New Book - Death On the Riviera - Superintendent William Meredith 4/Inspector Blampignon 1 - by John Bude (Pages 1 - 43)

 First Published: 1952

A man called Bill Dillon disembarks from the ferry in Dunkirk. 

He is looking for the road to Cassel, and a car stops next to his, and the occupants in the car are also heading in the direction. A local tells them which road to take. Bill asks where these two people are going, and the oldest one tells him that they are travelling to Paris. When Bill goes, we discover that the two men are Superintendent William Meredith and Sergeant Freddy Strang. Strang asks him why he lied to this man who they may run into on the Riviera, and Meredith says that they need to be discreet. They have a mission, which is to find a note forger which is operating on the Riviera.

Then the novel introduces some characters who are in Villa Paloma. The owner is Nesta Hedderwick, a widow who now lives on the Riviera. Dillys WEstmacoft is her seventeen-year-old niece who has finished studying. One of the guests is Toni Snenton, a young man who Nesta seems to hold a flame for. Tony is a permanent resident, and Dillys can't understand the relationship between him and her aunt. A friend of Tony's, Kitty, is now staying in Villa Paloma as well. Kitty and Tony know each other from their time serving in the war, and Tony asked Neta to let her visit as the woman was going through a bad time. It is obvious that Kitty and Tony are involved romantically, and Nesta is jealous. There is something that Tony seems to be hiding. He now disappears every morning, and he claims that he goes fishing, but Kitty is certain he is lying.

The fourth person in the villa is an artist, Paul Latour. Neta's friends, the Malloys, introduced him to her, and as she likes supporting young artists, Neta gave him the use of one of the rooms in the villa. Paul is a conman as the paintings he offers Neta are not his creation. Someone called Jacques Dufil creates the paintings for him.

These are the characters in the villa. Dillys then goes to an art exhibition where he meets Freddy Strang. They hit it off, and they agree to meet the next day, but Strang has to cancel when Meredith tells him they need to go and spend a few days in Monaco, trying to discover their forger, Tommy Cobbett. In the exhibition Dillys also discovers a painting which she thought was Paul Latoru's but the catalogue shows that it was painted by someone called Jacques Dufil, and the next day she tells Paul about it, but he just disregards the whole thing.

Interesting characters. I wonder whose death Meredith will have to investigate.