A murder mystery told in A. J. Alan's unique style. After bumping into an old friend at a radio exhibition, Alan is invited to spend the evening at his friend's house at Chislehurst, where a strange illusion is the prelude to a tragedy. It's altogether a fishy business, and Alan determines to investigate it for himself...

A new, original recording of a classic public domain text, read and performed by Simon Stanhope for Bitesized Audio.

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A. J. Alan was the pseudonym of the multi-talented Leslie Harrison Lambert (1883–1941), an English civil servant and intelligence officer whose readings of his own short stories on the fledgling BBC radio service in the early 1920s were incredibly popular with contemporary audiences. Born in Nottingham, he went to school at Rugby and initially trained as a surveyor. At some point he also trained as a magician and was accepted into the Magic Circle. He developed an interest in amateur radio in the years before the First World War which proved pivotal to his life and career: on the outbreak of war in August 1914 he volunteered to work at a coastguard station intercepting German wireless communications, and by the end of that year was working for the British Admiralty in Naval Intelligence Room 40, which was later to become part of what is now known as GCHQ. Lambert remained in the Intelligence service for the rest of his career. He still held a senior role at the outbreak of the Second World War, and transferred to Bletchley Park where he worked in Hut 8 (alongside Alan Turing amongst many others). However by this stage his health was declining, and he died in December 1941 at the age of 58.

Shortly after the foundation of the BBC in 1922, Lambert contacted the Corporation offering to read his own short stories as radio broadcasts, and he began doing so in January 1924. These readings were given under the pseudonym A. J. Alan, and his real identity was kept a closely-guarded secret, although apparently his voice was once recognised by an old school friend. Lambert/Alan's stories were distinctive in tone, with a highly conversational, off-the-cuff style which belied the intense preparation which went into every episode. The broadcasts were hugely popular with contemporary audiences and made "A. J. Alan" into a household name. The stories themselves are typically a blend of humour and suspense, often with a twist. The majority of them were subsequently published in contemporary newspaper or periodicals, as well as published in book form ('Good Evening, Everyone!' in 1928 and 'A. J. Alan's Second Book' in 1933).

For those interested in seeing what the author looked like, there's a portrait of him available on the GCHQ website (date unknown), copyright the Davenport Collection: https://www.gchq.gov.uk/person/leslie...

Recording © Bitesized Audio 2022.