The Emperor's Snuff Box

 The Emperor's Snuff Box (1942) by John Dickson Carr

When her husband Ned Atwood did not contest the divorce suit she brought against him and not much was published about the case in the papers, Eve Neill thought she had put scandal and anguish behind her. She settled down in their French apartments among the other English families living abroad. She met the very nice, not too handsome, reliable Toby Lawes who made her feel safe and cherished as Ned never had. Toby's highly respectable family overlooked her past and took her in. Soon her engagement to young Toby was announced and happiness lay before her. Or so she thought.

But even though Atwood didn't contest the divorce, he had told her that he'd be back and she'd be his again. So, after the announcement appeared in the paper, he used the key he swore he had lost and appeared in her bedroom at a most compromising hour. Across the way, old Maurice Lawes was sure to be up in his study fussing about with his collections. "I'll just call out to him and let him know I'm here," he taunts his ex-wife as he runs to the window and flings back the curtains. But Maurice Lawes isn't going to care about who his prospective daughter-in-law has in her bedroom. In fact, he's not going to care about anything ever again. Somebody has smashed his head in with a poker and in the process smashed a very valuable snuffbox that once belonged to Napoleon. 

The snuffbox and what was seen from Eve's window play an important part in the mystery. At first it appears to the police that it means Eve must be guilty of the crime. Especially when a witness claims they saw her outside in a bloody nightgown around the right time. The sticking point? What was her motive? When fellow Englishman Dr. Kinross gets involved, he sees that the clues the police set great store by in their case against Eve could have an entirely different meaning...if only he could get Eve to tell her story exactly as things happened. 

I'm not nearly as enamored with this one as a few of my friends (and other) on Goodreads. If Eve would tell all of what happened (even just the parts she consciously knows and not counting the bit that Kinross wants her tell that she can't seem to remember when the police question her), we wouldn't have to spend the book trying to convince the police to look for the culprit elsewhere. I'm not a big fan of witnesses keeping something back to "protect" someone else--especially when it will prove the witness's innocence and won't really hurt the someone else all that much. And even after she finds out that the someone else isn't quite the person she thought they were, it still takes a bit to get her to cough up what she knows. Pretty infuriating.

The solution was very good...definitely up to Carr's standard and the clues were there if I had just paid attention properly. All of the stars go for the plot. ★★★

First line: When Eve Neill divorced Ned Atwood, the suit was not contested.

Last line: He spoke in too low a voice for anybody to hear what he was muttering to himself, but the word "zizipompom" floated out and died away in the evening air.

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Deaths = 2 hit on head