File on Claudia Cragge

by Q. Patrick

The Crimefiles were a 1930s series of murder case dossiers comprised of all the purported documents and clues in the case (letters, reports, statements, photographs, actual physical exhibits, etc.). Different series were published in England and the United States.

Claudia Cragge, who is murdered soon after the book starts, is the wealthy widow of Eliot Cragge, late millionaire and faddist of all things faddish, including spiritualism. Before his death Eliot Cragge told Claudia, to whom he was giving the right to apportion the Cragge Trust among familial heirs deemed "morally, physically and legally" deserving of inheritance, that he had grave suspicions one of his heirs was not so deserving.

Seemingly Claudia discovered who this person is; thus Claudia Cragge had to die.

Claudia is actually slain in the dark during a spiritual seance, strangled with the cord of a trumpet, while Patrick's detective, Timothy Trant, introduced the previous year in Death and Dear Clara (referenced in the current book), is actually present. He thus has extra incentive to solve this case!

200 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1938

About the author

Patrick Quentin, Q. Patrick and Jonathan Stagge were pen names under which Hugh Callingham Wheeler (19 March 1912 – 26 July 1987), Richard Wilson Webb (August 1901 – December 1966), Martha Mott Kelly (30 April 1906–2005) and Mary Louise White Aswell (3 June 1902 – 24 December 1984) wrote detective fiction. In some foreign countries their books have been published under the variant Quentin Patrick. Most of the stories were written by Webb and Wheeler in collaboration, or by Wheeler alone. Their most famous creation is the amateur sleuth Peter Duluth. In 1963, the story collection The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow was given a Special Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America.