[bobcdy]

This epub contains two of Yate’s adventure novels: Safe Custody (1932) and The Laughing Bacchante (1949). In Safe Custody after inheriting the Castle of Hohenems in Carinthia, Austria, on the death of his uncle Nicholas Ferrers, John Ferrers and his cousin Hubert Constable attempt to gain possession of a priceless collection of 127 large sculpted jewels originally belonging to Pope Alexander the Sixth. His uncle knew these jewels were concealed in the castle but had never been able to find them. The Ferrers are enmeshed in a plot by a gang of criminals headed by the brother of the uncle's secretary. In The Laughing Bacchante, Richard Chandos and Jonathan Mansel help their friend Ferrers move the gems from Hohenem Castle to England in order to avoid confiscation of the castle and its contents by the Nazis upon their imminent takeover of Austria in 1938. To their dismay, both a master British criminal and a Nazi agent try to gain possession of the jewels.

Dornford Yates was the pseudonym of the British novelist, Cecil William Mercer (7 August 1885 – 5 March 1960), whose novels and short stories, some humorous (the Berry books), some thrillers (the Chandos books), were best-sellers in the 21-year interwar period between the First and Second world wars.

In the revised edition v. 1.1, I revised my introduction, slightly changed formatting of the books, and corrected errors that were especially abundant in Safe Custody.