Constantine reflected on the various means dentists have at their disposal, should they wish to silence their patients ...

Mr Humphrey Davenport, society dentist, has an embarrassing problem - he has managed to get locked out of his own surgery. And to make matters worse, Mrs Charles Miller is locked inside, minus her false teeth. When the door is finally opened, the patient is found with her throat cut.

Dr. Constantine, a fellow patient at the clinic, is a witness to the gruesome discovery. He lends his chess player's brain to solving a locked room mystery with a difference, ably assisted by Detective-Inspector Arkwright. Was the murderer the theatrical Mrs Vallon? Or little Mr Cattistick, who recognized the fortune in jewels around the dead woman's neck? Or perhaps it was Sir Richard Pomfrey, the subject of an unusually venomous look from Mrs Miller shortly before her demise?

Death in the Dentist's Chair was first published in 1932. This new edition, the first in many decades, includes an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.