# The Layton Court Mystery — Character guide

> Key figures in The Layton Court Mystery by Anthony Berkeley.

- [Roger Sheringham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_layton_court_mystery_se/characters/roger_sheringham.md): Roger Sheringham arrives at Layton Court as a guest of the jovial host, but his novelist's habit of observing everything — greenfly, footprints, human evasions — quickly turns him into an amateur detective. He is exubera
- [Alexander Grierson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_layton_court_mystery_se/characters/alexander_grierson.md): Alec Grierson is a well-off young Oxford cricketer invited to Layton Court partly as a match for Barbara Shannon, and he brings Roger along as his friend. Where Roger leaps to conclusions, Alec hangs back — gently steeri
- [Mrs. Plant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_layton_court_mystery_se/characters/mrs_plant.md): Mrs. Plant keeps the household running and knows more about the comings and goings at Layton Court than she lets on. A stray strand of hair, assumed at first to be hers, becomes a crucial pivot in Roger's reasoning — pro
- [Major Jefferson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_layton_court_mystery_se/characters/major_jefferson.md): Major Jefferson is the guest who helps break down the library door and then endures Roger's suspicion with grim patience. He married Lady Stanworth in secret because her brother-in-law would have destroyed the match, giv
- [Lady Stanworth](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_layton_court_mystery_se/characters/lady_stanworth.md): Lady Stanworth presides over Victor Stanworth's summer parties with aristocratic composure, but her past is held hostage by secrets he extracted years ago. She chose marriage to his brother over her father's ruin, and ev
- [Victor Stanworth](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_layton_court_mystery_se/characters/victor_stanworth.md): Victor Stanworth is a wealthy bachelor who rents a grand house each summer and fills it with entertaining young guests, playing the jolly old gentleman to perfection. Underneath the red-faced bonhomie lies a man who coll
- [Barbara Shannon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_layton_court_mystery_se/characters/barbara_shannon.md): Barbara is one of the cheerful young people Mr. Stanworth has gathered for his summer party, and her mother, Mrs. Shannon, is an old friend of Lady Stanworth's. She is lively and direct, with a characterful little face a
- [John Prince](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_layton_court_mystery_se/characters/john_prince.md): Prince is the murdered man found in the library, and the discovery of his body shatters the country-house gaiety that Mr. Stanworth had so carefully arranged. His death is announced with brutal brevity, and the reactions
- [Mrs. Shannon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_layton_court_mystery_se/characters/mrs_shannon.md): Mother of Barbara Shannon, present at Layton Court.
- [Mary Plant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_layton_court_mystery_se/characters/mary_plant.md): Daughter of Mrs. Plant, a maid at the house.
- [Graves](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_layton_court_mystery_se/characters/graves.md): A servant or local man who assists in the investigation.
- [Doctor Matthewson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_layton_court_mystery_se/characters/doctor_matthewson.md): Local doctor who examines the body and provides medical insight.
- [Mr. Wetherby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_layton_court_mystery_se/characters/mr_wetherby.md): A visitor or acquaintance mentioned in the investigation.

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