Only 2 of the stories involved Dr. Thorndyke (The Missing Mortgagee & Percival Bland's Proxy) which was a disappointment. Of the others, one was more of a ghost story than a mystery (The Attorney's Conscience) and another implied supernatural effects (The Bronze Parrot). The Great Portrait Mystery was the best of the non-Thorndyke stories. ( )

R. Austin Freeman gave up writing across the years of WWI, resuming his literary career with this collection of short stories, which were evidently written before the war, but not published until 1918. Contrary to what some sources would have us believe, there is no story here featuring Dr John Thorndyke, and this collection forms no part of that series. There are five stories in this work, each one of them built around the search for, or acquisition of (legally or otherwise), valuable artefacts; and the effect of this upon the individuals involved.

The title story is the longest in the volume, and centres upon the elaborate theft from the National Gallery of a portrait of James II; only for the mystery to deepen when the portrait is subsequently returned. It is evident to Joseph Fittleworth, aspiring artist and part-time curator, who to his mortification was actually present when the portrait was stolen, that the theft was about more than the intrinsic worth of the painting, and he devotes himself to solving the puzzle - in the process discovering a startling secret in his fiancé's family, and unmasking a most unlikely gang of thieves...

In The Bronze Parrot, the meek but good-natured curate Deodatus Jawley is bullied and taken advantage of by almost everyone around him, chiefly the Reverend and Mrs Augustus Bodley; but all that changes when Jawley, watching the unloading of a ship from West Africa at the docks, finds a small bronze parrot that once belonged to an African war chief - and undergoes a startling personality change... In Powder Blue And Hawthorn, a criminal gang pulls off a daring robbery of priceless porcelain, and then concocts an elaborate scheme to hide it which involves a lead-lined coffin and a fake funeral. What, then, are the feelings of the gang-members when, upon opening the coffin to retrieve their booty, they find it occupied by a dead body...? In The Attorney's Conscience, a long-standing mystery of identity and inheritance is finally solved by apparently supernatural means, as whoever holds a particular old book begins to experience inexplicable phenomena... And in The Luck Of Barnabas Mudge, a bricklayer discovers within a wall slated for demolition a hidden jar filled with gold sovereigns - and must then find some means of accounting for his sudden wealth...

Although they are certainly not entirely grim and serious, the nature of the Thorndyke mysteries prevents their author from too often indulging his obvious sense of humour; and there is almost a sense of relief about this collection of stories, which vary in tone from the outright comedy of the worm turning in The Bronze Parrot to the amusingly macabre thwarting of the criminal gang in Powder Blue And Hawthorn. In context, the most surprising story is certainly The Attorney's Conscience, in which the humour fades away and the supernatural is played entirely straight. All of the stories, however, are both entertaining and clever, and none of them outstays its welcome. As a whole, this volume provides a good introduction to the style of R. Austin Freeman, as well as displaying another side to his talents.