Book Corner – August 2020 (2)
The Secret of High Eldersham – Miles Burton
Every now and again I read a book for which the description truly bonkers is the only way to summarise it succinctly. Miles Burton’s The Secret of High Eldersham falls into that category. Burton, one of the many noms de plume of Cecil John Street, was a prolific author, writing more than 140 novels during his writing career.
Structurally, there are signs of a tension in the planning of the story, starting off as a conventional detective yarn before veering wildly into more of a thriller as it gets going. Then there is no obvious focal point in the book in relation to the detection. The officer in charge is Inspector Young from the Yard but he is flummoxed by it all, the strange atmosphere of the village and the unhelpfulness of the locals. Desperate for some inspiration that would allow him to solve the murder of the landlord of the village’s pub, Whitehead, he calls in gentleman sleuth Desmond Merrion who appears in around 60 of Burton’s stories.
Merrion is a square-jawed, practical sort of chap who enjoys cracking his grey cells on some fiendish criminal plot. Unlike some other amateur sleuths of this type, he does not have an antipathic relationship with the police. He is more than happy to work alongside and sublimate his ego to the police, or at least his friend, Young. Rather like Lord Peter Wimsey, he brings along his man but, to Burton’s credit, Newport is more sympathetically drawn, capable of acting in his own initiative and not handicapped with a comedy working class accent. Altogether, he is less of a cipher than the hapless Bunter.
Merrion’s arrival, though, rather derails the story. His theory, building upon Young’s initial suspicions, is that this isolated village on the East Anglian coast with a reputation for strangeness and hostility to anyone not born there is in the grips of a tradition that goes back centuries, the practice of witchcraft. Merrion researches the subject and, lo and behold, there is a coven in operation in the village, involving most of the locals. That said, fascinating, amusing and, at times, thrilling as the episodes involving the application of these fantastical ceremonies are, they have barely little to do with the crime that is being investigated, being at best tangential and at worst a considerable amount of padding.
Merrion introduces a further distraction by somewhat improbably falling in love at first sight with the daughter of the local magistrate, Mavis. No shrinking violet is she, and her ownership of a powerboat proves conveniently useful as the denouement draws close. Little much is added to the plot by this dalliance, save that Merrion secures his prize at the end.
And if I was going to be blunt, it is not by sleuthing second to none or the application of faultless logic that the case is solved. Young rather blunders into the solution. The case revolves around drug smuggling – am I just on a run of novels around the period in which drugs feature or was it a particular problem at the time? – and Whitehead’s murder specifically revenge for an arrest. I won’t say any more for fear of spoiling your enjoyment.
I have been overly critical, I fear, as the book could easily have been pruned considerably without losing much. But Burton’s characterisations are good, his writing style encourages the reader to persevere even if they may have doubts about the sanity of the plotting and the overall result is a satisfying piece of entertainment. Great literature it isn’t but British Library Crime Classics has revived an easy and absorbing read. Often that is all we need at times.
