Less than an hour later, the nude body of the dead man lay in the outhouse which did duty at St. Mead as the official mortuary.

Anthony Bathurst is taking the sea-air at the village of St Mead, when the local constabulary drag him into the investigation of a local murder.

The mystery is grotesque: someone has stripped the body, left it in a field and shaved the victim's moustache off. Soon a second body is found, along with a mentally-challenged young man whispering about "gold" . . .

With these obstacles in his path, can Bathurst possibly unmask the killer?

The Case of Elymas the Sorcerer was first published in 1945. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Steve Barge.