Who killed General Hamilton, Master of the King’s Tennis Courts? That is the question that descends with violence upon the residents of Hampton Court Palace when the General is found stabbed, his body dumped in a canal in the palace grounds. The General’s close friend Annabel Sinclair is particularly concerned by one curious detail. On the night of the murder, several people claim to have seen the fabled ghost of Samuel Pepys, clad in his garish “jackanapes jacket” – the description of which seems to match the jacket worn by the General’s granddaughter on the night of the crime…

Originally published in 1931, this is a vintage murder mystery from the golden age of crime fiction. Its author, Edith Murray Keate was a writer and historian with particular expertise in the history of Hampton Court Palace, for which she wrote an official guidebook.