# The Footsteps at the Lock — Character guide

> Key figures in The Footsteps at the Lock by Ronald A. Knox.

- [Derek Burtell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/derek_burtell.md): The elder Burtell cousin, whose vanishing at Shipcote Lock turns a quiet river holiday into a case of suspected murder and a fifty-thousand-pound inheritance.
- [Nigel Burtell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/nigel_burtell.md): The younger cousin who paddles away from the lock with a suspiciously precise alibi, leaving his cousin's canoe adrift and a trail of too-careful timing behind him.
- [Miles Bredon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/miles_bredon.md): A reluctant insurance detective who would rather play patience than solve crimes, yet whose instinct for human evasion makes him the one man the Indescribable sends when fifty thousand pounds are at stake.
- [Mr. Leyland](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/mr_leyland.md): The police inspector who works the case alongside Bredon, patient with landladies and alert to the significance of which bed was slept in and which window opened onto an outhouse roof.
- [Angela](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/angela.md): Bredon's wife, whose genius for collecting bores and extracting confidences turns a quiet riverside holiday into an intelligence-gathering operation she conducts with knitting needles and demure half-truths.
- [Mr. Erasmus Quirk](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/mr_erasmus_quirk.md): A small, stooping American member of the Detective Club who arrives at the Gudgeon to write up the Burtell mystery and finds in Angela Bredon an audience far more attentive than he suspects.
- [Mrs. Bredon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/mrs_bredon.md): She is the domestic counterweight to her husband's reluctant career: the country cottage, the patience, the steady presence that makes his intermittent summons to Indescribable House bearable. Where Miles grumbles and pr
- [Mrs. Coolman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/mrs_coolman.md): A local resident with knowledge of the Burtell family.
- [Mr. Burgess](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/mr_burgess.md): Burgess tends the lock and the island, a minor official whose ordinary routine becomes the fixed point everyone else's story must be measured against. His inattention is both comic and damning: the murderer's whole schem
- [The Stranger](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/the_stranger.md): An enigmatic figure seen near the lock around the time of the disappearance.
- [Edward Farris](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/edward_farris.md): A witness who provides a crucial alibi.
- [Aunt Alma](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/aunt_alma.md): An elderly relative of the Burtell cousins.
- [Dr. Simmonds](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/dr_simmonds.md): The local doctor who examines the scene.
- [Sir John Burtell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/sir_john_burtell.md): The late father of Derek and Nigel, mentioned in the story.
- [Lizzy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/lizzy.md): A maid or servant in the Burtell household.
- [Charles Burtell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/charles_burtell.md): A relative of the Burtell family, mentioned in passing.
- [George Lowther](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters/george_lowther.md): A man who provides information about the Burtell family history.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_footsteps_at_the_lock_se/characters