The Sussex Downs Murders - Characters

 

SPOILERS!!!

These are the characters in this book for further reference:

REGULAR CHARACTERS

• Detective Superintendent William Meredith is the detective investigating the crime. He is intelligent and methodical in his procedures.  Meredith is married and has one grown-up son. In this book he has been transferred to Lewes. 
• Tony Meredith is Meredith’s son. He is a photographer apprentice. He has a morbid interest in the crimes and gives his father some good hints. 
• Mrs Meredith is Meredith’s wife. She is the reason why her son didn’t follow William’s steps in the police force. 
• Hawkings is the young officer who is Meredith's assistant and driver. 
• Major Forrest is the Chief Constable and Meredith's boss. 

Characters in this book:

• John Rother is a farmer whose disappearance Meredith investigates. His car was found abandoned, and later some bones were found in the kilns that the farm had. At the end of the book, it turns out that John faked his death because he wanted his brother to be blamed for his murder. When he was executed, John would have been free to be with William's wife. When that didn't happen, John murdered his brother. Meredith discovers everything, but John is still at large at the end of the book.
• William Rother (35) was John's brother. He and John were often at loggerheads. William is almost charged with John's murder, but some other evidence stopped Meredith from arresting him. William is murdered by his own brother.
• Janet Waring Rother (26) was William's wife. She and John fell in love, and their closeness was no secret. Janet and John were in cahoots and planned for William to fall the law for the murder of John, but when that didn't work, William was murdered. When Janet felt that she was at risk of being arrested, she fled to France.
• Ed is a bricklawyer working for Professor Blenkings and finds some bone in the lime he was using.
• Professor Blenkings is a retired professor of anatomy, who realises that the bones are human. He assembles the bones, and at the end of the book he confirms that the bones that everybody believed were John's are actually his grandfather's after John and Janet stole the skeleton from the church vault. 
• Harriet is Professor Blenkings' housekeeper.
• Aldous Barnet is a novelist and was John's best friend.
• Kate Abingworth was William and John's housekeeper.
• Dr Wakefield is the doctor in Littlehampton who William thought had sent him the fake tehelgram.
• Emily Rother is John and William's aunt. 
• Mad Ned is a young man who is said to be a bit simple. He claims to have seen Janet around the kilns one night and carrying a big parcel.
• Judy (17) also works for the Rothers.
• Cedric Clark is the manager of the filling station. When he tries to sell John's car, his friend tells him that the car has been in his garage several times.
• Tim Thornton is Clark's friend and wants to buy John's car, which he recognises as the car he has had in his garage several times.
• Brown is the bus driver of Bramber.
• Gill is the bus conductor. He and Brown describe a peculiar man who they picked up on the dates that Tim claimed the car had been left with him.
• Slippery Sid is a robber who is sent to prison for stealing some diamonds. Tony Meredith tells his father that Slippery Sid stole those diamonds the night when William was murdered, and he must have seen something on his way. Meredith goes to see him, and Slippery Sid confirms that he saw someone near the pit where William was murdered.
• DI Legge is the Scotland Yard officer who helps Meredith.