''The Vanishing Corpse'' is a 1941 mystery thriller novel by Anthony Gilbert, the pen name of British writer Lucy Beatrice Malleson. It is the eighth in her long-running series featuring the unscrupulous London

solicitor A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and ...

Arthur Crook, one of the more unorthodox detectives of the Golden Age. It was published in the United States under the alternative title ''She Vanished in the Dawn''.

Synopsis

Laura Verity, tired of life, decides to rent a very isolated

cottage A cottage, during Feudalism in England, England's feudal period, was the holding by a cottager (known as a Cotter (farmer), cotter or ''bordar'') of a small house with enough garden to feed a family and in return for the cottage, the cottager ...

in the countryside. On arriving there in the darkness in the middle of the storm, she is shocked to find evidence that there is somebody else in the house. Shortly afterwards she discovers a body of a young woman, strangled to death, on the bed. Terrified, in the morning she hurries into the nearest market town to report the crime, only to find the police dubious about her claims - particularly when they return to the cottage with her and find no body. Only Arthur Crook, a dishevelled lawyer she encounter, is ready to believe her. He suggests that she is now in grave danger from the murderer and persuades her to move to a large, busy hotel in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

where she will be safer. The determined Verity perseveres in trying to solve the mystery, assisted at first in an offhand way by Crook. Newspaper publicity at last draws the police into the case, and with Crook's advice they find a body hidden in the well of the cottage. It soon proves to be not the corpse of the missing young woman, but the cottage's previous owner. To add to the confusion Miss Verity has herself now vanished, with Crook concerned that she has fallen into the hands of the murderer.

Adaptation

In 1943 it was very loosely adapted into the British film '' They Met in the Dark'' directed by Carl Lamac and starring

James Mason James Neville Mason (; 15 May 190927 July 1984) was an English actor. He achieved considerable success in British cinema before becoming a star in Hollywood. He was the top box-office attraction in the UK in 1944 and 1945; his British films inc ...

, Joyce Howard, Tom Walls.Goble p.180 This featured many changes to the novel's plot, including the complete absence of Arthur Crook.

References

Bibliography

* Goble, Alan. ''The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film''. Walter de Gruyter, 1999. * Magill, Frank Northen . ''Critical Survey of Mystery and Detective Fiction: Authors, Volume 2''. Salem Press, 1988. *Murphy, Bruce F. ''The Encyclopedia of Murder and Mystery''. Springer, 1999. * Reilly, John M. ''Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers''. Springer, 2015. 1941 British novels British mystery novels British thriller novels Novels by Anthony Gilbert Novels set in Brighton Novels set in London British detective novels British novels adapted into films Collins Crime Club books {{1940s-novel-stub