Anthony E. Pratt initially letting holiday flats. It was early in this time that Pratt worked as a solicitor's clerk, an occupation he held for about three years before retiring around 1962 (aged 59). Eventually the Cluedo patent lapsed, and in 1980 Anthony and Elva moved back to Birmingham, where they both enjoyed their retirement years. He continued to play and enjoy music and indulged his love of books including detective fiction. Anthony Pratt developed Alzheimer's disease towards the end of his life and moved into a nursing home, where he died at the age of 90. He is buried in Bromsgrove Cemetery.
Mystery fiction before the 1800s was due in part to the lack of true police forces. Before the Industrial Revolution, many of the towns would have constables and a night watchman at best. Naturally, the constable would be aware of every individual in the town, and crimes were either solved quickly or left unsolved entirely. As people began to crowd into cities, police forces became institutionalized, and the need for detectives was realized – thus the mystery novel arose. An early work of modern mystery fiction, "Das Fräulein von Scuderi" by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1819), was an influence on "The Murders