The Four False Weapons, first published in 1937, is a detective story by John Dickson Carr

John Dickson Carr

John Dickson Carr was an American author of detective stories, who also published under the pen names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn....

 featuring his series detective Henri Bencolin

Henri Bencolin

Henri Bencolin is a fictional detective created by John Dickson Carr. He is Carr's first series detective, appearing in five "locked-room" and "impossible crime" mystery novels of the 1930s, and four short stories from an even earlier date...

. This novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 is a mystery of the type known as a whodunnit.

Plot summary

Richard Curtis is a junior British barrister entrusted with disentangling a client of the firm, Ralph Douglas, from his involvement with poule de luxe Rose Klonec. The infamous Rose has had more lovers than she can count—she removes all their cash and jewelry in the process, then discards them. Rose's dead body has been found in Douglas's country villa and in the room are a pistol, a razor, a box of poison pills and a stiletto. Henri Bencolin, of the Paris police, proves that none of these four weapons were used to kill Rose, and that she has been the victim of an unusual fifth. The comings and goings at the villa that night are the subject of much investigation. It is not until Bencolin is invited to take a hand at the Corpses' Club to play an 17th century game of chance, basset, that has never been played by any living person, that he resolves the contradictions and solves the crimes.