Police at the Funeral

Police at the Funeral is a crime novel by Margery Allingham, first published in October 1931, in the United Kingdom by Heinemann, London and in 1932 in the United States by Doubleday, Doran, New York. It is the fourth novel with the mysterious Albert Campion, aided as usual by his butler/valet/bodyguard Magersfontein Lugg and his policeman friend Stanislaus Oates. Plot introduction When Albert Campion is called in by the fiancee of an old college friend to investigate the disappearance of her uncle, he little expects the mysterious spate of death and dangers that follows among the bizarre inhabitants of Socrates Close, Cambridge. He and Stanislaus Oates must tread carefully, and battle some complex family dynamics, to solve the case. Plot summary Stanislaus Oates is being followed by a stranger, and runs into his friend Campion in the bizarrest of places. Campion is waiting for a client, Joyce Blount, the fiancee of his solicitor friend Marcus Featherstone, and when she arrives she clearly recognises Oates' stalker, but denies having seen him before. After Campion hears Joyce's story, of the disappearance of her Uncle Andrew on the way home from church, news reaches them that Andrew's murdered body has been found in a stream.