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Philip Trent #3
Trent Intervenes and Other Stories
Artist, connoisseur and private detective, Philip Trent, features in this classic collection, comprising eleven short stories. Included are “The Genuine Tabard,” in which a clergyman and unique objects d’art are involved in a neat confidence trick;” ‘The Foolproof Lift,” in which a blackmailing valet is found murdered; and “The Ordinary Hairpins,” in which a golden-haired opera singer commits suicide, but Trent is wisely suspicious.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1938
About the author
E.C. Bentley
71 books48 followersE. C. Bentley (full name Edmund Clerihew Bentley; 10 July 1875 – 30 March 1956) was a popular English novelist and humorist of the early twentieth century, and the inventor of the clerihew, an irregular form of humorous verse on biographical topics. One of the best known is this (1905):
Sir Christopher Wren
Said, "I am going to dine with some men.
If anyone calls
Say I am designing St. Paul's."
Bentley was born in London and educated at St Paul's School and Merton College, Oxford. His father, John Edmund Bentley, was professionally a civil servant but was also a rugby union international having played in the first ever international match for England against Scotland in 1871. Bentley worked as a journalist on several newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph.[citation needed] He also worked for the imperialist weekly called The Outlook during the editorship of James Louis Garvin. His first published collection of poetry, titled Biography for Beginners (1905), popularized the clerihew form; it was followed by two other collections, More Biography (1929) and Baseless Biography (1939).[2] His detective novel, Trent's Last Case (1913),[4] was much praised, numbering Dorothy L. Sayers among its admirers, and with its labyrinthine and mystifying plotting can be seen as the first truly modern mystery. It was adapted as a film in 1920, 1929, and 1952. The success of the work inspired him, after 23 years, to write a sequel, Trent's Own Case (1936). There was also a book of Trent short stories, Trent Intervenes. Several of his books were reprinted in the early 2000s by House of Stratus.
From 1936 until 1949 Bentley was president of the Detection Club. He contributed to two crime stories for the club's radio serials broadcast in 1930 and 1931,[5] which were published in 1983 as The Scoop and Behind The Screen. In 1950 he contributed the introduction to a Constable & Co omnibus edition of Damon Runyon's "stories of the bandits of Broadway", which was republished by Penguin Books in 1990 as On Broadway.
He died in 1956 in London at the age of 80. His son Nicolas Bentley was a famous illustrator.
Phonographic recordings of his work "Recordings for the Blind" are heard in the movie Places in the Heart, by the character Mr. Will.
G. K. Chesterton dedicated his popular detective novel on anarchist terrorism, The Man Who Was Thursday, to Edmund Clerihew Bentley, a schoolfriend.
(from Wikipedia)
Sir Christopher Wren
Said, "I am going to dine with some men.
If anyone calls
Say I am designing St. Paul's."
Bentley was born in London and educated at St Paul's School and Merton College, Oxford. His father, John Edmund Bentley, was professionally a civil servant but was also a rugby union international having played in the first ever international match for England against Scotland in 1871. Bentley worked as a journalist on several newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph.[citation needed] He also worked for the imperialist weekly called The Outlook during the editorship of James Louis Garvin. His first published collection of poetry, titled Biography for Beginners (1905), popularized the clerihew form; it was followed by two other collections, More Biography (1929) and Baseless Biography (1939).[2] His detective novel, Trent's Last Case (1913),[4] was much praised, numbering Dorothy L. Sayers among its admirers, and with its labyrinthine and mystifying plotting can be seen as the first truly modern mystery. It was adapted as a film in 1920, 1929, and 1952. The success of the work inspired him, after 23 years, to write a sequel, Trent's Own Case (1936). There was also a book of Trent short stories, Trent Intervenes. Several of his books were reprinted in the early 2000s by House of Stratus.
From 1936 until 1949 Bentley was president of the Detection Club. He contributed to two crime stories for the club's radio serials broadcast in 1930 and 1931,[5] which were published in 1983 as The Scoop and Behind The Screen. In 1950 he contributed the introduction to a Constable & Co omnibus edition of Damon Runyon's "stories of the bandits of Broadway", which was republished by Penguin Books in 1990 as On Broadway.
He died in 1956 in London at the age of 80. His son Nicolas Bentley was a famous illustrator.
Phonographic recordings of his work "Recordings for the Blind" are heard in the movie Places in the Heart, by the character Mr. Will.
G. K. Chesterton dedicated his popular detective novel on anarchist terrorism, The Man Who Was Thursday, to Edmund Clerihew Bentley, a schoolfriend.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
November 5, 2021
Trece relatos cortos de misterio, resueltos con acierto por el pintor y detective aficionado Philip Trent.
Me ha resultado ingenioso, elegante y entretenido.
Me ha resultado ingenioso, elegante y entretenido.
January 22, 2017
Trent Intervenes by E.C. Bentley is the third and final book about painter, newspaper journalist and investigator Phillip Trent. This book is a collection of short stories featuring this interesting investigator.
Trent is a unique person, in some ways reminding me of Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey. He enjoys the investigation, has great intuition and can look at a few clues and come up with a correct and interesting solution. He has an excellent relationship with the police and is regularly asked for his assistance, or, at the very least, they are more than willing to show him their cases and listen to his interpretations.
The stories are for the most part, quite gentle. In many of them the story starts with Trent writing about cases for his newspaper then following up with the investigation. They involve murder, theft, hoodwinking, all the good things. I'm sorry that Bentley only wrote three Trent books as they were all most enjoyable, comfortable reads. While it's nice to finish a series, there is always some sadness knowing there won't be others. (4 stars)
Trent is a unique person, in some ways reminding me of Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey. He enjoys the investigation, has great intuition and can look at a few clues and come up with a correct and interesting solution. He has an excellent relationship with the police and is regularly asked for his assistance, or, at the very least, they are more than willing to show him their cases and listen to his interpretations.
The stories are for the most part, quite gentle. In many of them the story starts with Trent writing about cases for his newspaper then following up with the investigation. They involve murder, theft, hoodwinking, all the good things. I'm sorry that Bentley only wrote three Trent books as they were all most enjoyable, comfortable reads. While it's nice to finish a series, there is always some sadness knowing there won't be others. (4 stars)
February 13, 2026
Superb, clever stories.
February 23, 2015
A brilliant anthology from a maestro in his prime. Some of these crime/detection stories are little more than squibs, but ingenious squibs. The final story is a masterpiece, poignant and elegiac.
January 3, 2023
As with any short story collection it is a bit of a mixed bag and the key to each is the manner Philip Trent unravels the evidence. The Genuine Tabard, a neat and tidy story of art thieves deceiving gullible tourists, is just that – too neat, though the characters work well and Trent's keystone clue suits him superbly: the thief and clerical imposter says he won his rowing oar, which is hung up on the wall, when at All Souls, Oxford. Well, honestly, who but a rogue would make such a mistake?
The Sweet Shot is about murder on the golf course using high explosives. It is a clever way of killing someone, but not clever enough when Trent is around. In the Clever Cockatoo, Sir Peregrine Bosworth is using a drug on his young wife to make her appear unattractive to her many admirers. Trent – and the cockatoo – step in to smooth the waters, as far as possible. A sort of drawing-room farce with a little acid splashed about. The Vanishing Lawyer concerns John Charlton Gayles who has disappeared along with a large amount of his clients' properties. Finding him all comes down to wigs, hairy ones and hairless. It is light in touch, no one is hurt and the villain pays for his crime.
The Inoffensive Captain is perhaps a little over-complicated and stretches credulity quite a bit. It concerns the escape of James Rudmore from Dartmoor and his attempt to recover the diamonds he stole years earlier. Having brought in code-breaking and cross-dressing, Rudmore finally gets away with it. This is despite Trent realising the nature of the subterfuge. As Trent explains to Inspector Muirhead after very nearly capturing the crook: “If only he had remembered to walk along the lower passage like a lady, instead of like a champion lightweight.”
Trent and the Fool-Proof Lift begins with a debatable statement: “One of the commonest forms of fatal accident in the life of the town is falling down a lift shaft.” (Lift equals elevator, in case anyone wonders.) And that tells the story: who pushed Stephen Havelock Hermon to his death? Quite a straightforward tale with a little in the way of forensics to tidy things up. In the Old-Fashioned Apache it is the vanity of a put upon bookseller's assistant that drives him to the attempted murder of a customer. Trent solving the clues is more important than quite a weak story.
Trent and the Bad Dog involves a knife-throwing Italian card-sharp and the murder of James Beadle Hoyt. An English businessman, Gerald Shelley, has serious gambling debts owed to Hoyt and it is left to Trent to show that Shelley could not have been the killer. A well told story that moves along at pace, but it is nothing out of the ordinary. The Public Benefactor is perhaps the silliest of the stories. Colonel White has a justifiable grudge against Mr Somerton, a former judge who had put White in prison for a crime he did not commit. White is also an expert at sleight-if-hand and uses his skills to persuade Somerton that he is losing his mind. Can Trent intervene? The Little Mystery is no more than that as Trent helps an old friend, Marion Silvester, when her flat is used to hide a thug called George Jackson. Most of the story consists of explaining the connection between Jackson and Marion's landlord – and showing how hot-blooded and tricky foreigners can be.
The Unknown Peer, though only short has to be my favourite in this collection. Lord Southrop had disappeared, or had he? As Trent painstakingly follows the clues the case begins to unfold expertly. I loved the defining piece of evidence, something only Trent could have spotted as having importance. Lord Southrop was a well known imbiber of considerable taste and expertise and at the last restaurant he is thought to have used, Trent finds that he ordered a bottle of Chateau Margaux 1922, when the wine list held a Beycheville 1924, cheaper and of far better quality. Proof indeed that the Lord Southrop in the restaurant had not been the real thing. It's not far from being a scene in Wodehouse.
The Ordinary Hairpins is a romanticised piece of nothing much, involving a Norwegian operatic soprano who decides to fake her own drowning in order to return incognito to a simpler life. The hairpins are the big clue for Trent to track her down and understand her motives. Which leaves The Ministering Angel. In more recent times it may have been called The Mystery of the Rock Garden, as the rather ingenious clues to finding an amended will lie in the Latin names of various plants which link to a particular book in the library. It really is quite ingenious. The story also holds a wonderful quote for those with an appreciation of wine. Trent is discussing the rather expensive lunch he has had with a friend and describes the liquid refreshment: “That hock was a poem – a villanelle, for choice.” I think that sums up the collection, it is all so civilized.
The Sweet Shot is about murder on the golf course using high explosives. It is a clever way of killing someone, but not clever enough when Trent is around. In the Clever Cockatoo, Sir Peregrine Bosworth is using a drug on his young wife to make her appear unattractive to her many admirers. Trent – and the cockatoo – step in to smooth the waters, as far as possible. A sort of drawing-room farce with a little acid splashed about. The Vanishing Lawyer concerns John Charlton Gayles who has disappeared along with a large amount of his clients' properties. Finding him all comes down to wigs, hairy ones and hairless. It is light in touch, no one is hurt and the villain pays for his crime.
The Inoffensive Captain is perhaps a little over-complicated and stretches credulity quite a bit. It concerns the escape of James Rudmore from Dartmoor and his attempt to recover the diamonds he stole years earlier. Having brought in code-breaking and cross-dressing, Rudmore finally gets away with it. This is despite Trent realising the nature of the subterfuge. As Trent explains to Inspector Muirhead after very nearly capturing the crook: “If only he had remembered to walk along the lower passage like a lady, instead of like a champion lightweight.”
Trent and the Fool-Proof Lift begins with a debatable statement: “One of the commonest forms of fatal accident in the life of the town is falling down a lift shaft.” (Lift equals elevator, in case anyone wonders.) And that tells the story: who pushed Stephen Havelock Hermon to his death? Quite a straightforward tale with a little in the way of forensics to tidy things up. In the Old-Fashioned Apache it is the vanity of a put upon bookseller's assistant that drives him to the attempted murder of a customer. Trent solving the clues is more important than quite a weak story.
Trent and the Bad Dog involves a knife-throwing Italian card-sharp and the murder of James Beadle Hoyt. An English businessman, Gerald Shelley, has serious gambling debts owed to Hoyt and it is left to Trent to show that Shelley could not have been the killer. A well told story that moves along at pace, but it is nothing out of the ordinary. The Public Benefactor is perhaps the silliest of the stories. Colonel White has a justifiable grudge against Mr Somerton, a former judge who had put White in prison for a crime he did not commit. White is also an expert at sleight-if-hand and uses his skills to persuade Somerton that he is losing his mind. Can Trent intervene? The Little Mystery is no more than that as Trent helps an old friend, Marion Silvester, when her flat is used to hide a thug called George Jackson. Most of the story consists of explaining the connection between Jackson and Marion's landlord – and showing how hot-blooded and tricky foreigners can be.
The Unknown Peer, though only short has to be my favourite in this collection. Lord Southrop had disappeared, or had he? As Trent painstakingly follows the clues the case begins to unfold expertly. I loved the defining piece of evidence, something only Trent could have spotted as having importance. Lord Southrop was a well known imbiber of considerable taste and expertise and at the last restaurant he is thought to have used, Trent finds that he ordered a bottle of Chateau Margaux 1922, when the wine list held a Beycheville 1924, cheaper and of far better quality. Proof indeed that the Lord Southrop in the restaurant had not been the real thing. It's not far from being a scene in Wodehouse.
The Ordinary Hairpins is a romanticised piece of nothing much, involving a Norwegian operatic soprano who decides to fake her own drowning in order to return incognito to a simpler life. The hairpins are the big clue for Trent to track her down and understand her motives. Which leaves The Ministering Angel. In more recent times it may have been called The Mystery of the Rock Garden, as the rather ingenious clues to finding an amended will lie in the Latin names of various plants which link to a particular book in the library. It really is quite ingenious. The story also holds a wonderful quote for those with an appreciation of wine. Trent is discussing the rather expensive lunch he has had with a friend and describes the liquid refreshment: “That hock was a poem – a villanelle, for choice.” I think that sums up the collection, it is all so civilized.
July 7, 2018
After recently reading and reviewing - Trent's Last Case - I found this author very long winded and he often got sidetracked into themes that were not necessary to the plot - even though on the plus side he was innovative in terms of being one of the first to write a whodunnit style of novel - his novel was somewhat laborious to read (especially Trent's love affair). However after reading his collection of short stories (listed below) I was pleasantly surprised to find that much of what irritated me with his first detective novel had been eradicated in this short stories. They were published in a collective form some 25 years later in 1938 (I assume that they were written over the intervening years 1913 - 1938). It is very obvious that he learned from his mistakes and that the short story form - forced him to focus his attention onto the story and plot and didn't allow him to deviate (probably as they appeared in magazines where a limited word count was applied). I very much enjoyed these stories (many of which have appeared in anthologies) as they included working class people (especially working woman) as well as titbit's of cultural change e.g. when London Postcodes added numbers going from SW to SW7, he also showed how ordinary people can work themselves up into the upper echelons of society etc. Bentley uses a more easy to read prose in these stories compared to his first novel and the stories read in my opinion similar to Agatha Christie short stories - nothing spectacular but certainly enjoyable. I would give this book 7.5 out of 10.
The Genuine Tabard
The Sweet Shot
The Clever Cockatoo
The Vanishing Lawyer
The Inoffensive Captain
Trent and the Fool-Proof Lift
The Old-fashioned Apache
Trent and the Bad Dog
The Public Benefactor
The Little Mystery
The Unknown Peer
The Ordinary Hairpins
The Genuine Tabard
The Sweet Shot
The Clever Cockatoo
The Vanishing Lawyer
The Inoffensive Captain
Trent and the Fool-Proof Lift
The Old-fashioned Apache
Trent and the Bad Dog
The Public Benefactor
The Little Mystery
The Unknown Peer
The Ordinary Hairpins
October 3, 2020
Quite a good collection of Golden Age detective shorts from E.C. Bentley. Philip Trent is an extremely unlikely detective as his 'dayjob' is as a portrait artist, although he also seems to job as a Fleet Street hack too. A Jack of may trades it would appear, and master of all too, the author would have us believe. I don't find him a particularly likeable character, but not because he is particularly unpleasant, but just that he has a complacency about him that just defies likeability. He is so sure of his own cleverness and the superiority of his own intellect above that of the regular police. The regular police defer to him in a manner that defies belief, and one often finds him directing operations when it comes down to apprehending criminals. One can say that this is by no means unusual in detective fiction, but it is much more believable when the amateur is at least a private detective by trade, but a portrait artist? So keen is he to show how clever he is that when one perpetrator finally gives himself up and says 'take me in, I'm glad it's all over', Trent actually says 'no, I want to tell you how I worked it all out first', as if the poor man cared!
For all that, the stories are a good read and I can heartily recommend it.
For all that, the stories are a good read and I can heartily recommend it.
November 18, 2022
Trece sutiles y refinados casos a resolver por el pintor y reportero Philip Trent, el notable personaje de E. C. Bentley. Ambientado en la década del 20, estos trece casos muestran el ingenio del autor para descifrar misterios de asesinatos, desapariciones y robos muy bien logrados. Escrito después de “El último caso de Philip Trent”, estos cuentos están ambientados previos a esa novela. Un deleite para los amantes del misterio. Muy recomendable.
November 25, 2019
Uno de los mejores libros que he leído este año. Me encanta el estilo del libro, como presenta los casos, los personajes. Junto con Agatha Christie mi autor favorito de novelas de misterio. Todos los casos me ha gustado, pero me quedo con el caso del campo de golf y con el caso del ascensor. Recomendado para todo los amantes de los misterio.
January 9, 2022
The thirteen stories contained in this edition are lightly-written and easy on the grey cells. Trent is ever observant, using his painterly eye,and journalistic instinct for the telling detail, to great effect.
The best are the first and the last (which has been added to the original set of twelve) and they have both recently been anthologised .
As with many collections, it is best to sample a few at a time as the pace, style and tone are fairly unvarying. There is the occasional hint of waspishness which adds some savour to the overall blandness.
Easy bedtime reading.
3.5 stars.
The best are the first and the last (which has been added to the original set of twelve) and they have both recently been anthologised .
As with many collections, it is best to sample a few at a time as the pace, style and tone are fairly unvarying. There is the occasional hint of waspishness which adds some savour to the overall blandness.
Easy bedtime reading.
3.5 stars.
February 1, 2023
A collection of thirteen short stories featuring E.C. Bentley's series detective Philip Trent, origianally published in 1938.
These are fairly gentle stories with nothing to alarm or disgust the reader; the language and attititudes reflect the time they were first written but not in any extreme way. The book was a pleasant way of passing the time while in no way exercising my mind.
These are fairly gentle stories with nothing to alarm or disgust the reader; the language and attititudes reflect the time they were first written but not in any extreme way. The book was a pleasant way of passing the time while in no way exercising my mind.
December 30, 2018
Collection of quite, quite British mystery short stories. Detective: Philip Trent. Great fun, written in that cozy 1930s-Brit-mystery style — no blood, no shootings, no gruesome anything— that’s perfect for days curling up in an armchair.
Read
August 16, 2021Reseña completa: https://blog-lacavernaliteraria.blogs...
June 11, 2022
Quaint, easily read and most engaging.
January 16, 2025
Short stories. Trent is called on to help solve various mysteries, not necessarily murders. Fun read.
April 11, 2026
Short stories with Detective Trent. Diverting but some better than others. I had read at least one of these in another short story collection
Want to Read
February 10, 2019Synopsis: eleven short stories featuring PI Trent including: The Foolproof Lift, and The Ordinary Hairpins. He always suspects something.
October 25, 2022
Read so far:
The genuine tabard --3
The sweet shot --3
The clever cockatoo --3
The vanishing lawyer --3
The inoffensive captain --2
Trent and the fool-proof lift --3
The old-fashioned Apache --2
Trent and the bad dog --3
The public benefactor --2
The little mystery --3
The unknown peer --3
The ordinary hairpins --3
The ministering angel--3
***
Greedy night--3
The genuine tabard --3
The sweet shot --3
The clever cockatoo --3
The vanishing lawyer --3
The inoffensive captain --2
Trent and the fool-proof lift --3
The old-fashioned Apache --2
Trent and the bad dog --3
The public benefactor --2
The little mystery --3
The unknown peer --3
The ordinary hairpins --3
The ministering angel--3
***
Greedy night--3
October 10, 2011
Trent Intervenes is a fine and brisk collection of short stories where Bentley returns in the 30s to the hero first created in 1913. Trent is not a detective, but an artist, journalist, and keen observer of details and behavior, especially among the English upper class.
November 25, 2016
What an amazing collection of short stories featuring painter and occasional sleuth, Phillip Trent. I think I enjoyed this collection more than the two full-length novels. Perhaps the novels informed this pleasure.
October 6, 2008
Short stories. Written after "Trent's Last Case" although set before.
Bit of a mixed bag - some good, some ok.
Bit of a mixed bag - some good, some ok.
August 1, 2015
A very pleasant collection of stories. Good variety of mysteries solved in a believable manner.
April 1, 2021
Vine a ponerle una estrella más porque releí estos cuentos y me parecieron mejores que la primera vez.
September 29, 2025
For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.com/2025/...
https://crossexaminingcrime.com/2025/...
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews