Three Toed Pussy  

Published in 1968

From the dust jacket:
Before she is murdered, Pussy Welles makes some of her income by devising crossword puzzles, and she leaves fifteen new ones behind her. And as Superintendent Wycliffe discovers at the end of the case, when the puzzles have been worked out and arranged in the right order, they offer, in a simple code, the key to the entire solution of a most complex mystery. For Pussy knew precisely who was going to murder her, and how, and when, and Why; and she left the greatest puzzle of her life for the police to decipher. And for the reader: what a splendid challenge it provides!

Mr Burley has already won high praise for his first detective story, A Taste of Power. But when compared with its successor, this first book, appears to have been a preliminary flexing of muscles: now, with his second, Mr Burley really hits his stride.

From the back cover (Corgi 1997 reprint): Pussy Welles was dead. She lay slumped on the plain oatmeal-covered carpet, her auburn hair lustrous in the sunlight, and a jagged hole ripped by a bullet in the middle of her chest. What was even more bizarre was that the murderer had torn the shoe and stocking from her left leg, revealing that Pussy had a deformed foot bearing only three toes.

As Superintendent Wycliffe began to investigate the case he discovered that Pussy had led a wild and dangerous life. She was lethal where men were concerned, manipulating them for her own entertainment, and there were several people in Kergwyns who had reason to hate her.

But it took yet another death before Wycliffe came to realise that the killing was far more subtle and tortuous than it first appeared.

Home: “Wycliffe was back with his wife in their Exeter flat.”

Wycliffe’s Rank:  Superintendent but recently.

Assistant: “Since his appointment he had come to terms with Inspector Darley. The two men had complementary qualities. Wycliffe was imaginative, impatient of routine, inclined to be lazy. Darley followed the book, believed that every one of the twenty-four hours was made for work when there was work to be done, and was never bored. Even physically they were extremes, Wycliffe was slight, almost frail; Darley a giant, bulging in his clothes. All of which scarcely added up to any liking between them."                                 

Method of Working: “Wycliffe wanted to stop the sergeant talking. Soon there would be more than enough talk, an avalanche of facts, fictions, surmises and explanations; for the moment, he wanted to form impressions of his own.”

Location: Kergwyns, an imaginary village of 250 people on the coast between St Ives and Zennor.

Wycliffe twice returns to the area in future books, The Quiet Virgin (1986) and The Guild of Nine (2000), specifically to Mulfra, an imaginary village between Zennor and Morvah.

Zennor

Zennor is a tiny settlement (population about 250) on the road from St Ives to St Just and Land’s End. It is covered in some detail at the Berryman website below:

http://fp.berryman.plus.com/genealogy/zennor.htm