Martin Fone's Blog, page 126

Sir John Magill’s Last Journey

A review of Sir John Magill’s Last Journey by Freeman Wills Crofts

The best and the indifferent of Freeman Wills Crofts’ murder mysteries are on display in this the sixth in his Inspector French series, originally published in 1930 and reissued as part of the Collins Crime Club series. It contains a well-constructed puzzle which is as much a howdunit as a whodunit, has an excellent opening and a gripping denouement, but is bogged down in the middle as French gets to grips with the minutiae of railway timetables and calculations as to how far a boat could travel a certain distance given its maximum speed constraints.

There are some intriguing historical insights. Much of the novel takes place in Northern Ireland, which Crofts knew well, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) cooperate with Scotland Yard in the form of French in solving the mystery of the disappearance of retired linen businessman, Sir John Magill, who was travelling from London on a rare visit to Belfast. Crofts clearly admires the RUC and is confident that the recent troubles, the war of Independence leading to the founding of the Irish Free State, is behind the country. He does grudgingly admit that Dublin has spruced itself up. Through the lens of historical perspective, this optimism, and the belief in the probity of the RUC, seems sadly misplaced.

The investigation is conducted at a leisurely pace, on sleeper trains, and ferries, and communications between London and Belfast are conducted by telegram, the occasional letter and by phone. French certainly clocks up the miles, selflessly shuttling across the Irish sea, along the Cumberland coast, and Dumfries and Galloway. His investigative style is people-orientated, he is always pursuing witnesses, obtaining statements, checking claims and assertions. No chance remark or clue is missed or not tested. At times he, along with the reader, seem to be going round in circles. The clues are all there to solve the mystery, Crofts is always fair with his reader, but he does not make it easy with his penchant for gritty detail.  

Of course, Magill has been murdered but by whom and why? Hs son, Major Malcolm Magill, and his nephew, Victor, both of whom stand to inherit in the event of Magill’s demise, both have money problems. Magill was lured to Belfast to further his attempts to develop a new product, a mix of silk and linen. There were no plans or papers relating to his invention on his person. Magill’s body is found on Malcolm’s estate and several incidents on the day of his disappearance point the finger of guilt in Malcolm’s direction.

Victor, on the other hand, was away on a sailing trip and seems to have a rock-solid alibi. However, as French’s investigations proceed, matters become more complicated with suggestions that there was a gang involved in trying to steal Magill’s invention. Did it go wrong and was Magill’s death an inevitable consequence of that? The plot twists and turns and while there are precious few suspects and while the identity of the killer is fairly obvious, the mystery lies in the timing and the why of the murder.

French works well with his Irish counterparts, especially M’Clug – there is a curious and irritating convention in the book to replace Mc or Mac with M’ – and there are moments of genuine humour which serve to leaven proceedings. What saves and makes the book for me is the denouement, which has a touch of a thriller to it. In what French claims to be his most complex case, as opposed to his greatest which was the subject of his first adventure, justice ultimately prevails.

If you want to sample just one of Crofts’ books, Sir John Magill’s Last Journey is a perfect example of his style and approach.

Death Comes To Cambers

A review of Death comes to Cambers by E R Punshon

Death comes to Cambers, the sixth in Punshon’s Bobby Owen series, originally published in 1935 and now reissued by Dean Street Press, is another one of those books with a death follows the detective theme. Bobby Owen is spending a weekend at the country pile of Lady Cambers along with his grandmother, Lady Hirlpool, ostensibly to advise her on improving the security of her valuable collection of jewels. Bobby’s aristocratic heritage is alluded to en passant in earlier and later books, but this is the first time it is overtly part of the plotting.

Inevitably, the weekend is disrupted when the body of Lady Cambers is found in the grounds – she has been strangled – and it is later discovered that her jewellery has been stolen. As he is on the scene, Scotland Yard agree to Bobby being co-opted to help the local police, led by Colonel Lawson and his uninspiring yes man of an Inspector, in unravelling what is going on.

For a tale consisting of one murder and a robbery and from the pen of a writer who is known for his direct, no nonsense style, it is an unusually long book and one which really only picks up pace in the latter stages when Bobby frees himself from the constraints of the local investigation, goes solo, and as well as preventing the wrong person from being arrested, thus saving Lawson’s bacon, he reveals the murderer and recovers the jewels. It is a well-constructed plot and there are no loose ends and there is even an amusing and ingenious attempt to create an alibi by the murderer, eschewing mechanical contraptions in favour of harnessing the power of nature. I am no sure it would be that effective, but it caused me to smile.

What contributes to the book’s length is the marvellous array of characters that Punshon has interwoven into the story, most of whom are potential suspects – there are ten in all – and all with varying degrees of motive to do away with the old lady. She uses her wealth to win friends and gain influence, but once they have accepted her silver, she expects them to do as she bids. Lady Cambers wants to interfere in her nephew’s marriage plans and to send her latest protégé, a shopkeeper-cum-amateur archaeologist, Deene, off to the Americas with her maid, Emmers, to avert a brewing storm in the village.

Deene is a fascinating character, convinced that his diggings, financed by Lady Cambers, will unearth the secrets of man’s development, a genetic mutation to the shape of a hand. He anticipates that when he finds the archaeological proof he is searching for, it will make his name and create a bigger wave than Darwin’s evolutionary theories. This put him at odds with the local vicar who is fundamentalist in his views, a creationist who excommunicates Deene and threatens to do the same to Lady Cambers. Punshon is clearly on Deene’s side in the debate and has fun in exploring and testing their theories and preconceptions.

The maid, Emmers, can be seen as a proto feminist. She knows her own mind and does not let her lowly social status stand in her way. She positively bristles when Lawson does not give her the respect that she feels she is due. Then there are a couple of shady characters, Jones, who sees an opportunity to make some money by blackmail, and an American millionaire who is anxious to acquire Lady Cambers’ Cleopatra pearl, as he has the other, to make a matching pair. Lord Cambers, estranged from his wife, and having an affair with a girl from the village, is pressed for cash. His wife’s removal would ease his predicament and he was scene in the vicinity of the crime.

There are red herrings galore and Owen and the local police are taken down many a byway until a confession, some mice, a cipher, and a pen with unusual ink bring clarity, at least in the redoubtable Bobby’s mind, relegating the jewellery theft to a piece of opportunism rather than something central to the murder.           

It is an enjoyable tale which, perhaps, could have been shorter, but Punshon does produce a well-plotted mystery and enjoys shining a light on the mores and attitudes of his time. He is a sadly underrated writer and deserves to be better known.

The Watering Can

The German town of Giessen is home to one of the world’s most curious museums, the Giesskannenmuseum. Situated in Sonnenstrasse, near the town’s famed botanical gardens, it celebrates the common-or-garden watering can, be they ancient or modern, valuable or cheap, large or small, and boasts over a thousand exhibits. Founded in 2011, it is in the perfect spot. After all, giessen means “to sprinkle”.

As plants draw up moisture from the surrounding soil and compost through their roots, the watering can is an invaluable part of a gardener’s armoury, allowing them to point the flow of water precisely where it is needed. A hose pipe, a more scatter gun approach, often means that water lands on the foliage, increasing the risk of scorching as the sun’s rays increase in intensity. Our six have made a small but not insignificant contribution to a global lawn and garden watering equipment market worth $4.9 billion in 2019.

A gardener’s preoccupation with ensuring that their plants do not wilt through want of water is not a modern phenomenon. In the ruins of Herculaneum, destroyed during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD, archaeologists have found vessels which were used to transport water for watering gardens. However, if we define a watering can as a portable container with a handle, a hole for filling it up with water, and a further set of holes through which the contents can be sprinkled, then its prototype can be traced to around the 15th century.

Its primary use, though, was not to water plants but to keep floors clean. Straw and rushes, used to cover floors, were notorious for collecting dust, amongst other things. Periodic watering kept the dust levels down and stopped it from flying around when it was time to replace the covering.

Typically, a chantepleure was used, an earthenware pot shaped like a bell or a jug, with a handle which arched from the vessel’s body to the top of its narrow neck. There was a small hole at the top of the vessel and a series of holes at the bottom.

Its use persisted well into the 19th century, William Whitley recording in his Art of England 1821-37 (1930), that “the flooring of the [London Royal] Academy in 1833…was nothing but bare boards, watered every morning to keep the dust down. The watering pot was used in similar fashion in…the National Gallery”.  

Placing your thumb over the top created enough internal pressure to keep the water inside, but as soon as you lifted it, the contents would flow out through the holes in the bottom of the vessel. With the growth in interest in gardening in the 16th century, horticulturalists were quick to see that it had an application in solving the perennial problem of how to ensure plants were adequately watered.

Thomas Hill, in his The Gardener’s Labyrinth (1577), gave precise instructions on how to use what he called “the common watering potte for the Garden beddes”. The Florists Vade Mecum (1638) did likewise, leading its author to observe that “this serves to water young and tender seedlings for by the motion of your thumb you may cause the water to fall gently upon them more or less as you shall desire”. Unsurprisingly, very few earthenware thumb-pots have survived and so command quite a premium, one selling for a record price of £5,040 at Sothebys in Billinghurst on September 23, 2003.

If you enjoyed this, check out More Curious Questions, available now.

Job Of The Week (6)

Raise your glasses to the new Benedict Goodale. Paul Boswell has just been appointed to the prestigious post of Ale Taster for the Cheshire town of Congleton, a post which has been in existence since 1272. Boswell, formerly employed in the brewing and pub industry for 35 years, took the oath in a ceremony held in the Beartown Tap in Willow Street.

The position of ale taster, which he will hold for a year, was one of four that the town was allowed to appoint under the charter granted to it in 1272. The others were mayor, town crier, and catchpole, a form of debt collector.

The role was a combination of trading standards and weights and measures, designed to ensure that ingredients of the correct type and quality were being used and that the citizens were not being overcharged for their ale. His powers are now ceremonial, no longer able to levy fines on errant publicans or even send them to the stocks or to jail.

Still, it is good to see some customs maintained. Cheers!

Tour Of The Week

Obsession comes in all forms and for Megan Topping from Middleton, near Manchester, there is nothing better than a Greggs sausage roll. She reckons that she spends around £300 a month on them, having eaten over 10,000 since she was introduced to them at the tender age of ten.

Having visited each and every one of the Greggs shops in Greater Manchester, she is on a mission to go where no one has ever gone, probably not even Roger Whiteside, the CEO of the company, to visit every one of its 2,078 stores. She has even bought a car to help her fulfil her ambition, naturally called the Greggsmobile. Megan is quoted as saying that her perfect date is a sit down in Greggs, just the two of them and a couple of sausage rolls, preferably at the Bury St Edmonds which, apparently, is the poshest branch of the lot.

Each to their own, I say, but do not tell her that it is reported only 18 per cent of the roll is made of pork.

Twenty-One Of The Gang

There were plenty of epithets and slang phrases for the state of being drunk. Another to add to the collection is five or seven, a reference to the usual sentence given to a drunk brought before the magistrate, either a fine of five shillings or seven days in jail. James Ware informs us in his Passing English of the Victorian Era that it was so abbreviated by a Mr Hosack, a magistrate, presumably used to and tired of handing down such sentences.

Students are past masters at spending at wasting their time. A game that was popular in the mid-19th century amongst those trying to attain their degree was fly loo, a summer sport. Each participant put some money into a pot and then each took either a lump of sugar or a bit of honey in front of them. The student who attracted the first fly scooped the pot.

The Irish have an endearing sense of poetry in their speech. One of my favourites is a footless stocking without a leg, which sounds so much better than the brutal “nothing”.

Xenophobia or even just plain suspicion of foreigners has lain not too deeply below the Englishman’s skin. Foreigneering coves, Ware declared, “was the most graphic dislike to others than British that has ever been invented”. It strikes me as better than Frenchy, a pejorative term directed towards anyone who seemed to have adopted foreign airs.

A fourpenny cannon was a beef-steak pudding. It cost four pennies but the cannon may have been a reference to its shape – it was round like a cannon ball – or to the hardness of both the contents and the casing of the pie or perhaps both. Either way, it was best washed down with four thick, four pence a quart beer, the cheapest and the muddiest on offer.

St Peter’s Finger

A review of St Peter’s Finger by Gladys Mitchell

There is a lot to admire about a crime novel by Gladys Mitchell. She is not afraid to challenge her reader and, unlike many of her contemporaries, is prepared to take her time in unfolding her tale. Her approach allows her to develop her characters, to build a sense of place and time, to explore the psychology and motivations of some of her suspects, and to write with warmth and no little humour. There is no straight forward ending with the culprit banged to rights, indeed it is difficult to determine whodunit until the very end. As with life, there is uncertainty, the balance of probabilities as opposed to no reasonable doubt, and a quirky moral compass that see justice of a sort delivered but without the rigour and finality of that demanded by the courts.

St Peter’s Finger, the ninth in Mitchell’s Mrs Bradley series, originally published in 1938, has all of this and more. Mrs Bradley, her go-to amateur sleuth, is a complex and endlessly fascinating character, with a quirky sense of dress, saurian appearance, and an acerbic tongue. Behind her eccentric exterior there is a sharp brain, honed by her experience as a psychoanalyst, and keen observational and analytical powers. We have the opportunity to follow her throughout the book as she tries to unravel the goings-on at a school attached to the convent of St Peter in Perpetuity, at the behest of her son, the eminent barrister, Sir Ferdinand Lestrange.   

The tale begins with what might seem to be a rerun of Mitchell’s first Mrs Bradley novel, Speedy Death, a body found lying in a bathtub. The unfortunate victim is Ursula Doyle, an orphan pupil of the convent school. The circumstances of her death are perplexing; she died of carbon monoxide poisoning, but the bath was full, and the taps turned off, the window open, there was no fault with the gas supply, and she was in a bathroom reserved for guests from which pupils were banned and as a meek, rule-abiding pupil she was last person anyone would have thought of breaking the rules.

The coroner ruled it was suicide, the nuns an accident, and Mrs Bradley is increasingly convinced that it was murder. To add spice to the story Ursula was an heiress to a fortune and her two relatives next in line are both at the school. Was the murder an attempt by Mrs Maslin to accelerate her daughter Mary’s prospects of inheriting and, if so, was the other relative, Ulrica, in mortal danger?      Amongst the staff is a PE teacher who was sacked from her previous post for stealing paintings and a woman who killed her husband, although, thanks to Lestrange, she was acquitted of the charge.

There is a bewildering list of characters – Mitchell spends time developing their characters and quirks to the point that we feel we know them – and much of Mrs Bradley’s efforts are focused on pinning down the exact movements of all involved around the time of Ursula’s death. There was a lot of toing and froing at the time and while alibi testing can be a dry subject, Mitchell manages to leaven it all with humour and a characteristic light touch. Further complexity is thrown into the plot when Mrs Bradley suspects there is a plan to relieve the convent of its treasures. And what light will a mouse throw on matters?

The story has a dramatic ending with Mrs Bradley, amongst other and some of the children, trapped in a blazing building. Mrs Bradley’s chauffeur, Palmer, comes into his own here and he has a much more prominent role in the story than in others I have read. I shall look forward to seeing how Mitchell develops his character, if at all. Loose ends, after a fashion, are tied up in a concluding chapter set a little while after the events of the tale.

I enjoyed the book and it kept me guessing until the end. Mitchell is not everyone’s cup of tea, but if you fancy something out of the norm of Golden Age detective fiction, this is as good a place to start as any.

The Case Of The Monday Murders

A review of The Case of the Monday Murders by Christopher Bush

Christopher Bush is one of those murder mystery writers from the so-called Golden Age who had slipped into obscurity but is undergoing a bit of a renaissance thanks to the sterling efforts of those behind Dean Street Press who have reissued the series for a modern readership to discover. The Case of the Monday Murders is the fourteenth novel in Bush’s Ludovic Travers series and was originally published in 1936.

The Detection Club was formed by the leading lights of British crime fiction in 1930. Membership was by invitation and Bush did not join until 1937, Curtis Evans’ excellent introduction informs us. Forearmed with this information it is not hard to see that Ferdinand Pole’s Murder League, a publicity seeking circle of crime writers, is a take-off of the Club and that Travers’ disdain for the League – he is now a crime writer having just published Kensington Gore – may mirror Bush’s feelings. If so, why did he change his mind? Was the novel some kind of cathartic exercise which, once out of the way, convinced him that it might not be as bad as he feared?

Bush also has the newspaper industry in his sights. The journalists at the Evening Blazon are looking for scoops and sensationalism and willing to give Pole the oxygen of publicity by printing his letter in which he claimed that thirteen unsolved murders since 1918 had been committed on a Monday. Was it the work of the same person and would there be more Monday murders? Was there something in it or was it just Pole seeking publicity for himself and his League? The journalists did not care as it made good copy and sold papers.

Pole is an interesting character and floats the idea, later pondered by Richard Hull in Excellent Intentions, of whether it was ever justifiable to kill someone whose removal would benefit society, a thought that horrify us now but one that tapped into the zeitgeist. Inevitably, an economist who had become a recluse after allegations of paedophilia surfaced, T P Luffham, is found dead in his flat, murdered, on a Monday of course. Then on the following Monday, an actress who seems to have successfully covered up her past is murdered. The finger of suspicion seems to be firmly pointed in one direction until they too are murdered, although not on a Monday.

The investigations are led by Wharton of the Yard aka The General and Travers. Their initial scepticism as to whether there is anything in the Monday murder theory gives way to absolute conviction as to the identity of the culprit. What gets them on to the right track in this tale of retribution and murky pasts is a mixture of tidbits picked up in conversations, the phenomenal and uncanny gift of recollection on the part of Palmer, Travers’ man, and the mystery of the disappearing parrot, Charlie.

More could have been made of Charlie, there are too few suspects to make it a challenging mystery and the clues to motivation are more in Travers’ head than on the page. A slip of the tongue by the culprit gives the game away and leads to a thrilling, if somewhat underpowered, denouement, provoked by Travers’ penchant for taking risks and putting himself in harm’s way, a characteristic that leads to a severing of bonhomie, soon patched up, between the stolid Wharton and the more mercurial amateur sleuth.

It is a good read, entertaining enough, with some well-drawn characters, but not one of the best of the series.        

Excellent Intentions

A review of Excellent Intentions by Richard Hull

Is it ever acceptable to murder someone who is so unpleasant that the world would be a better place without them? This is the subplot of Richard Hull’s intriguing, clever but ultimately slightly disappointing novel, Excellent Intentions, the second and last in his Inspector Fenby series, originally published in 1938 and reissued as part of the excellent British Library Crime Classics series. Clearly the answer is no, but in a book written in the age when eugenics and worse was in vogue, the machinations of Justice Smith sees that the strict requirements of the law are met while a form of natural justice ultimately prevails.

I enjoyed Hull’s debut novel, The Murder of My Aunt, with its light-hearted style, gentle humour, and willingness to experiment with form. All of these characteristics are present in this book and what is particularly eye-catching is the way that he chooses to present the story. The structure of the book takes the form of a murder trial with the presentation of the case by the prosecution led by Anstruther Blayton, the defence, the judge’s summary, the jury’s deliberations and the verdict and its aftermath. It is only late on that the identity of who is standing in the dock, accused of the murder of Henry Cargate, who died in a railway carriage after snorting snuff laced with poison.

Interlaced within the reportage of the court case are the investigations into Cargate’s death by Inspector Fenby, the evidence provided by the suspects and their versions of events, and proofs of their statements. There are only four possible suspects, the vicar, Yockleton, a stamp dealer, McPherson, the butler, Raike, and the secretary, Joan Knox Forster, and, in truth, it is not too difficult to work out who is facing trial for their life, even before the big reveal.

Cargate is universally disliked, a rich man who has recently moved into the village to take up residence at Scotney End Hall. He delights in snubbing the village, preferring to hire staff and buy goods from outside of the locale. He is also very moody with a penchant, at least according to Raike, for playing tricks and accusing people of stealing from him.

On the day of the murder, he has an argument with the vicar over village matters, during which he accuses him of stealing the emerald from the inlay of his snuff box. In the afternoon he is visited by Macpherson, the meeting also ending in uproar as he accuses the stamp dealer of ruining his collection by replacing valuable stamps with fakes. The butler, familiar with Cargate’s moods, goes to elaborate lengths to construct an alibi for fear that he will be accused of stealing something or entering his study while he was not there, while Forster seethes with anger at Cargate’s politics.

Much hangs on the precise position of the snuff box and the bottle of poison, which Cargate had bought to destroy some wasps’ nests, both of which were in his study and both of which all of the suspects had the opportunity to tamper with when Cargate was momentarily out of the study. There is some lengthy, and sadly tedious, analysis of the possibilities – it was almost as if I was reading Wills Crofts at times – and more on the minutiae of stamp collecting, such as perforation sizes and overprinting, than I would care to know.

Each of the suspects had opportunities to mix the poison with the snuff and Fenby spends time in exploring the sightlines from the hallway into the study to test alibis. On the balance of probabilities, the right person is standing in the dock but the American alternative title to the book, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, rather gives the game away and points to the artifice in Judge Smith’s summing up which ensures that justice is seen to be and is done.

There are too many loose ends in the story for me and the motivation for murder was a bit thin. I enjoyed Hull’s novel approach to developing a murder mystery, his characterisation, and his wry sense of humour. With a stronger plot, this could have been even better.

Another Slice Of Victoria Sponge

Elizabeth Bird’s poor digestive system also reacted adversely to yeast. Her indefatigable husband, Alfred Bird, he of egg-free custard fame, looked for a solution that would put bread and pastries back on the menu. He found that a mixture of a mild alkali in the form of bicarbonate of soda, and a mild acid, cream of tartar, combined with a filler to absorb moisture, such as cornflour, would, when moistened, produce carbon dioxide. The bubbles from the gas would cause the dough or cake mixture to expand and rise. Alfred had invented what we know as baking powder, an effective substitute for yeast.

His timing could not have been better. In upper class circles luncheon had been introduced in the 18th century to fill the lengthening gap between breakfast and dinner, which was usually served anywhere between seven o’clock and eight-thirty in the evening. Luncheon, though, was normally a light affair, leaving many to endure a long afternoon without any form of refreshment. Anna Russell, the seventh Duchess of Bedford and Queen Victoria’s Lady of the Bedchamber between 1837 and 1841, hit upon an innovation that revolutionised the social world from the 1840s, the taking of afternoon tea.

By four o’clock each afternoon, the Duchess started to feel peckish and would ask her servants to bring a pot of tea and some cakes to her chamber. Finding that this combination filled the gap admirably, she extended invitations to some of her social circle to her rooms at Belvoir Castle at five o’clock to take afternoon tea. On her return to London Anna continued the practice, sending printed cards to her friends inviting them to take tea and a walk with her.

So popular did this novel form of breaking the fast between luncheon and dinner become that other society hostesses soon followed suit. One of whom was Queen Victoria, who, notorious for her very sweet tooth, had, by 1855, made it into a formal occasion by insisting that her ladies wore formal attire. Her table groaned with delicacies, but pride of place was reserved for a light and airy, perfectly risen sponge that was only possible thanks to Alfred Bird’s baking powder. So enamoured was she with the cake that following Albert’s death in 1861 it was named the Victoria sponge in her honour.

Its adoption by the middle classes was assured by its inclusion in Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861), although to the consternation of many an aspiring hostess Isabella’s recipe in her first edition omitted any reference to eggs.

Alfred’s ingenuity knew no bounds. He developed a formula for jelly powder and an egg-substitute and in 1859 built a water barometer. He also produced a set of harmonised glass bowls boasting a range of over five octaves which, his funeral notice observed, “he played with much skill”. Although he did not patent his baking powder, allowing rivals to take a slice of the market and Henry Jones, a Bristol baker, to incorporate it in his self-raising flour, Alfred’s estate was worth around £9,000 when he died on December 15, 1878.

Next time you take a slice of Victoria sponge, spare a thought for Elizabeth Bird’s delicate digestive system and her husband’s ingenuity.

If you enjoyed this, check out More Curious Questions, available now.