I really liked the story, although the execution didn't always work perfectly for me. Some scenes and reactions were a bit overdramatic and the writing was much too long-winded: most of the pages felt too long somehow. However, while the solution was heavily implied from the beginning, probably intentionally to ease the Victorian readers into the idea, the investigation was so much fun and Robert Audley a character I enjoyed following. I think the best aspects of the mystery were in the details and the elements that would become tropes and clichés later on.