Textual Notes for A Louse for the Hangman

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; “’phone” is retained for the shortened form of “telephone” instead of “phone”; “will” is capitalised when referring to a last will; stops are retained (or, if absent, inserted) in the initialism C.I.D. and stops are included with such abbreviations as “Dr.”, “Mr.” and “St.”; and hyphens are retained (or, if absent, inserted) in “arm-chair”, “week-end” and “letter-writer” but are removed from “finger-prints”, “note-book”, “note-paper”, “to-day”, “to-morrow” and “to-night”—in all texts; furthermore, in A Louse for the Hangman these additional changes occur:

“Lord Penge looked at Carolus as though to see if he was serious” (Chapter Two, page 18) was altered to “Lord Penge looked at Carolus as though to see whether he were serious”; each other subjunctive “was” (other than within speech)—in “Now if it was not unique” and “Unless Penge was quite fantastically rich” (Ch. Three, p. 31), in “whether there was not a suggestion of anxiety” (Ch. Five, p. 43), in “whether this visitor to the murdered man was still in the village” (Ch. Six, p. 53), in “if he was late for lunch” (Ch. Six, p. 57), in “or perhaps assent was given” (Ch. Seven, p. 63), in “never knew if it was named after the quadruped” (Ch. Seven, p. 64), in “if he was expecting any sensational reactions” (Ch. Twelve, p. 115), in “whether he was a salesman” (Ch. Twelve, p. 118), and in “only if there was an adequate return” (Ch. Eighteen, p. 179)—was altered to “were”; similarly, “if”—in “Penge would glance upward to see if there were any lights on” (Ch. Four, p. 42), and in “a bony woman in a shawl asked from the door if they wanted tea” (Ch. Sixteen, p. 159)—was replaced by “whether”; likewise, “happens” and “is” in “especially if it happens on a stormy winter night and the face is an unknown one” (Ch. Seven, p. 63) were altered to the subjunctive “happen” and “be”;

a full stop was inserted after “tree” in “We had not got to the point of imagining a real murderer waiting behind a tree  But there was another thing” (Ch. Two, p. 22);
for consistency with other texts “whisky and soda” (Ch. Two, p. 23, twice, Ch. Three, p. 26 and Ch. Twenty, p. 198) was altered slightly to “whisky-and-soda”, and “Scotch and soda” (Ch. Eleven, p. 107) was altered to “Scotch-and-soda”; similarly, “Gin and pep” (Ch. Eleven, pp. 110 & 111) was hyphenated to be consistent with the earlier “gin-and-pep” (Ch. Six, p. 54);
though an intransitive use of the word might have been intended, “bath” in “Carolus prepared to bath and change” (Ch. Three, p. 31) was altered to “bathe”;
“dimorpotheca” (Ch. Four, p. 36) was corrected to “dimorphotheca”;
a definite article was inserted between “during” and “war” in “he was in Field Security during war” (Ch. Four, p. 37);
the hyphen was removed from “bi-focal” (Ch. Four, p. 38);
“a hundred per cent” (Ch. Four, p. 39) was altered to “a hundred per cent.”;
“emotions” in “no signs of any emotions” (Ch. Four, p. 41) was altered to “emotion”;
Eustace’s reflection in “However, you know. . . .” (Ch. Four, p. 44) seems incomplete so the period before the ellipsis was removed;
the hyphen in “foie-gras” (Ch. Ten, p. 99) was replaced by a space and that French term was also italicised, as was the nearby “mácedoine”;
Mr. Flinch’s thought in “Well Mis-ter Rer Deene. . . .” (Ch. Ten, p. 104) is incomplete so the period before the ellipsis was removed;
“scot free” (Ch. Eleven, p. 111) was hyphenated;
the French term “hors d’œuvres” (Ch. Eleven, p. 112) was italicised*;
“Doctor”, in “Doctor Boncourt” (Ch. Twelve, pp. 116, 123 & 124) and in “Doctor Chilham” (Ch. Sixteen, p. 162, Ch. Nineteen, p. 190 and Ch. Twenty, p. 201, twice), was abbreviated to “Dr.”;
since the younger son of Lord Penge is called “Ron” only one other time—by Spotter—in the book, “Ron” in “Lockyer and Ron were in the schoolroom” (Ch. Thirteen, p. 130) was altered to “Ronald”;
“a” in “a hospitable family” (Ch. Fourteen, p. 135) was altered to “an”;
the pronoun (“She”), “which was spoken in capitals” (Ch. Fourteen, p. 140), and which could refer only to Mrs. Spotter, being singular, and uttered by Mrs. Carker only once, seems bizarre to be described thus, so “in capitals” was altered to “with a capital”;
an indefinite article was inserted before “notice-board” in “At the fork was notice-board Achendouroch” (Ch. Sixteen, p. 155) and a comma was inserted before “Achendouroch”;
a full stop replaced the eroteme in “You still haven’t told me what brought you here?” (Ch. Sixteen, p. 157) because it seems to be a statement;
“Bonny” in “Bonny Prince Charlie” (Ch. Sixteen, p. 160) was altered slightly to the more traditional “Bonnie”;
Piggott’s explanation in “So when he said for me that evening. . . .” (Ch. Seventeen, p. 165) is obviously interrupted so the period before the ellipsis was removed;
the honorific in “Mr. Eustace” (Ch. Nineteen, p. 189) uttered by Carolus Deene, shortly after Spotter does, was removed because, though servants refer thus to Lord Penge’s elder son, Carolus at no other time does so; and
single quotation marks replaced the the double ones around Carolus Deene’s reported (and hypothetical) speech of Lord Penge, “Don’t wait to go to the hall for your coat; take mine.” (Ch. Twenty, p. 197).

Page references are to the first (and, sad to relate, only) edition of A Louse for the Hangman by Leo Bruce, published by Peter Davies (London, 1958).

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* following the example of Rupert Croft-Cooke’s contemporaneous The Gardens of Camelot (London, 1958), p. 102.

Textual Notes for Death of Cold

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; “’phone” is retained for the shortened form of “telephone” instead of “phone”; “will” is capitalised when referring to a last will; stops are retained (or, if absent, inserted) in the initialism C.I.D. and stops are included with such abbreviations as “Dr.”, “Mr.” and “St.”; and hyphens are retained (or, if absent, inserted) in “armchair” “weekend” and “beach-hut” but are removed from “finger-prints”, “to-morrow”, “to-night” and “to-day”—in all texts; furthermore, in Death of Cold these additional changes occur:

the superscript numbers for footnotes (Chapter Two, page 13 and Ch. Twenty-Eight, p. 215) were replaced with asterisks and, within the first footnote,—“At Death’s Door, by Leo Bruce.  (Hamish Hamilton, 1955)”—the full stop after “Bruce” was removed;
“wopper” (Ch. Two, p. 18) was slightly altered to “whopper”;
“if”, in “Carolus wondered if he dared to ask one question of fact” (Ch. Four, p. 31), in “waited to see if she would remember his previous visit” (Ch. Twelve, p. 87), in “Before he even asked her if she had brought the key” (Ch. Twenty, p. 152), and in “This youth also asked if Carolus wanted Len and his mother to be present” (Ch. Twenty-Six, p. 199) was altered to “whether”;
“duosyllable” (Ch. Four, p. 32) was corrected to “disyllable”;
“a hotel” (Ch. Six, p. 45, twice) was altered to “an hotel”;
each subjunctive “was” (other than within speech)—in “If either of the latter was the case” (Ch. Seven, p. 48), in “not if he was to offer her a hundred pounds” and “It was as though there was a conspiracy of silence” (Ch. Ten, p. 79), in “And you began to wonder whether it was worthwhile” and “If she was dead, was he justified?” (Ch. Twenty, p. 148), in “if the night was moonless” (Ch. Twenty, p. 149), in “If it was some small matter” and “But if it was some more formal occasion” (Ch. Twenty-Three, p. 174), and in “if it was revealed to someone” (Ch. Twenty-Five, p. 189)—was altered to “were”;
Carolus Deene’s recapitulation of Mr. Slicker’s speech, “not actually, no” (Ch. Ten, p. 79), was repunctuated to match the sppech as reported on the preceding page: “Not actually.  No.”
“women” in “The women who had spoken to him” (Ch. Ten, p. 79) was altered to “woman”;
“geyser” in “I was the last to see the poor old geyser” (Ch. Twelve, p. 87) was corrected to “geezer”;
in “Pier Theatre box-office” (Ch. Thirteen, p. 99) the hyphen was removed from “box-office” for consistency’s sake (though, later in the paragraph, when “box-office” was used adjectivally, the hyphen was retained);
the hyphen was removed from “hang-overs” (Ch. Thirteen, p. 99);
“contradictorially” (Ch. Fourteen, p. 105) was altered slightly to “contradictorily”;
a comma was inserted after “language” in “This is shameful language Priggley” (Ch. Seventeen, p. 123);
the oddly inclusive “us”—which could refer only to Carolus Deene or, perhaps, to him and Rupert Priggley—in “then, turning to us when the girl had gone” (Ch. Seventeen, p. 126) was corrected to “Carolus”;

since Violette Bonner’s thought, “in that strange, cruel time we could do nothing but promise one another. . . .” (Ch. Seventeen, p. 129), seems incomplete, the period before the ellipsis was removed;

“gas fire” (Ch. Seventeen, p. 130), to be consistent with “gas-fire” earlier in the chapter (p. 124), was hyphenated;
“whisky and soda” (Ch. Twenty, p. 148) was hyphenated;
a full stop was inserted after “Quite” in “Quite  Why?” (Ch. Twenty, p. 151);
when Mr. Gorringer twice interrupts Carolus Deene in the middle of a word—“res  . . .” (Ch. Twenty-Three, p. 178) and “resig . . .” (Ch. Twenty-Three, p. 174)—each ellipsis is replaced by a long dash;
“ten per cent” (Ch. Twenty-Six, p. 201) was altered to “ten per cent.”;
“twice cooked” and “blanc-mange” (Ch. Twenty-Six, p. 201) respectively had a hyphen inserted and a hyphen removed;
after Carolus Deene says “I suppose the only one”, a separate paragraph was provided for the subsequent words, “The headmaster masticated vigorously for some moments” (Ch. Twenty-Six, p. 202);
the comma after “it” in “if I could solve it, all other questions” (Ch. Twenty-Seven, p. 202) was removed;
the hyphen was removed from “non-committal” (Ch. Twenty-Seven, p. 203); and
the seemingly superfluous definite article in “Then there was the Mr. Tiplock” (Ch. Twenty-Seven, p. 207) was removed.

Page references are to the first (and, alas, only) edition of Death of Cold by Leo Bruce, published by Peter Davies (London, 1956).

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Textual notes for Death on Romney Marsh

In Death on Romney Marsh (following our policy in previous publications of Leo Bruce novels), we have, for the sake of consistency between texts, altered some spellings and punctuation:  “realise”, “recognise” and “apologise” (and their permutations) are severally changed to “realize”, “recognize” and “apologize” (and their permutations); “goodbye” is amended to “good-bye”; “’phone” is used for the shortened form of “telephone” instead of “phone”; the verb “show” has been modified to “shew”; “will” is capitalised when referring to a last will and testament; and hyphens are removed from “to-day” and “to-morrow” but not from “week-end”; furthermore, these additional changes occur:

a comma was inserted after “sinister” in “drive up to his house, which you say is ‘sinister’ calmly face this Captain Cuchran” (Chapter One, p. 8);
a comma was added after bells in “it was, as she said, beyond the sound of church bells and the nearest village was three miles away” (Ch. One, p. 9);
for consistency with other texts, “specialise” (Ch. One, p. 13) was altered to “specialize”;
“if”, in “wondered if it was audible” (Ch. One, p. 15), in “wondered if this was the sort of competition” (Ch. Twelve, p. 134), and in “asked one of the nurses if a young man called Churcher had asked to see him” (Ch. 15, p. 174), was altered to “whether”;
each instance of a subjunctive “was” (outside of dialogue, of course)—in “if it was audible” (Chapter One, p. 15), in “if he was to reach the front door” (Ch. One, p. 15), in “if anyone was watching him” (Ch. One, p. 16), in “if he was to complete his mission (Ch. Two, p. 18), in “if she was not in the last breath” (Ch. Two, p. 22), in “Whether Cuchran was surprised” (Ch. Seven, p. 77), in “If anyone was complex” (Ch. Nine, p. 99), in “not quite certain whether it was a young man” (Ch. Eleven, p. 124), in “if this was the sort of competition” (Ch. Twelve, p. 134), in “if anyone was up there” (Ch. Thirteen, p. 146), and in “if he was to be attacked” and also in “If there was an attempt to close it” (Ch. Fifteen, p. 168)—was altered to “were”;
“jove” (Ch. Two, p. 19 and Ch. Twelve, p. 129) was capitalised;
a comma was inserted after walls in “from the walls and furniture” (Ch. Two, p. 20);
“chottha peg” (Ch. Two, p. 21) was altered to “chhota peg” and italicised;
a full stop replaced the eroteme in “Carolus wondered why?” (Ch. Two, p. 23) and also in “What I don’t understand, my dear Aunt Vicky, is how you get your information?” (Ch. Five, p. 55);
a comma was inserted after “said” in the parenthetical “ ‘if’, as Aunt Vicky said ‘she is his wife’ ” (Ch. Two, p. 23);
after Aunt Vicky picked up her piece of embroidery and was absorbed in it for a while she appears to answer a missing question by saying “No” and adding “I never really thought of it and he engaged a governess for the girls” (Ch. Three, p. 30), so an appropriate question from Carolus—of one line which a typesetter might easily miss and with similar words to help explain the lapse—, “Was there ever a thought of marriage, a mother for the girls?”, was inserted;
commas were inserted before and after “as I told you” in “These things run in families and as I told you that both his grandfather and father had each fathered a son and no other children” (Ch. Three, p. 31), and “that” was deleted therefrom;
a comma was inserted after “Carolus” in “oh, hell, Carolus he was a cad” (Ch. Four, p. 41);
for consistency’s sake “£10,000” (Ch. Four, p. 44) was altered to “ten thousand pounds” and “£100,000” (Ch. Four, p. 46) was altered to “one hundred thousand pounds”;
a superfluous closing quotation mark (because Aunt Vicky’s speech continues in the next paragraph), after “they stayed at Shirley Cross” (Ch. Four, p. 46), was deleted;
a comma was inserted after “Then” in “Then according to Cuchran, he left Jenny” (Ch. Four, p. 49);
a seemingly erroneous “us” was corrected to “them” in “We restored peace between us” (Ch. Six, p. 69);
a comma was added before the clause “with more agility than one would have thought” to match the one thereafter (Ch. Eight, p. 84);
a comma was added after the clause “depicting ‘Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales’ ” to match the one therebefore (Ch. Eight, p. 86);
“and” was inserted between “furnished” and “there” in “The rooms below these were larger and better furnished there were two bathrooms on the floor” (Ch. Eight, p. 86);
the unaccented preposition in “Poulet a L’estragon” (Ch. Nine, p. 105) was given its grave accent;
a comma was added after “presumably” in “His search, presumably was ended” (Ch. Ten, p. 109);
for consistency’s sake “O.K.” (Ch. Eleven, p. 117) was altered to “Okay”;
for consistency with the previous mention of the road sign, the words “To Bindley 3 miles” (Ch. Eleven, p. 123) were enclosed within quotation marks;
the stop was removed from “Messrs.” (Ch. Twelve, p. 127);
“decided” in “you will allow me, my dear sir, to decided what would or would not be a breach” (Ch. Twelve, p. 129) was corrected to “decide”;
for consistency’s sake, “café” in “Merry Widow café” (Ch. Fourteen, p. 156) was capitalised;
“number Three Passover Cottages” (Ch. Fourteen, p. 156) was, for consistency’s sake, very slightly altered to “Number Three, Passover Cottages”;
for consistency’s sake “vicar” (Ch. Fourteen, p. 160) was capitalised;
“day” in “V.E. day” (Ch. Seventeen, p. 183) was capitalised;
for the sake of consistency (with other novels) “post mortem” (Ch. Seventeen, p. 186) was altered to “post-mortem”;
a comma was inserted after “when” in “It was ten minutes later when Matron being back in her place, Carolus resumed” (Ch. Seventeen, p.188);
the Latin phrase “vice versa” (Ch. Seventeen, p.192) was italicised;
“olympian” (Ch. Seventeen, p.192) was capitalised.

Page references are to the first (and, deplorably, the only) edition of Death on Romney Marsh by Leo Bruce, published by W. H. Allen (London, 1968).
Thanks to Alfred, by the way, for doing most of the transcribing for all chapters of Death on Romney Marsh.

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Textual notes for Death on the Black Sands

In Death on the Black Sands (following our policy in previous publications of Leo Bruce novels), we have, for the sake of consistency between texts, altered some spellings and punctuation:  “recognise” is (reluctantly) altered to “recognize” and “criticise” to “criticize”, “goodbye” is amended to “good-bye”, “’phone” is used for the shortened form of “telephone” instead of “phone”, “fingerprint” is unhyphenated, and the verb “show” has been modified to “shew”; furthermore, these additional changes occur:

“’Stroardinary”, (Chapter One, page 11), was altered slightly to “S’traordinary”;
the “’s” in “Tommy’s” (Ch. One, p. 9), the “’s” in “playa’s” (Ch. One, p. 16), and the “’s” in “she’s” (Ch. Eleven, p. 124) were unitalicised;
a comma was inserted after “forties” in “In his early forties he had lost his young wife in the last war” (Ch. Two, p. 18);
“your” in “I’m surprised your even suggesting it” was corrected to “you’re” (Ch. Two, p. 21);
“gaspacho” (the Portuguese spelling) has been altered to “gazpacho” (the Spanish spelling) in “What a time you’d have in Spain learning to make gaspacho.” (Ch. Two, p. 22);
the “part of [Priggley’s] letter which interested” Carolus was indented (Ch. Two, pp. 23-24);
“mediaeval”, in “their almost mediaeval way of life there” (Ch. Two, p. 26), has been slightly altered, just because we can—and why not?—to “mediæval”;
“stories” in “the Imperatorio building [. . .] raised its twenty stories between barren rocky hills” (Ch. Three, p. 28) was corrected to “storeys”;
“whisky and soda” (Ch. Three, p. 33) was, for consistency’s sake, hyphenated;
a full stop replaced the eroteme in “We eat earlier for one thing?” (Ch. Four, p. 41) because, surely, it was not meant to be a question, and in “I’d like to know if anyone approached Devigne after you all had come in?” (Ch. Four, p. 47);
the space was removed from “table top” (Ch. Four, p. 44) to make one word;
the foreign phrase, “en bloc” (Ch. Five, p. 58) was italicised;
an Oxford comma was inserted after “braces” in “grey flannel trousers kept up by braces and black shoes” (Ch. Six, p. 64) lest anyone reading too casually should assume for a moment that the shoes helped keep up Mr. Pluggett’s trousers;
a full stop was inserted after “away” in “I dropped it in at Devigne’s flat straight away I thought that was the best thing to do” (Ch. Six, p. 70);
“its” in “Then it turned out its called ter-nearer” (Ch. Six, p. 73) was corrected to “it’s”;
“was” has been altered to the subjunctive “were” in “as though she was behind the commanding officer’s desk” (Ch. Seven, p. 80), in “If, however, to beat-up Carolus was Martin’s intention” (Ch. Eight, p. 85), in “It would […] be interesting to see whether he was in as good condition” (Ch. Eight, p. 86), in “Whether it were the depressing colour” (Ch. Twelve, p. 132), in “so if Gore-Bullar was correct” (Ch. Thirteen, p. 139), in “to see if he was being followed” (Ch. Thirteen, p. 145) wherein also “whether” replaced “if”, in “Perhaps Jock Dribble was sleeping it off” (Ch. Fourteen, p. 148), and in “If there was one thing she disapproved of more strongly than murder” (Ch. Fifteen, p. 169);
“phony” (Ch. Seven, p. 82) was, for consistency’s sake, altered to “phoney”;
the space was removed from “girl friend” (Ch. Nine, p. 97) and from “girl friends” (Ch. Nineteen, p. 209), to make in each case one word;
“£75” (Ch. Nine, p. 97) was, for consistency’s sake, changed to “seventy-five pounds”, “£17,000” (Ch. Ten, p. 109) was changed to “seventeen thousand pounds” and “£20,000” (Ch. Nineteen, p. 211) was changed to “twenty thousand pounds”;
a comma was inserted after “Carolus” in “said Carolus but when he told the photographer” (Ch. Nine, p. 104);
“Colonels” in “to think all Colonels are fire-eaters” (Ch. Ten, p. 106) is uncapitalised;
“know” was changed to “knew” in “If you know how perfectly ridiculous it makes you look” (Ch. Eleven, p. 124);
superflous quotation marks before “But it wouldn’t be the same” within Daphne’s speech (Ch. Twelve, p. 135) were removed;
a dagger replaced the asterisk for the second footnote (Ch. Thirteen, p. 141);
“mail van” (Ch. Thirteen, p. 142) was hyphenated;
the space was removed from “street lamps” (Ch. Fourteen, p. 148) to make it one word;
a comma replaced the full stop after “Larner” in “He’s known here as Larner” (Ch. Fourteen, p. 157) in order to make “Carolus went on, watching closely” part of that sentence;
the French phrase “au revoir” (Ch. Fifteen, p. 161) was italicised;
the odd sentence “He had everywhere Switzerland, Beirut, all over the place” (Ch. Fifteen, p. 163) was, in order to make sense, slightly altered to “He had them everywhere—Switzerland, Beirut, all over the place”;
“shemmy” (Ch. Fifteen, p. 164) was altered to “chemmy”;
the elipsis of only two dots in “m . . mur . . .” (Ch. Sixteen, p. 180) was extended to three dots;
the full stop after “this” in “when he saw Carolus glance at this” (Ch. Seventeen, p. 182) was altered to a comma;
a comma was inserted after “No” in “No she’s in Beirut, I understand” (Ch. Seventeen, p. 183);
a stray, closing double quotation mark after Mr. Gorringer’s assessment that his alleged witticism was “not unworthy of Mrs. Gorringer at her lightest, I fancy” (Ch. Seventeen, p. 184), was removed;
“S’troardinary”, the vociferation of Col. Gore-Bullar (Ch. Nineteen, p. 210), was altered very slightly to “S’traordinary” in order to match the similar utterance of Jock Dribble, the former sergeant, earlier (Ch. One, p. 11) as well as that of Major Stour in Chapter Eleven of A Louse for the Hangman;
an inverted comma in “Sounds like it‘” (Ch. Nineteen, p. 213) was altered to a comma;
a comma was inserted after “Who”—which ought to be “Whom”, of course—in “Who then, did Killain attempt to murder?” (Ch. Twenty, p. 217); for the sake of consistency with other texts, hyphens were inserted in “whisky and soda” (Ch. Twenty, p. 218).

Page references are to the first (and, lamentably, the only) edition of Death on the Black Sands by Leo Bruce, published by W. H. Allen (London, 1966).
Thanks to Thorfinn, by the way, for doing most of the transcribing for all chapters of Death on the Black Sands.

On the title-page verso, below the copyright notice and publisher’s and printer’s imprints, is this notice:

All the characters in this

book are imaginary.

No reference is

intended

to any living—

or dead—

person.

There is no town

named Los Aburridos,

though there well might be

in the situation

created for it between

Torremolinos and Marbella.

Textual notes for Dead for a Ducat

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).

Textual notes for A Bone and a Hank of Hair

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, “criticise” is altered to “criticize” and “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.”, “armchair” is hyphenated but “finger-print” is unhyphenated—in all texts.

In A Bone and a Hank of Hair, these additional changes occur:

“was” has been altered to the subjunctive “were” in “to see if he was being watched” (Chapter Seven, p. 61), in “if he was not careful” and “If he was told about the family home” (Ch. Twelve, p. 108), in “as though Mr. Mumford was right” and “Unless he was wrong” (Ch. Thirteen, p. 119) and in “but whether this was self-administered” (Ch. Eighteen, p. 165);
“on” was inserted before “whom” in “It depends whom we mean by ‘she’.” (Ch. Seven, p. 68);
for the sake of consistency, “number” was capitalised in “Carolus found number 47” and “number 45” (Ch. Eight, p. 68);
“1920’s” was altered to “1920s” (Chapter Nine, p.86);

an “a” was inserted before “month” in “It can’t have been more than month later” (Ch. Ten, pp. 91-92);
a “the” was inserted before “time” in “I can’t remember time, not to the year” (Ch. Ten, p. 93);

“a-gog” was altered to “agog” (Ch. Eleven, p. 98);
in order for the slight joke to work, since Mr. Gorringer immediately comprehends poison, “I t’ink I smella da Rathbone” was altered to “I t’ink I smella da Rathbane” (Ch. Eleven, p. 101);
the phrase “whisky and soda” was twice, for consistency with other texts, hyphenated (Ch. Eleven, p. 101 & Ch. Seventeen, p. 163);

the comma was repositioned after the comment within parentheses instead of after “well” in “door as well, (doubtless by arrangement with its owner)” (Ch. Twelve, p. 109);
the period after “No” was altered to a comma and “Then” was altered to “and” in the subsequent “Then it was in a low voice” (Ch. Twelve, p. 115);

commas were inserted before and after “which a child can climb” in “railings of the iron hurdle type which a child can climb with a few shrubs behind them” (Ch. Thirteen, p. 124);
a comma was inserted after “’phone” in “Will you ’phone Mr. Humbell?” since Mr. Humbell is being addressed not ’phoned (Ch. Fourteen, p. 129);
a colon was inserted after “it” in “There was no doubt about it she was very much afraid” (Ch. Sixteen, p. 149);
an “a” was inserted before “man” in “each of the tragedies is the story of man” (Ch. Nineteen, p. 174);
a comma was inserted after “Charlotte” in “sister Charlotte who was” (Ch. Nineteen, p. 175);
“she” was inserted before “then” in “then tried to cover it” (Ch. Nineteen, p. 179);
the Latin phrase “vice versa” was italicised (Ch. Nineteen, pp. 181);
the ungainly “ ‘Frenchy’s’ ” (Ch. Twenty, p. 184) was altered to “Frenchy’s”;
“a certain skill in make-up, enough, anyway” was repunctuated to “a certain skill in make-up—enough, anyway” and a comma was inserted after “ear-rings” in “the ear-rings the dentures” (Ch. Twenty, p. 186).

Page references are to the first edition of A Bone and a Hank of Hair by Leo Bruce, published by Peter Davies (London, 1961); the Academy Chicago Publishers edition of 1985, by the way, has exactly the same pagination.

Textual notes for Death by the Lake

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, 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 “weekend” is hyphenated but “fingerprint” is unhyphenated—in all texts.

In Death by the Lake, these additional changes occur:

“brought”, in “brought himself a lakeside house” (Chapter One, p. 16), was corrected to “bought”;
the comma in “But the sheer hopelessness of picking his wits against professional investigators in a matter of this kind, struck him as absurd” (Ch. One, p. 17) was removed;
commas were added before and after “looking back” in “She seemed fascinated and looking back I suppose he had a sort of cobra attractiveness” (Ch. Two, p. 22);
four instances of “Julia” (Ch. Two, p. 26 and Ch. Nine, pp. 106 & 107) were corrected to “Julie”;

“He was always there or with them there or with them in the pub” (Ch. Two, p. 27), though it may have been intended thus, was altered to “He was always there or with them in the pub”;
“was” has been altered to “were” in “as though there was unseen menace” (Ch. Two, p. 29), in “If the summons was to leave the farm” (Ch. Three, p. 35), in “as though he was unconscious” (Ch. Three, p. 37), in “If his tank was nearly empty” (Ch. Four, p. 46), in two cases of “if it was” (Ch. Five, pp. 53 & 58); in “How could he invite her as though his mission was a pleasurable drive” (Ch. Six, p. 70), in “as though that was all the explanation” (Ch. Six, p. 71); in “Perhaps the promise that he should see her was itself a lie” (Ch. Seven, p. 83); and in “whether she was conscious” (Ch. Eleven, p. 132); similarly, “loses” and “tries” in “loses his head and tries to stuggle” were altered to the subjunctive “lose” and “try” (Ch. Eleven, p. 132);

both instances of “twelve bore” (Ch. Three, pp. 31 & 34) were altered to “twelve-bore”;
an “a” was inserted after “bungalow” in “who lives in a bungalow quarter of a mile away” (Ch. Three, p. 31);

“any where” (Ch. Three, p. 34) was altered to “anywhere”;

the words “of the murder” were added to “They were all fairly calm about it though for a moment, when Elsie first heard, after the long worrying wait for Ben, Carolus feared that she might break down” (Ch. Three, p. 39) in order to make a more easily understandable “They were all fairly calm about it though for a moment, when Elsie first heard of the murder, after the long worrying wait for Ben, Carolus feared that she might break down”;

punctuation and capitalisation were slightly altered in order to make two sentences, ‘ “Let us suppose,” Carolus said. “That whoever came…” ’ (Ch. Three, p. 40), one sentence;
“He’d have said no” and “George always said no” (Ch. Three, p. 40) were altered to “He’d have said ‘no’ ” and “George always said ‘no’ ”;
a colon replaced a semicolon in “compounded of two elements; suspicion and fear” (Ch. Five, p. 53);
a comma was inserted after “On the other hand” (Ch. Five, p. 55);
“the” was corrected to “then” in “Marie was silent for a moment, the turned to Carolus with a bright smile.” (Ch. Five, p. 59);
“Mrs. Stick, to her surprise, gave her approval, at least his interpretation of her attitude” (Ch. Five, p. 61) was altered to “Mrs. Stick, to his surprise, gave her approval, or so at least was his interpretation of her attitude”;
the full stop was removed from “Then quietly she added.” (Ch. Five, p. 62);
a comma was added after “However” in “However if you want to ask me…” (Ch. Six, p. 72);
“yewman framework” was altered to “human frame” (Ch. Six, p. 73);
“road construction” was hyphenated (Ch. Six, p. 73);
“a” was altered to “the” in “the candle which had awakened him was the only light in a room” (Ch. Seven, p. 82);
“25 per cent” was altered to “twenty-five per cent” (Ch. Seven, p. 85);
“one” was altered to “once” in “We leave quietly and at one in our car” (Ch. Seven, p. 87);
“the” was altered to “that” in “At the moment Marie walked into the room” (Ch. Seven, p. 87);
a comma was inserted after “have” in “But other people have and Marie talks quite freely about her” (Ch. Eight, p. 95);
a colon was exchanged for the first comma, and a semicolon for the fourth, in “He was faced with the gruelling problem of two murders, one of five years ago for which he had a suspect but knew little or nothing, except by hearsay, of the circumstances, the second of less than a fortnight back of which he knew almost everything about the circumstances but had no logical suspect” (Ch. Eight, pp. 96-97);

“My dear Deene, wrote Mr. Gorringer” is altered to “My dear Deene (wrote Mr. Gorringer),” and Mr. Gorringer’s whole letter is indented and in roman instead of italic type (Ch. Eight, pp. 97-98);
the assessment of Mr. Gorringer—“a princely repast, my dear Deene. I see that your good Mrs. Stick has lost none of her cunning”—has been placed between long dashes instead of within parentheses, and a semicolon replaced the full stop therein (Ch. Eight, p. 98);
a comma was inserted after “thought” in “I little thought when I proposed to visit your rustic retreat” (Ch. Eight, p. 100);
a colon replaced the semicolon, and a comma was inserted after “flexible”, in “a blackjack; a flexible loaded life-preserver.” (Ch. Eight, p. 100);
“whisky and soda” was, for consistency’s sake, hyphenated (Ch. Eight, p. 101);
capitalisation was removed from “Even” (Ch. Nine, p. 106);
punctuation and capitalisation were slightly altered in order to make two sentences, ‘“And in any case,”  said Julie. “Since they have never arrested Desmond…”’ (Ch. Nine, p. 110), one sentence;
“your’s” (Chapter Ten, p. 120), was corrected to “yours”;
“its”, in “its only for forty-eight hours” (Chapter Ten, p. 121), was corrected to “it’s”;
“cissy” was altered to “sissy” (Chapter Ten, p. 122);
“a” in “home within a hour” (Ch. Eleven, p. 126) was corrected to “an”;
“providence” was changed to “Providence” to match the second instance thereof (Ch. Eleven, p. 128);
“jewelry” (Ch. Eleven, p. 130) was altered to “jewellery”;
“And she did so, she laughed” was altered to “As she did so, she laughed” (Ch. Eleven, p. 131);
the comma was removed from “the only person (except perforce George Garrison), whom Jessie took into her confidence” (Ch. Twelve, p. 138);
a second em dash was added, after “details”, in “Julie said nothing—expressed no incredulity, asked for no details but sat as though slowly realizing things” (Ch. Twelve, p. 138).

Page references are to the first (and, unfortunately, only) edition of Death by the Lake by Leo Bruce, published by W. H. Allen (London, 1971).

A Note on Textual Consistency

We have, for the sake of consistency between texts, altered (and shall alter in the future) some spellings and punctuation in the novels we publish, usually following precedents from the earliest Leo Bruce novels: direct speeches, for example, use double quotation marks and quotes within those speeches use single quotation marks; “Mr.”, “Mrs.” and “Dr.” retain their stops; spaces are removed before and after long dashes; “realise”, “recognise” and “apologise” (and their permutations) are severally changed to “realize”, “recognize” and “apologize” (and their permutations); “connexion” is altered to “connection”; “’phone” is used for the shortened form of “telephone” instead of “phone”; the verb “show” is modified to “shew”; “will” is capitalised when referring to a last will and testament; and hyphens are retained (or, when absent, reinserted) in “half-past”, “week-end”, “good-bye” and “shot-gun” but are removed from “note-book”, “note-paper”, “to-day”, “to-morrow” and “to-night”.  We apologize for any inconsistency which we miss (and welcome notification thereof).  Whenever we have access to first editions we shall note any additional correction or alteration we make in the pertinent texts.