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There are marriages which fail because husband and wife stop loving one another. And there are marriages which become infinitely more dangerous because they insist on loving in the wrong way.
London, March 1936. On a wet evening outside the Savoy, a young clergyman stops the Belgian Detective in the street. The Reverend Julian Dyson is pale, apologetic and frightened — and the household he describes is one of the strangest he and Arthur have ever been asked to enter.
Charles Bartlett is a prosperous man with a considerably younger wife, Adelaide. The third member of the household is Dyson himself, who came as Adelaide's tutor and spiritual adviser and has become a great deal closer. What is extraordinary is the husband's attitude: rather than driving the young minister away, Charles encourages the friendship, permits the intimacy, and has quietly altered his will so that his wife will lose nothing if she marries again after his death.
Generosity? Manipulation? Illness? Then Charles begins to sicken. And at a quarter past one one morning, he is violently, fatally ill.
The wife had the opportunity. The lover had bought the poison. The poison was found inside the victim. And yet the single question on which a murder conviction depends has no answer at all: how did it get there?
ℹ️ FOR LISTENERS This is an original Golden Age-style mystery presented as a respectful homage to classic detective fiction, inspired by the real Pimlico Mystery of 1886 — the case of Adelaide Bartlett, her husband Edwin, and the Reverend George Dyson, in which the medical evidence defeated the prosecution entirely. Names, dates, characters and solution here are altered and fictionalised. All characters are fictional. No affiliation, endorsement, or official connection is implied.
💬 QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS In the real case the jury was told, in effect: we know how, we know who benefited, we simply cannot explain the method. So they acquitted. When a crime is obvious but unprovable, should the law follow the evidence or the instinct? 🕵️
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🧾 CREDITS Written by Nocturnal Tales. Narrated by Nocturnal Tales.
🔖 TAGS / KEYWORDS Belgian detective mystery audiobook, Pimlico Mystery inspired, Adelaide Bartlett case, chloroform poisoning mystery, unsolved poisoning case, 1930s London mystery, love triangle murder, impossible method mystery, Arthur narrator mystery, golden age mystery audiobook, true crime inspired mystery, classic whodunit audiobook, full-length mystery audiobook, historical mystery audiobook
