| The Scarlet Button | |
| Author: | Anthony Gilbert |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Series: | Arthur Crook |
| Genre: | Mystery thriller |
| Publisher: | Collins Crime Club (UK) Smith and Durrell (US) |
| Release Date: | 1944 |
| Media Type: | |
| Preceded By: | He Came by Night |
| Followed By: | Don't Open the Door |
The Scarlet Button is a 1944 mystery thriller novel by Anthony Gilbert, the pen name of British writer Lucy Beatrice Malleson.[1] It is the fourteenth in her series featuring the London solicitor Arthur Crook, one of the more unscrupulous detectives of the Golden Age.[2] It was published in the United States, initially under the same name and later with the alternative title Murder is Cheap.
James Chigwell a prolific blackmailer is discovered bludgeoned to death. The murderer may be any one of his large number of victims.