Who Pays the Piper?

"I wouldn't like to make you really angry, darling. You know, the only time I did you nearly scared me dead. I believe if you were really roused you might do something rather frightful." Lucas Dale, new owner of King's Bourne, was flirting with danger when he showed his priceless collection of pearls to the guests assembled in his period salon. But when, under threat, he forced lovely Susan Lenox to break her engagement and consent to marry him, he started a train of events that inevitably led to murder, shattering the quiet of the English village. Bill Carrick, Susan's former fiancé, is the primary suspect, but as Inspector Ernest Lamb and Detective Frank Abbott soon discover, Dale's questionable past offered motives of revenge and greed to darken the mystery. Motives which would lead another victim into the path of murder… Who Pays the Piper? was first published in 1940. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans. "When I pick up a book by Patricia Wentworth I think, now to enjoy myself-and I always do." Mary Dell, Daily Mirror