Where did Philip MacDonald derive the pen name "Martin Porlock"? My theory: he got the name by combining two villages in far northeastern Devon, about twenty-five miles apart by Exmoor National Forest, Combe Martin and Porlock. One of the early crime fiction books MacDonald wrote with his father Ronald, The Spandau Quid, was said to show great familiarity with Devon.
You can see Combe Martin and Porlock above in the northeastern corner of the map.
Next, where did the name of the titular house "Friar's Pardon" in Mystery at Friar's Pardon come from? I'm guessing from Rudyard Kipling's 1909 short story "A Habitation Enforced," about an old dilapidated house in rural southern England named Friar's Pardon. In his detective novel The White Crow MacDonald alludes suggestively to having read Kipling's book Soldiers Three as a boy.
My thoughts, anyway!
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