The Story Behind “The Mystery of the Missing Frenchman”

The Mystery of the Missing Frenchman is the third book in my Lady in Blue series. The series was inspired by the brave suffragettes, who began volunteer patrols to support the police, when war broke out in 1914. Dorothy Peto, my main character, was a real person who went on to become the first female superintendent at the Metropolitan Police.

At the beginning of The Mystery of the Missing Frenchman, Dorothy has been seconded to
Scotland Yard to work with Inspector Derwent and his team of detectives. They are investigating a string of burglaries in London, where wealthy victims have had their valuable jewels stolen. However, their work is interrupted by the arrival of the handsome and charming Colonel Lamarchant, who works for the Deuxieme Bureau (the French secret service). The colonel hopes the team at Scotland Yard will help him discover what has happened to his cousin, the Marquis de Nagay, who has gone missing after arriving in England with some priceless sapphires.

They visit Stray Park, a large country house in Yorkshire that has become an army hospital
and was the last place the marquis was known to have visited. During the war, many large
country houses were turned into hospitals for injured soldiers returning from the front.

One of the most well-known was Wrest Park (my inspiration for Stray Park). It was partly funded by the famous playwright, J M Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan. At Stray Park, Dorothy meets Lady Birbeck. The elderly lady is in mourning for her grandson, who was a friend of the missing Frenchman. She assures Dorothy the marquis was safe and well when he left her house for a business appointment.

While Dorothy is away in Yorkshire, a body is discovered close to Kings Cross station in
London. Although the dead man is wearing the clothes and ring belonging to the missing
Frenchman, he turns out to be an Englishman, who worked for a heating company. Dorothy begins to wonder if there could be a link between the jewelry thefts and the missing young man. She tries to confide in Raymond, her brother, who works for British Military Intelligence, but she soon finds herself tangled in a complicated web of communist agitators, pacifists and Irish republicans. It becomes impossible to know who she can trust.

As always, when writing a Lady in Blue Mystery, I needed to spend hours researching the
First World War. In particular, for The Mystery of the Missing Frenchman, I focused on
subjects as diverse as early central heating systems, the Communist Party, Irish Republicans, army hospitals and military intelligence in France and Britain. I found this last subject particularly fascinating.

It was widely supposed by the rest of Europe that Britain had an extensive spy network in
place and that it had been operating since the days of Sir Francis Walsingham, spymaster to Queen Elizabeth I. However, this wasn’t the case. At the outbreak of war in 1914, the Secret Service Bureau, which came to be known as MI5, had only sixteen employees. Like the police, with so many men fighting abroad, MI5 had to look to women to solve their problem of staff shortages. MI5 recruited their female staff from leading girls’ schools and universities such as, Cheltenham Ladies College and Somerville College at Oxford University. These women played a more important role in the Security Service than in any other wartime government department. According to recruitment records from the time, they were required to possess, ‘intelligence, diligence and, above all, reticence’. I am sure Dorothy and the other members of the Women Police Volunteers shared the first two qualities but perhaps not the third.

About the Author

H L Marsay grew up binge-reading detective stories and promised herself that some day, she would write one too. A Long Shadow was the first book in her Chief Inspector Shadow series set in York. Luckily, living in a city so full of history, dark corners and hidden snickelways, she is never short of inspiration. She has also written The Secrets of Hartwell Trilogy and The Lady in Blue Mysteries. The Chief Inspector Shadow Mysteries have recently been optioned for television.

When she isn’t coming up with new ways to bump people off, she enjoys drinking red wine, eating dark chocolate and reading Agatha Christie – preferably at the same time!