Character guide

Mr. Hetherwick

major

Also known as Hetherwick, Mr. Guy Hetherwick

Hetherwick moves easily between his own chambers, a solicitor's office, and the shabby alleys around St. Martin's Lane, gathering fragments of a story no one else is piecing together. What begins as curiosity about a dead man and a man with stained fingers hardens into something closer to obsession, especially once Rhona Hannaford's troubles become his own. His willingness to shadow, question, and speculate drives the investigation forward long before the police can make sense of it.

Mr. Matherfield

major

Also known as Matherfield

Matherfield works the case from the official side, trading theories with Hetherwick over late-night walks and quiet meals while the city's clocks strike around them. He is neither credulous nor dismissive; he names murder when he sees it, but he knows how easily a suspect dissolves into London's crowds. His cautious, methodical pressure on the evidence keeps the amateur enthusiasm of his partner tethered to what can actually be proved.

Rhona Hannaford

major

Also known as Rhona, Hannaford

Rhona Hannaford moves between two worlds: the charitable Home where she works under Lady Riversreade, and the London streets where she meets Hetherwick and trades observations about suspicious visitors. She is observant, unflappable, and quietly loyal, yet she keeps her own counsel about what she suspects. Her access to the private office and to Lady Riversreade's comings and goings makes her indispensable to the investigation, and her composure under pressure makes her more than a passive source of information.

Lady Riversreade

supporting

Also known as Riversreade

Lady Riversreade runs a charitable Home with the efficiency of someone used to command, yet her private dealings remain opaque even to those closest to her. She receives Dr. Baseverie twice in secret, shows no visible distress afterward, and tells her staff nothing about why. Major Penteney hovers at her side with an interest that may be romantic or protective, and the contrast between her public poise and her private meetings gives the mystery its most unsettling thread.

Dr. Cyprian Baseverie

supporting

Also known as Dr. Baseverie, Baseverie

Dr. Cyprian Baseverie presents himself as a caller interested in the Home and its patients, but he never sees either; he sees only Lady Riversreade, and only behind closed doors. Rhona finds him florid, ingratiating, and distinctly unpleasant, and Major Penteney arranges a trap for him in the private office. His evasiveness, his unknown address, and his habit of appearing at Vivian's nightclub make him the case's most slippery and dangerous figure.

Mr. Mapperley

supporting

Also known as Mapperley

Mapperley works behind the scenes, watching comings and goings and recruiting helpers like the talkative Mr. Goldmark to trail suspects through London's streets and tube stations. He is formal, grave, and entirely reliable, the kind of man who reports facts without embellishment and lets his employer draw the conclusions. His patient surveillance of Baseverie and Vivian's gives Hetherwick the concrete leads that speculation alone could never supply.

Major Penteney

supporting

Also known as Penteney

Major Penteney moves easily between Riversreade Court and town, handling the Home's affairs and arriving at Lady Riversreade's side whenever she comes up from Surrey. Rhona Hannaford reads his devotion plainly, and Hetherwick sizes him up at Victoria as half of a well-matched couple. His steady, respectable presence lends the Riversreade establishment its surface of order, which makes the strange visitors and unexplained absences around it all the more unsettling.

Superintendent Hannaford

supporting

Also known as Sellithwaite, Hannaford

Years before the Charing Cross affair, Superintendent Hannaford policed Sellithwaite, and his granddaughter Rhona carries both his name and his connection to the Riversreade mystery. When Hetherwick wants someone planted inside Riversreade Court, he must send Rhona under her mother's name, Featherstone, precisely because Lady Riversreade would remember Hannaford. The old superintendent's history is the hinge on which Hetherwick's suspicions about identity and disguise turn.

Madame Listorelle

supporting

Also known as Listorelle

Madame Listorelle keeps a flat she seldom occupies, pays her rent punctually, and vanishes for long stretches, leaving a caretaker with little to report. Matherfield, having trailed a woman he took for Lady Riversreade to those very flats, seizes on the alias as proof of a double identity, while Hetherwick coolly notes the impossibility of one woman being in Surrey and Southampton at once. Her handwriting on a certain order later startles Lord Morradale, tying the elusive tenant to the case's central knot.

Sergeant Robmore

supporting

Also known as Robmore

Sergeant Robmore works the unglamorous side of the investigation, scouting yards and quizzing constables about a door no one has ever seen opened. He is the first man through the door when the searchers find the room with the packed suitcase, the camp-bed, and the dead man in the easy chair. His patient, methodical presence grounds the hunt in the physical detail of London's back streets.

James Granett

supporting

Also known as Granett, Mr. James Granett

Granett met Hannaford by chance after ten o'clock and stayed with him through the long, unexplained hours before they boarded Hetherwick's compartment at St. James's Park. When the train reached Charing Cross, Granett ran off toward Ambrose's flat in John Street and never came back. His death in his sleep, from a bottle of whisky Ambrose had pressed on him, turns a missing witness into a second corpse and gives Mapperley his theory of a double poisoning.

Mr. Robert Hannaford

supporting

Also known as Robert Hannaford, Mr. Hannaford

Robert Hannaford entrusted two dangerous confidences to Ambrose and Baseverie, one concerning Madame Listorelle, the other a valuable invention, and both proved fatal. Mapperley reasons that the poison was administered before Hannaford ever reboarded the train, timed to kill him quietly in his hotel bed. His return with a second man forced the conspirators to improvise, and the resulting deaths at Charing Cross and in Fligwood's Rents give the mystery its body count and its motive.

Blenkinsop

minor

Also known as Mr. Blenkinsop

A character who appears in the narrative.

Mr. Hollis

minor

Also known as Hollis

A minor character in the story.

Dr. Charles Ambrose

minor

Also known as Dr. Ambrose, Ambrose

A doctor with a role in the unfolding events.

Lord Morradale

minor

Also known as Morradale

A solicitor with country-squire habits, involved in the case.

Mrs. Whittingham

minor

Also known as the Honourable Mrs. Whittingham, Whittingham

A woman with a past connection to Sellithwaite.

Mr. Kenthwaite

minor

Also known as Kenthwaite

A minor character in the story.

Mr. Malladale

minor

Also known as Malladale, old Malladale

An older man who appears in the narrative.

Issy Goldmark

minor

Also known as Issy, Mr. Goldmark, Goldmark, Mr. Issy Goldmark

A character with a minor role in the plot.

Appleyard

minor

A minor character mentioned in the story.

Boxley

minor

A minor character in the story.

Mr. Garrowell

minor

Also known as Garrowell

A man employed by a madame, with a minor role.

Miss Featherstone

minor

Also known as Featherstone

A minor female character.

Mrs. Keeley

minor

Also known as a Mrs. Keeley

A minor character, possibly a landlady.

Miss Hannaford

minor

Also known as Hannaford

A female member of the Hannaford family.

Vivian

minor

A character with a brief appearance.

Mr. Macpherson

minor

Also known as Macpherson

A minor character in the narrative.

Detective-Sergeant Quigman

minor

Also known as Quigman

A detective involved in the police investigation.

Collison

minor

A minor character mentioned in the book.

Hudson

minor

A minor character in the narrative.

Mitchell

minor

A minor character with a brief role.

Mr. Isidore Goldmark

minor

Also known as Mr. Goldmark, Goldmark

A minor character, possibly related to Issy Goldmark.

Marshall

minor

A minor character in the story.

Martin Charles Ledbitter

minor

Also known as Ledbitter

A minor character with a limited presence.

Sir John Riversreade

minor

Also known as old Sir John Riversreade, the late Sir John Riversreade

The deceased former lord of Riversreade Court.

Messrs. Culthwaite

minor

Also known as Culthwaite

A firm or family name mentioned in the story.

Mr. Penteney

minor

Also known as Penteney

A minor character, possibly related to Major Penteney.

Thomas Chillam

minor

Also known as Chillam

A minor character in the narrative.

W. H. Calkin

minor

Also known as Calkin

A minor character mentioned in the book.

Malter

minor

A minor character with a brief appearance.

Mr. Andrews

minor

Also known as Andrews

A minor character in the story.

Mr. C. Basing

minor

Also known as Mr. Basing, Basing

A minor character with a limited role.

Gandham

minor

A minor character mentioned in passing.

Wintring

minor

A minor character with a brief mention.

Flowers

minor

A minor character in the narrative.

Mrs. Mallett

minor

A minor character, possibly a servant or neighbor.