered to “psyched” in “You probably psycho-path’d yourself” (Ch. Fifteen, p. 159);
“Carolus, with Lance and Phoebe Thomas, were first to arrive” (Ch. 17, p. 173) was altered to “Carolus, with Lance and Phoebe Thomas, was first to arrive”;
the name “Leslie” whereby Mrs. Fleece addresses her husband in “Leslie dear, it’s not official yet” (Ch. 17, p. 176) would seem to be an error for “Selwyn” (the name she uses to address him earlier, in Ch. 15, p. 157), so “Leslie” was altered to “Selwyn”;
the hyphen was removed from “non-committally” (Ch. 18, p. 186);
“it” in “For it poison has to be obtained” (Ch. Nineteen, p. 197) was corrected to “that”;
and the reported speech within Carolus’s exposition, “About ten minutes ago,” was corrected to be enclosed within single quotation marks (Ch. Twenty-One, p. 220).
Page references are to the first (and, regrettably, the only) edition of Dead for a Ducat by Leo Bruce, published by Peter Davies (London, 1956).
