Book Review : Mystery in White by J Jefferson Farjeon

Another book in the British Library Crime Classics series.

According to the blurb on the back, this mystery has been republished for the first time since the 1930s.

Just before Christmas a train heading north out of London gets stuck in the snow. Some of the passengers decide to leave the train to find shelter in a wayside inn or house. They do arrive at a house where the front door is open, a fire is burning in the hearth, and the table is set for dinner, but there is no one at home.

Are the passengers expected? Did one of them lead the others to this place? Spooky things begin to happen. A door locked on the inside becomes mysteriously unlocked an hour later. Two of the passengers catch cold and are confined to bed with a high temperature. Some of the passengers feel a presence in chairs and a bed. The eyes in the portrait follow people around the room.

Later that evening, two more people arrive. During the conversations, it transpires there was a murder on the train. When eating dinner, an argument starts and one of the late arrivals leaves again clutching a knife. A scream is soon heard outside, but what has happened outside? Inside, a torn-up letter is found in a wastepaper basket that could provide a partial explanation of the situation.

One of the passengers is a ghost-hunter and his musings about the murder on the train and about what might have happened in the house creates a tension amongst the people inside. One of them decides to go for a walk in the blizzard and trips over what might or might not be a body. He finds two more people in a crashed car and their story fits in with the letter found in the basket.

I won’t say any more but this is a lovely story and well worth reading.