The Scarlet Macaw

When celebrated playwright Genevra Tressady is discovered dying in her locked study—an apparent suicide by poison—her household reels in shock. But to those who knew her brilliance and vitality, something doesn’t add up. As her brother Arnold and the enigmatic butler Giovanni attempt to silence her beloved macaw, the bird’s anguished cries—“Elfinella! Elfi—!”—echo a more sinister possibility: murder.

The case is assigned to Inspector Burton of Scotland Yard, whose sharp eyes and sharper tongue rattle the elegant walls of the Tressady home. His questions cut deep, and the cracks in the household’s carefully arranged facade widen. Why does Genevra’s secretary, Jasmine Holland, grow pale at the parrot’s cries? What happened to the missing manuscript she was working on? And who—or what—is Elfinella?

First published in 1923, Gladys Edson Locke’s dazzling locked-room mystery blends psychology, illusion, and the shadowy traces of the past.