A diver retrieves a brief case belonging to Allen Corby at the site of the sinking of the SS Nestor seven years earlier. Included in it's contents is a letter written by Corby showing that he felt that his life was in danger before he disappeared from the ship. Chan on board of the salvage boat comes into the possession of this letter and radiograms his friend Henrietta Lowell who is Corby's aunt. He travels to San Francisco to visit her just in time to attend one of her seances at the unoccupied Corby House. During the seance the murdered body of Allen Corby is discovered and it becomes apparent that Corby had just returned to claim his rightful inheritance after seven years.
I didn't find the characters really sinister enough for my tastes even though they are all under suspicion. My favorite character is Baxter the butler who is definitely not the sinister type of butler who can usually be found in 1930s mysteries. Instead he is a very nervous type who has to assist Henrietta with her private ouija board sessions even though he can't stand that sort of spooky thing. Among the other characters are the resentful caretaker Ulrich who spends more time at the eerie empty Corby House than anybody else. And Professor Bowan the psychic researcher and his wife Carlotta who seems to genuinely believe in her psychic gifts as a medium.
There is plenty of trick devices going on in this Chan mystery including electrical riggings and a mirror and a self-activing rifle. And how Chan gets the murderer to show themselves in a roomful of suspects at the end is good. I have to say there is one plot device that I saw through quite easily even though I still wasn't sure of the killer's identity. So it's not really one of the best whodunits but it's still good to see Charlie at work and come up with a clever trick at the end that incriminates the murderer.
I didn't find the characters really sinister enough for my tastes even though they are all under suspicion. My favorite character is Baxter the butler who is definitely not the sinister type of butler who can usually be found in 1930s mysteries. Instead he is a very nervous type who has to assist Henrietta with her private ouija board sessions even though he can't stand that sort of spooky thing. Among the other characters are the resentful caretaker Ulrich who spends more time at the eerie empty Corby House than anybody else. And Professor Bowan the psychic researcher and his wife Carlotta who seems to genuinely believe in her psychic gifts as a medium.
There is plenty of trick devices going on in this Chan mystery including electrical riggings and a mirror and a self-activing rifle. And how Chan gets the murderer to show themselves in a roomful of suspects at the end is good. I have to say there is one plot device that I saw through quite easily even though I still wasn't sure of the killer's identity. So it's not really one of the best whodunits but it's still good to see Charlie at work and come up with a clever trick at the end that incriminates the murderer.