The Footsteps at the Lock

By Ronald Knox Derek Burtell is a young man in poor health. He is also heir to the princely sum of £50,000, provided he can reach his twenty-fifth birthday. In light of his condition, he insures his life with the Indescribable Insurance Company and sets out on a canoeing voyage up the Thames River in hope of restoring his health. With Derek is his cousin Nigel, among whose interests are his position to inherit Derek’s legacy if his cousin predeceases him. At Shipcote Lock, their journey takes a turn: Nigel departs to sit for an exam at Oxford, and in his absence the canoe is found adrift and Derek disappeared. Suspicious of foul play, the Indescribable Insurance Company dispatches the expert Miles Bredon to solve a case that is as circuitous and murky as the river in and around which it runs. Detective stories, Knox believed, differ essentially from all other fiction. They are a game, played between writer and reader. At this game, Knox excelled. Of all his contemporaries in detective fiction’s Golden Age, as Evelyn Waugh noted, “None was more ingenious than Knox, more scrupulous in the provision of clues, more logically complete in his solutions.” Originally published in 1927 and the first of Knox’s Miles Bredon novels, The Three Taps confirms Waugh’s words: as a mystery, it is undeniably ingenious; as a game, it is delightfully intriguing.  The skill of the detective author consists in being able to produce his clues and flourish them defiantly in our faces: “There!” he says. “What do you make of that?”—and we make nothing. (Ronald Knox) * * * Ronald Knox (1888–1957) was an English Catholic priest, theologian, and author, and one of the most prominent twentieth-century converts from Anglicanism to Catholicism. Best known for his contemporary English translation of the Scriptures (the “Knox Bible”), he wrote numerous works of apologetics and collections of sermons, retreat conferences, and lectures, as well as six detective novels. Paperback: 240pp. ISBN: 978-1685954215