The house at 60 Caithness Road looks like all the other dwellings in the Hammersmith district of London. When a doctor's bag containing deadly cultures is stolen, residents of this non-descript house fall victim to horrible diseases. Inspect Humphrey Bull of Scotland Yard is stymied in his efforts to identify the murderer but enter the nervous and feisty Mr. Evan Pinkerton. This little gray Welshman comes to the rescue of an intended victim while amazing the officers of C.I.D.

Original Title The By-pass Murder.

Also published as The Body in the Turl The famous little rabbity blunderer is the accused this time. An unusual mystery story against a vivid background of life in Oxford among the dons.

The old house was truly one of a kind—overflowing with atmosphere, dripping with character, and loaded with history. That history included tales of betrayed love and bitter vengeance, but Mr. Pinkerton found that such stories only added to the mansion's appeal. That appeal held a certain romance until the night when ghosts of hatred and violence rose to sweep again through darkened hallways, trailing black scandal—and bloody, brutal murder. As it had happened so often before, Mr. Pinkerton, a mild man with watery eyes, finds himself embroiled again with murderous forces. It’s been twelve years since we’ve heard of Mr. Evan Pinkerton, the little, timid man who seems to attract trouble, and continually harasses Inspector Bull of Scotland Yard. They’re back now in Homicide House. The story is laid in postwar London, and Mr. Pinkerton is living at No. 4 Godolphin Square. Despite the fact that he owns the apartment house, he shares meagre quarters on the top floor with the chef. Years of living with the penny-pinching Mrs. Pinkerton (now fortunately deceased) have accustomed him to discomfort, and Mr. Pinkerton is quite happy living where he is. One day a young American comes swinging along the Square. He attracts Mr. Pinkerton’s attention when he stops in front of No. 22, directly across from No. 4, and now a shell of a house with only a stairway leading nowhere. The American is so obviously distressed at the sight of the bombed-out house, that Mr. Pinkerton breaks a habit of longstanding and speaks to him. When the stranger tells him he is looking for a girl whom he met six years before in an air-raid shelter, and that he knows only that she lived at No. 22 Godolphin Square, Mr. Pinkerton comforts him by revealing that she is living quite safely at the very house in which he himself has rooms. It takes only one more innocent question to start in motion a train of singularly unpleasant events, and the stranger and Mr. Pinkerton find themselves in the midst of violence and murder. — Title also published as Murder On the Square.