England, toward the close of the Second World War. Six cousins, descendants of the wealthy Victorian merchant Rutland Shearsby, are all healthy and in their prime, survivors of the worst war in history. Then one of them, an army captain in London, abruptly steps into the path of a speeding van and meets instant death. A few months later, his cousin, a writer, is found in a remote country lane, his head smashed against a stone wall. And a few days afterward, another cousin, a rural schoolteacher, is discovered in her cottage, poisoned to death. Of the six, now only three remain.
A bizarre confluence of accidents? Or has there been foul play? Parmiter, an eccentric obituarist in possession of some disturbing facts about the deaths, attempts to persuade Harvey Tuke, the most venerated man in the public prosecutors office, to look into this abrupt rise in one family’s mortality rate. Tuke remains skeptical — until he runs into a fourth Shearsby cousin, panic-stricken and convinced that someone has been trying to kill her.
Thus begins one of the most extraordinary cases in modern British detective fiction. Caught in a mind-boggling maze, Tuke —a Mephistopheles look-alike on the side of the law — unearths some curious facts about a very strange family; a bitter conflict over an unconventional legacy; a Victorian skeleton in the family closet; a short story entitled “Too Many Cousins”—inexplicably withdrawn from publication — that reportedly predicted the precipitous decline in the family population; and Uncle Martin, a black sheep who refuses to remain dead.
Along a trail laid with suspense and more surprises than a conjurer’s act, the author, a noted historian of his day and master of a captivatingly witty style, provides us with a fascinating picture of bomb-shattered London and the effects of war and profound social change on an England in transition. With something for everyone, this devilish tale, one of the most charming and challenging detective stories of postwar England — or any time — will keep you guessing until the last page.
Contents
Part One: Simple Arithmetic
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Part Two: Combinations and Permutations
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Part Three: Undistributed Factors
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Part Four: Result
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
To
GEOFFREY EDWARDS
WITHOUT WHOSE CONNIVANCE
THIS BOOK COULD NOT HAVE
BEEN WRITTEN WHEN IT WAS
This Dover edition, first published in 1985, is an un-
abridged and slightly corrected republication of the work first published by MacDonald & Co., London, 1946.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Browne, Douglas G. (Douglas Gordon), 1884—
Too many cousins.
Reprint. Originally published: London : MacDonald, 1946.
I. Title.
PR6003.R49T6 1985 823’.914 84-18864
ISBN 0-486-24774-0 (pbk.)
PART
ONE
:
SIMPLE ARITHMETIC
CHAPTER I
HARVEY TUKE’S opponent accomplished a neat follow-through cannon and grounded his cue.
“That takes me out, I think,” he said.
“It has been a good game,” Mr. Tuke said, glancing at the scoreboard, which showed less than a dozen points between winner and loser. “We’ll drink to it in that Amontillado, if they have any left. I haven’t been here for a month.”
“No, we don’t often see you,” his companion rejoined, as he slid his cue into its case.
“I’m a domesticated man,” said Mr. Tuke, who affirmed with some truth that he only visited his clubs from a sense of duty. At the Sheridan he was at least able to combine business with pleasure, for here he met the entertaining and unorthodox—painters, writers, musicians, actors, creators all of one sort or another. Harvey himself qualified for election to a society which required of its members some proof of intelligence because in a small way he too was a creator. His rather odd hobby (for a lawyer) was the campaigns of Napoleon, and by-products of the book he hoped to complete one day on the penultimate campaign of 1814 appeared from time to time in that hardy monthly The Midlothian Magazine.
He understood that his present companion, whose name was Parmiter, had something to do with the press. Beyond this he knew nothing about him. A common passion for billiards—almost the only game which Mr. Tuke recognised —had brought them together. Parmiter was a very tall man, an inch or two taller than Harvey himself, so that he stooped a little to talk to the latter as they walked together down the wide corridor from the Sheridan’s billiard-room to the lounge. He was considerably the older of the two, a man probably approaching sixty, with a lined, cynical face, touched with melancholy in repose, heavy-lidded sunken eyes, and an untidy thatch of grey hair. A straggling grey moustache failed to hide a mouth that could be sour or humorous according to his rapid changes of mood.
In the lounge, when the loser had ordered drinks—the Amontillado was still to be had—Panniter took up the topic interrupted by their departure from the billiard-room.
“Unlike you,” he remarked, “I am here every day. Most of the day, sometimes. Grist to my mill, you know—in a prospective sense.”
“What exactly does your mill grind?” Harvey inquired.
“I am an obituarist.”
Mr. Tuke’s black brows went up a trifle. “Indeed? I don’t think I have met one before. That is what I like about this club. One is always encountering something new. Do you find your rather macabre occupation interesting?”
Parmiter’s lined face became animated. “Absorbing,” he said. “There is endless fascination in the study of humanity from the angle of the epitaph. The contrast between the apparent and the real. I watch some pompous old humbug, for instance, and reflect
