Murder — Arnold Bennett

The obvious suspect is rarely the right one, and the person everyone calls generous and kindly is sometimes exactly the person who did it. Arnold Bennett's short story “Murder” builds its entire plot around that gap between reputation and guilt, following an amateur detective who has to look past who people seem to be and focus only on what the evidence actually shows.

In two minutes

In Murder, Arnold Bennett follows the amateur detective Dr. Austin Bond as he investigates the killing of Franting, clears the wrongly suspected Lomax Harder, and traces the crime back to a figure the community had trusted and liked — using the story to dramatise how careful, evidence-based reasoning can overturn a case built only on suspicion and reputation.

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