The first in a delightful new mystery series set in the hidden heart of London’s legal world, introducing a wonderfully unwilling sleuth, perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Nita Prose.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Sally Smith’s A Case of Mice and Murder, which is out June 17th 2025.
When barrister Gabriel Ward steps out of his rooms at exactly two minutes to seven on a sunny May morning in 1901, his mind is so full of his latest case-the disputed authorship of bestselling children’s book Millie the Temple Church Mouse-that he scarcely registers the body of the Lord Chief Justice of England on his doorstep.
But even he cannot fail to notice the judge’s dusty bare feet, in shocking contrast to his flawless evening dress, nor the silver carving knife sticking out of his chest. In the shaded courtyards and ancient buildings of the Inner Temple, the hidden heart of London’s legal world, murder has spent centuries confined firmly to the casebooks. Until now . . .
The police can enter the Temple only by consent, so who better to investigate this tragic breach of law and order than a man who prizes both above all things? But murder doesn’t answer to logic or reasoned argument, and Gabriel soon discovers that the Temple’s heavy oak doors are hiding more surprising secrets than he’d ever imagined . . .
It is anybody’s guess what went through the mind of Lord Norman Dunning, Lord Chief Justice of England, on the evening of 20 May 1901, in those frantic seconds when he knew that his death was inevitable. Did his life – successful, conventional – flash before his eyes as some suggest it does? And, if so, did he have time to register the irony of the startling and exotic circumstances of its end?
Very occasionally, over the centuries, society had been shocked to hear of more disreputable and lesser judges who had died in beds other than their own, with lovers who were not their wives or, even worse, were not women; or in taverns or gambling houses; or once, in an opium den. But Lord Dunning, the most senior judge in the country, was the sort of man to conform with all society’s expectations: to administer uncontroversial, unimaginative justice for at least twenty years, and then to die in his bed of high blood pressure brought on by one too many rich dinners.
He was the very last sort of man to be murdered.
His body was stumbled upon, quite literally, by Sir Gabriel Ward KC, early on the morning of 21 May. It could not be said that Sir Gabriel had spent his career as a barrister in the pursuit of truth, or even of justice, since he never gave much thought to either. He had only an immense respect for the rule of law and for the necessity for precision in its application and certainty in its results.
He was the very last sort of man to become an amateur sleuth.
Gabriel lived alone in the Temple, that cloistered fifteen-acre London bubble in which lawyers have lived and worked undisturbed since the 1300s, amongst the gardens and squares and alleyways huddled around the Temple Church. Every morning, at two minutes to seven, a time when the Temple had scarcely awakened to the working day, Gabriel closed the door firmly on his small set of rooms in King’s Bench Walk and, just to be sure, pressed it three times, although he knew when he first shut it that it was securely locked.
Walking his familiar route, secure within the Temple gates, to the professional chambers from which he practised the law, the real world was both close by and far distant. To the south lay the River Thames, the masts of barges and the funnels of steamships just visible; the seagulls just audible. To the north was Fleet Street, and the throb and rattle of immediacy in its many newspaper offices and printers as the sale of the morning editions began. But Gabriel was scarcely aware of either; he emerged only occasionally and with great reluctance into the world outside the Temple gates. Within them he had all he wanted. Looking from the great dark bulk of the library looming in front of him to the green slope leading from the Terrace to the wide expanse of the lawn, he would often murmur to himself the words of the great Roman advocate Cicero: ‘If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.’
Sometimes, on those mornings when the necessity to finish writing a judgment before court led the Lord Chief Justice to arrive early in the Royal Courts of Justice, he and Gabriel would meet as their paths across the Temple intersected. Gabriel was indifferent to the Lord Chief Justice as a personality and despised him intellectually. They had known one another since the future Lord Chief Justice was eight and Gabriel himself was seven. From prep school he had followed Dunning to Eton, and from Eton to Christ Church, and from Oxford to their pupillages in the Inner Temple. They had both had long legal careers, leading in the Lord Chief Justice’s case to his present position of national fame and distinction, and in Gabriel’s to a reputation for being the ultimate opinion on those most intractable legal problems despaired of by his colleagues at the Bar.
The world considered Lord Dunning to be a sound judge and a decent enough man. Gabriel thought him stupid. Although he was well aware and often said, in his dry, snuffly way, that stupidity was only too plainly no bar to becoming a High Court judge, in the case of the position of the Lord Chief Justice he felt that a little more than being ‘sound’ (a word he always associated with furniture and horses) was required. Despite these feelings he had great respect for office and would not have dreamed of showing any familiarity or discourtesy to the incumbent of the most senior judicial post in England, second in rank only to the Lord Chancellor.
When their paths crossed, therefore, he would unfailingly raise his top hat and say ‘Good morning’, and then after a little pause ‘Lord Chief Justice’. The pause was intended to convey a subtle note of incredulity, combining deference for the office with contempt for the individual. He would have been infuriated to know the depth of the Lord Chief Justice’s indifference to it. Dunning never noticed Gabriel’s pause at all, or indeed Gabriel himself, except as someone who gave him a vaguely comfortable feeling of familiarity. The old chap had never changed, he thought, since he was seven years old: shy, bespectacled, hesitant (that was the nearest he got to noticing Gabriel’s pause), self-contained.
Very occasionally, as Dunning also raised his top hat and called his usual cheery ‘Morning, Ward’, for reasons he had never analysed the Lord Chief Justice would picture the scene at his home. The opulent breakfast room in Stafford Terrace, Kensington with its groaning table; his large family seated there amidst the claustrophobic splendour of mahogany and silver and brocade and mirrors and mezzotints. And if somewhere deep in his subconscious he felt a twinge of indefinable yearning that a more introspective man might have recognised as envy, then he did not analyse that either. Good God, the last thing he would ever want was poor Ward’s lonely life.
That memorable morning of 21 May 1901 started much like any other. Because his routine never varied, Gabriel always found that his mind was one step ahead of his physical actions. So, as he walked across the Terrace to his Chambers in Crown Office Row, he seemed already to feel under his hand the black iron doorknob of number 1, its contours rounded with centuries of paint; and when his hand was indeed on the doorknob, in his mind he was already seating himself at his large mahogany desk with its faded green leather writing surface, and its immaculate piles of papers all neatly tied with pink ribbon.
It was for this reason he at first failed to notice, as he attempted to step over the threshold of his chambers, that lying across it was a body. It was only when his toe encountered an odd, soft obstacle that, coming back from the desk he was already mentally occupying, he found his entry barred. He was at the narrower end of what was only too plainly a corpse, lying on its left side, its face pressed close against the wall, a dark coat covering its torso and a top hat wedged down over its head. Its feet, dusty though well cared for, were bare. It was not difficult to step over the immaculately trousered legs, ending in those naked pink incongruities, and so gain access to the hallway. Instinctively, he did so and, as instinctively, though afterwards he felt a little ashamed of his action, slammed the door on the atrocity on the doorstep.
