Character guide

Loveday Brooke

major

Also known as Loveday, Miss Brooke, Miss Loveday Brooke

Loveday Brooke works cases for Ebenezer Dyer's agency, moving through country houses and railway stations with a portmanteau and an unshakeable habit of noticing what others overlook. She treats burglars as imaginative professionals who study detective fiction for tips, and she plans her investigations the way they plan their crimes—methodically, house by house. Her cool, map-driven reasoning sets the tone for the book's early mysteries, showing a detective who solves problems by understanding both human nature and architecture.

Mr. Dyer

supporting

Also known as Ebenezer Dyer

Mr. Dyer runs the agency where Loveday Brooke works, introducing her to anxious clients like Major Druce and relaying the tangled family histories that fuel her investigations. He is a practical, slightly old-fashioned man who respects Loveday's judgment even when she outpaces his own reasoning. His briefings—on the Cravens, the Hawkes, the missing necklace—give the reader the social context Loveday will quietly dismantle, making him the necessary bridge between the client's world and the detective's.

Mr. Hawke

supporting

Mr. Hawke is the master of a house where a nine-hundred-pound necklace has disappeared, and he wants the police called in—only to find his wife and Miss Monroe offering a hundred reasons why he shouldn't. He is a man who insists he is master in his own house, yet the women in it have quietly overruled him, leaving him to seek outside help. His account of the missing necklace and the household's resistance to investigation gives Loveday her first puzzle and reveals the domestic power struggles beneath a respectable surface.

Harry Craven

supporting

Also known as Master Harry, young Mr. Craven, Mr. Craven, Mr. Harry Craven, Harry, young Craven

Harry Craven is the son of a scholarly, absent-minded philologist at Troyte's Hill, a young man who has been at loggerheads with the domineering old servant Sandy since boyhood. He came home from Oxford on the verge of delirium tremens, quarrelled violently with Sandy in front of witnesses, and then fell ill with typhoid the day after the murder. His suspicious illness and his history of threats make him the obvious suspect, but his father's absorption in philology and the family's strained finances suggest deeper tensions beneath the surface.

The Major

supporting

Also known as Major Druce

Major Druce is a well-turned-out young officer who brings Loveday into his mother's cosmopolitan Portland Place reception, where servants and guests represent a dozen nationalities. He speaks of the missing Mdlle. Cunier with theatrical grief, yet his soft drawl cracks when he vows to put a bullet in the man responsible rather than hand him to the police. His polished exterior and sudden flashes of rage make him both a useful guide and a figure worth watching as Loveday moves through the case.

Miss Monroe

supporting

Miss Monroe arrives in England from Peking carrying a necklace valued at over nine hundred pounds, but she resists her father's request to deposit it at the bank and refuses to call in the police when it disappears. She claims she is alone in the world, yet her journey involved a native maid, a steerage-passenger replacement, and friends who escorted her to Hong Kong. Her reluctance to involve the authorities and her convenient discovery of the theft make her a puzzle Loveday must unravel, and her story opens the book's exploration of how respectability can mask more complicated motives.

Richard Golding

supporting

Also known as Mr. Golding, this Mr. Richard Golding

Golding is the wealthy Langford Hall widower whose half-Australian, half-Italian daughter Irené has disappeared just as his second marriage approaches. He gave her a generous allowance but demanded no accounts of it, so no one can say whether she fled with a full purse or an empty one — a gap that quietly shapes the whole investigation. His household's tangled engagements and his daughter's broken romance with Gordon Cleeve make him the still, uneasy centre of the case Loveday is forced to take up.

Griffiths

supporting

Also known as Mr. Griffiths, Detective Griffiths

Griffiths belongs to the professional network of inspectors and detectives who hand cases to Loveday and then watch, half-skeptical, as she outthinks them. His world is procedure, jurisdiction, and the cautious plural pronoun — the institutional counterweight to her intuitive, drawing-room methods. He matters because the friction between official police work and Loveday's quieter approach is exactly where the early mysteries gather their tension.

Lena

minor

A woman connected to a case, possibly a victim or suspect.

Mr. Clampe

minor

A character involved in one of the investigations.

Mrs. Brown

minor

A character appearing in one of the stories.

Maria Lisle

minor

Also known as Lisle

A woman whose story is part of a mystery.

René

minor

Also known as dear René, Miss René, Poor dear René

A character in one of the tales, possibly a victim.

George White

minor

Also known as White

A character in a case, possibly a suspect.

Sir George Monroe

minor

Also known as Sir George

A baronet connected to Miss Monroe's case.

Alexander Henderson

minor

Also known as Sandy, old Sandy, that old Sandy

An older man appearing in one of the stories.

Bates

minor

Also known as Mr. Bates, Jeremiah Bates

A character in a case, possibly a servant or witness.

Pierre Lebrun

minor

Also known as Lebrun

A French character in one of the mysteries.

Inspector Gunning

minor

Also known as Gunning

A police inspector in one of the cases.

Lucie Cunier

minor

Also known as Lucie, Cunier, Mdlle . Cunier

A French woman in one of the tales.

Miss Golding

minor

Relative of Richard Golding, involved in the case.

Harry Emmett

minor

Also known as Emmett, young Emmett

A young man involved in a case.

Lord Guilleroy

minor

Also known as Guilleroy

A nobleman appearing in one of the stories.

Mrs. Druce

minor

Wife of Major Druce, involved in a mystery.

John Murray

minor

Also known as Murray

A person mentioned in connection with a case.

Lady Gwynne

minor

A lady involved in a case.

Mrs. Turner

minor

Also known as Old Mrs. Turner, old Mrs. Turner, young Mrs. Turner

A woman appearing in one of the stories.

Gordon Cleeve

minor

Also known as Mr. Cleeve, Cleeve, Mr. Gordon Cleeve, Gordon

A character in a mystery, possibly a suspect.

Inspector Ramsay

minor

Also known as Ramsay

A police inspector in one of the stories.

Mrs. Greenhow

minor

A woman connected to a case.

Mary O'Grady

minor

Also known as O'Grady, Miss O'Grady

A character in one of the mysteries.

Hafiz Cassimi

minor

Also known as young Cassimi, Cassimi, Mr. Hafiz Cassimi, Mr. Cassimi

A character in a case, possibly foreign.

Mrs. Hawke

minor

Wife of Mr. Hawke, appears in a story.

Stephanie Delcroix

minor

Also known as Stephanie

A character in a mystery.

Irené Mascagni

minor

Also known as Irené, Miss Irené

A woman connected to Count Mascagni.

John Hales

minor

Also known as Old John Hales, Hales

An older man in one of the stories.

Annie Lee

minor

Also known as Annie, Miss Annie Lee, Miss Lee, young Lee

A young woman in a case.

Mrs. Williams

minor

Also known as good Mrs. Williams

A woman appearing in one of the stories.

Mrs. Craven

minor

Mother or relative of Harry Craven.

Mr. Turner

minor

Husband of Mrs. Turner, appears in a story.

Maddalena

minor

A character in one of the mysteries.

Jack

minor

A character in a case, possibly a servant.

Danvers

minor

Also known as young Danvers, Mr. Danvers

A young man in one of the stories.

Miss Craven

minor

Also known as pretty Miss Craven

A young woman in the Craven family.

Holt

minor

Also known as young Holt, young Mr. Holt

A young man in a case.

Mrs. Golightly

minor

A woman appearing in one of the stories.

John Rogers

minor

Also known as Rogers

A character in a mystery.

Lady Cathrow

minor

A lady in one of the cases.

Richard Steele

minor

Also known as Steele, the Rev. Richard Steele

A reverend in one of the stories.

Sister Monica

minor

A nun in the Redhill Sisterhood story.

Mr. Jameson

minor

A character in one of the mysteries.

Mrs. Golding

minor

Wife or relative of Richard Golding.

Madame Céline

minor

A French woman in one of the stories.

Martha Watts

minor

A woman in a case.

Troyte

minor

A character in the murder at Troyte's Hill.

Sister Anna

minor

A nun in the Redhill Sisterhood.

Mrs. Copeland

minor

A woman in one of the stories.

George Lee

minor

Also known as The elder Lee, Lee

An older man in the Lee family.

Doctor Godwin

minor

Also known as Dr. Godwin

A doctor in one of the cases.

Count Mascagni

minor

A count in one of the mysteries.

Mr. Freer

minor

Also known as Freer

A character in one of the stories.

Moggie

minor

A female character in a case.

Princess Dullah-Veih

minor

Also known as this Princess Dullah - Veih

A princess in the vengeance story.

Henri d'Anvers

minor

A character in one of the tales.

Miss Brown

minor

A young woman in a case.

Pearson

minor

A character in one of the mysteries.

Antonia

minor

A woman in one of the stories.