The case of the burnt Bohemian

Ludovic Travers had received a good many queer requests and enquiries over the phone at the Broad Street Detective Agency, but a psychiatrist in fear of his life and in search of a bodyguard was something new. An appointment was made for the following day, but Travers had barely completed a few discreet enquiries concerning the personal history of his new client when he received another call. This time it was a summons from George Wharton to come to a flat in Chelsea where an artist called Sindle had just been stabbed in the back, and an attempt made to destroy the evidence by burning the body. It looked like a routine matter till suddenly the long arm ot coincidence stretched out and tied the Cases of the Nervous Psychiatrist and the Burnt Bohemian into one knot of Gordian complexity. Now it may be a cliché to add that Travers and Wharton soon got their teeth into the mystery, but in this particular case the phrase is not inappropriate. Christopher Bush is a proven master of the true detective story, and in this one he is at his urbanely intriguing and ingenious best.