The Body of a Girl

First, New Scotland Yard and high government officials are concerned about an alarming rise in organized gangster activities, particularly from the Crows, and, under the command of Chief Superintendent Morrissey, determine ways to combat it.

The third component also shows up soon after Mercer's arrival: the discovery on a small island in the Thames of the body of a young woman; she has been completely buried and been there long enough now that only her clothes and bones remain.

Because of a handbag found buried nearby, it becomes nearly certain that the remains are those of Sweetie Sowthistle, a teenage girl who was a well-known and very well-liked local prostitute and who had suddenly vanished two years earlier.

An inquest is called to formally identity the remains but, to the chagrin of the local police (and the apparent indifference of Mercer), evidence is unexpectedly introduced to indicate that the victim was a somewhat older woman who could not have been the missing Sweetie.

A second young woman, the clerk from a local solicitor's office, who also apparently left Stoneferry two years earlier is soon brought into the picture but it proves curiously elusive to determine her actual status: Were those her bones in the sand or had she simply moved to London?

But then there are the Crows, a criminal organization, and a hot car racket, and a literally one but strong armed bandit called John Bull, and all of this is solidly forcefed in an energetic combination of the traditional and the procedural.