The Pearl of Death (1944)

Having safely snaffled the blood-steeped “Borgia Pearl” from the dastardly clutches of “Giles Conover” (Miles Mander) “Holmes” (Basil Rathbone) is hoist by his own petard when his rather pompous illustration to the museum curator of the flaws of electronic security systems only sees it stolen again! This time, he and “Watson” (Nigel Bruce) have to try to track it down whilst the smug “Lestrade” (Dennis Hoey) has a laugh at their expense. They really haven’t much clue, until a man is murdered in a particularly violent fashion and his body found amidst some smashed china. Then another, then another - all with broken crockery. “Holmes” reckons this might be the clue, but it’s a jigsaw puzzle just to put together one of the fragments of one of the items, there is no chance they can reassemble all of the pieces - except, well maybe there is a pointer to the criminal mastermind concealed amongst all this debris? The denouement is a bit rushed here, but along the way there is plenty of mischief from a Rathbone at his most supercilious and from Bruce who manages to use his keen deductive brain to stop himself gluing his sleeve to his scrapbook. There’s plenty of humour in this one too, a bit of menace and Evelyn Ankers’s “Naomi” proves to be quite adept at disguises and dishwashing - even if you maybe wouldn’t give her a job in a porcelain shop.