The Golden Dagger: A Bobby Owen Mystery - E.R. Punshon

"Why should anyone want to pinch the dagger—except to do somebody in?"
No one answered this question.
Item: one anonymous phone call reporting a murder at a historic country house – but no body is to be found. Item: one ornate antique knife, discovered in a village call-box, blood-stains on the blade.
Rather than identifying a corpse, Bobby Owen of the Yard has to find out who, if anyone, has actually been killed. Two persons, one a best-selling author, the other no-one's cup of tea, are missing but a particular kind of hat keep turning up in the case – which also involves a haunted wood, a hatchet-wielding secretary, and a curious abundance of writers.
The Golden Dagger is the twenty-ninth novel in the Bobby Owen Mystery series, originally published in 1951. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans, and a selection of E.R. Punshon's prolific Guardian reviews of other golden age mystery fiction.
"What is distinction? . in the works of Mr. E.R. Punshon we salute it every time."--Dorothy L. Sayers