Temple-Ellis: The Man Who Was There

“On the lonely downs in the Isle of Wight is situated a little bungalow. In the dining-room a man lay dead, shot through the heart. On the veranda outside a young man occupying a deck-chair is absorbed in Palgrave’s Golden Treasury. It was to this scene that Montrose Arbuthnot and Sir Edmund King, criminal investigators, were called by a frantic servant. Dalton Flyte is the slain man; the young fellow outside is Thornton Rodd, civil engineer, who claims that he is on a walking tour. Who was Mr. Flyte? Nobody seems to know. But the fact remains that somebody is anxious to get into the dead man’s bungalow, and exciting events occur after the detectives take up their residence there. This story does not move quickly. Mr. Temple-Ellis takes his time, and succeeds fairly well in holding the attention of his reader. Occasional gleams of humor are interspersed to lighten the story, and the author is most successful in the portrayal of the romance that rounds out his theme.” (1930 review)

The Author

The Man Who Was There was published in 1930, one of ten mysteries by N. A. Temple-Ellis (pseudonym of Neville Aldridge Holdaway, 1894-1954).