BURIED FOR PLEASURE:
DIVORCE PROCEDINGS

Fen's golden era was at an end, though he was probably unaware of that when he arrived in the village of Cotton Abbas, calling himself Mr Datchery. He did not, to the surprise of the local Inspector Casby, stay at the Rectory. During his stay, from the 2nd to the 5th of June 1950, he succeeded in resolving the strange case of The Long Divorce. Yet despite his success here, it was to be a quarter of a century before he again saw fit to allow Crispin write a detailed narrative of any of his cases.

Sometime shortly afterwards, in the comfort an Oxford drawing room, he narrated for the benefit of Haldane and Wakefield the events related to him by Inspector Casby surrounding the death of Baker, (Who killed Baker?). Fen's only involvement was to answer Casby's query: who killed Baker? He played no part in the resolution of the crime. Sadly, we can only surmise and hope that the little man Fielding, forced to leave the room incontinently laughing, was the Henry Fielding from Holy Disorders.

In July 1951, Fen, visiting Low Norton, looked up Humbleby's friend, Sergeant Beeton (Black for a Funeral). Needless to say, Fen was accompanied by The Grim Reaper, who harvested two more for his barn. It was a sad little case, and Fen clearly played 'god' with the unfortunate P.C. Tyler.

It was Fen who involved Humbleby in the case of The Undraped Torso. He helped identify the jewel thief James Bennett, who, having served a ten-year sentence, was living off the proceeds of the Chandler robbery of 1934 in Dirlham-on-Sea, under the name of Edgar Boynton. Given that Bennett had been imprisoned for a decade, and had spent five years in Dirlham, and allowing for delays in apprehending him, bringing him to trial and so on, it seems reasonable to assume that Fen's visit took place in either the summer of 1950 or 1951. While his loot was of course confiscated, Bennett could at least be grateful that he survived a Fen investigation.

Mr Crispin does inform the hard-pressed historian that the case of The Drowning of Edgar Foley  took place in September 1952, for which small mercy we should be grateful.

As is already clear, few of the cases Fen investigated over this period were sufficiently interesting for Crispin to devote a whole book to. Yet in many ways, these years were Fen's busiest. Thanks to his friendship with Inspector Humbleby, between January 1950 and September 1952 he found himself involved in the following cases:

Abhorred Shears
Within the Gates
The Case known as Beware of the Trains, which has a wintry feel to it.
Humbleby Agonistes, which occurred while there were chrysanthemums in the garden.
The Little Room
Express Delivery
The Name on the Window, which occurred on Boxing Day.
Otherwhere (also known as The Shot in the Dark), in which there is apple picking.

It is, sadly, impossible to determine with any accuracy when these cases occurred. See Frequent Hearses on the main menu for an attempt at a complete timetable of significant events in Fen's life. Here several conjectures and surmises are contained on these cases.