267:, who was wrongly accused of stealing and had been sent to prison for five years. Unable to stand the injustice he had managed to escape and it was wrongly supposed he had drowned while trying to swim out to a ship. Instead he had managed to slip away to the United States where hardwork earned him a significant sum of money. He returned to England using an
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In the privacy of
Pottermack's garden Thorndyke indicates that he has worked out the entire deception. However his sense of justice from the fact that Pottermack had been wrongly convicted means he will let sleeping dogs lie. Pottermack, impressed by Thorndyke's incredible deductions, is now free to
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habit. Only after Lewson's death in the well (which only
Pottermack knows of) does he discover that she is married to him. She wishes she could marry him but she can't. She also reveals that Lewson had delibrately framed him for his own crime. Unspoken is the suggestion that she knows Pottermack's
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Pottermack believes he has thrown any potential supsicion way from him. However he is unsettled when he encounters Doctor
Thorndyke who is following up the case out of interest after it is mentioned by a friend. Yet the Doctor, despite his curiosity and observations, seemingly disappears from the
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is called. Pottermack is disturbed when he encounters
Thorndyke at the inquest. The Doctor alone quickly works out that the corpse is a mummy over two thousand years old but says nothing. The inquest concludes that it is the corpse of Lewson and declares it an accident.
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Having escape from detection of the initial killing, Pottermack now realises he has to provide a body that will satisfy the world Lewson is dead so he can marry his sweetheart. In London one day he chances across an
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manager. When
Pottermack refuses to pay Lewson turns nasty and in the subsequent brawl he falls down the disused garden
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in an auction. Purchasing it he does everything he can to indicate it is Lewson's corpse and then dumps it in a nearby
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https://shop.bl.uk/products/mr-pottermacks-oversight?srsltid=AfmBOor_bHI24PiiBLatKul4uFKyBRDcw1ZA1POuQBqp6bLhgLskSY_s
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but - having been too clever for his own good - he is almost arrested while he has the incriminating money on him.
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in which the crime is shown early on and the preparator clearly shown. It was republished in 2024 as part of the
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case. To convince the wider public that Lewson is alive and has likely fled the country, Pottermack takes the
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imitating the soles of the dead mans shoes and wears them to walk some distance away to an isolated
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which
Pottermack had recently uncovered while digging to prepare for the installation of an antique
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dressed in the dead man's clothes. The body is discovered several months later by workmen and an
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Mr. Pottermack, a respectable man living in a house on the outskirts of the town of Borley in
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Economic
Investigations in Twentieth-Century Detective Fiction: Expenditure, Labor, Value
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real identity, but maintains the fiction that they are new acquittances.
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to sit in the grounds. Pottmerack an enterprising man, realises that the
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are clearly shown all the way from the town to his house. He develops a
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Critical Survey of
Mystery and Detective Fiction: Authors, Volume 1
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Pottermack reminisces about his history. He had been a young bank
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Lewson had embezzled from his branch and tries to have his
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152:. Part of his long-running series of novels featuring the
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Crime
Fiction, 1749-1980: A Comprehensive Bibliography
176:. Freeman's Thorndyke stories stretched back to the
271:based on the ship he had sailed to America on the
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368:Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers
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263:named Jeffrey Brandon, engaged to his
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132:Pontifex, Son and Thorndyke
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182:Golden Age of Detective Fiction
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406:Novels set in Buckinghamshire
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426:Hodder & Stoughton books
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377:. Ashgate Publishing, 2015.
356:. Garland Publishing, 1984.
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20:Mr. Pottermack's Oversight
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192:'s Crime Classics series.
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421:British detective novels
186:inverted detective story
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303:marry his sweetheart.
160:, it was published in
148:by the British author
208:James Lewson a local
416:British crime novels
411:Novels set in Surrey
401:Novels set in London
363:. Salem Press, 1988.
166:Hodder and Stoughton
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391:1930 British novels
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370:. Springer, 2015.
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226:footprints
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144:is a 1930
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16:1930 novel
242:banknotes
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66:Detective
279:gambling
265:soulmate
196:Synopsis
154:forensic
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296:inquest
274:Potomac
261:cashier
218:sundial
168:and in
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254:Surrey
162:London
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52:Series
34:Author
269:alias
248:at a
234:heath
230:mould
222:sandy
110:Print
62:Genre
214:well
210:bank
92:1930
82:(US)
172:by
164:by
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