The woman in the wardrobe - Peter Shaffer

'Better and better!' cried Verity, chuckling and rubbing his hands. 'A corpse in a blood-soaked room; a locked door and a locked window; a masked man; a beautiful girl trussed inside a wardrobe; and now a pretender to the throne! This is superb!'

The little Sussex town of Amnestie had not known a death so bloody since the fifteenth century. And certainly none more baffling - to all except Mr Verity. From the moment he appears this bearded giant - ruthless inquirer, devastating wit and enthusiastic collector of the best sculpture - has matters firmly (if fantastically) under control. Things are certainly complicated, but this is hardly enough to deter Mr Verity. As he himself observes: 'when the number of suspects is continually increasing, and the number of corpses remains constant, you get a sort of inflation. The value of your individual suspect becomes hopelessly depreciated. That, for the real detective, is a state of paradise.'