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This was entertaining enough. It was a fast and fun read with good period flavor and the banter was amusing. But it really only was good as a period mystery and not on its own merits.
Overall, the characterizations were mostly perfunctory. There was never a sense of a host of suspects, because we knew only the barest details about them and they were gotten rid of almost immediately. Some of it was silly. A hidden tunnel? That had to be old even in 1922. But in fairness, the story even admitted that it was going down the Holmesian path of absurd deductions, backward justifications so to speak, in figuring out the puzzle.
In the end, did anyone not know that the victim was Mark and the murderer Cayley from the get-go? A few red herrings would have been welcome. Even making allowances for its period and that it was early in the golden age, the whole effort was pretty skimpy. Compare it to Dorothy L. Sayers’ Whose Body? published only a year later - well, there’s no comparison, in terms of complexity of plot, a host of fleshed-out characters and general wit. A pity, as actually I think Milne is pretty funny. I’m no fan of Pooh (I’m in the Dorothy Parker camp on that one), but his essays are good for a smirk.
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