Former Scotland Yard detective Sir John Appleby is taking a beach walk near Ampersand castle when a man literally drops dead at his feet. Dr. Sutch, part-time archivist for the penniless Lord Ampersand, has fallen to his death from the rickety external staircase rigged up to allow access to the castle's improvised archive room. Is this a suspicious death? Certainly the presence on the scene of a speleologist aptly named Mr. Cave and two coils of rope seem to indicate this is more than a tragic accident. It turns out that Dr. Sutch was searching for the papers of Adrian Ampersand, friend and correspondent of literary greats like Byron and Shelley. Several family members had a very vivid interest in recovering these potentially valuable papers. But then again, was the quest for these papers nothing more than a cover for a search for a legendary Spanish treasure, rumored to be hidden somewhere in the castle?The charm of this book is NOT the detective aspect, which is underdeveloped. The ending is totally unsatisfactory, both from the point of view of finding the guilty party, finding the papers and finding the treasure. A convenient death in the very last page is not my idea of a good ending. If you read this book from the 1960s, do it because it's fun reading about eccentric aristocrats. Michael Innes did a great job with the voices of the different characters, from the gruff Lord Ampersand to his acerbic relation Miss Digitt, the pedantic speech of the academic Dr. Sutch and the inconsequent verbal wanderings of Lady Ampersand.
When Lord Ampersand is told that some of his family papers may be worth serious money, he hires an archivist--recommended by his shifty son, Lord Skillet--to evaluate the mass of material which the family has whimsically stored in the North tower, which can only be accessed by a rickety wooden staircase. Retired policeman Sir John Appleby is walking on the beach when the stairway collapses, killing the archivist. Accident or something more? Not one of the best of Innes' books, but still written with his usual flair.
