Death Came SoftlyDeath Came Softly is a 1943 detective story by E.C.R. Lorac, the pen name of the British writer Edith Caroline Rivett. It was the twenty third entry in her long-running series featuring Chief Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard.SynopsisAn anthropology professor living in the Hermit's cave at Valehead House, his daughter's Devon estate, is founded gassed to death by carbon monoxide one morning. Chief Inspector MacDonald is called in to solve the baffling crime.