Death In The Tunnel
A review of Death in the Tunnel by Miles Burton
Cecil John Charles Street was a prolific writer, using several noms de plume including John Rhode, Cecil Waye, and Miles Burton. Death in the Tunnel, originally published in 1936 and reissued as part of the British Library Crime Classics series, is the thirteenth in his Desmond Merrion series. Merrion is an amateur sleuth, never afraid to think outside of the box and with a fertile and intuitive imagination, and a good friend of Inspector Arnold. The two collaborate to solve what is a tricky locked room mystery set in a railway carriage, first-class, of course, which slowed down when it was going through a tunnel.
My heart sank when I read the first paragraph, perhaps one of the least inviting openings to a novel in the 20th century. I feared I was going to be plunged headlong into an ersatz Wills Crofts saga signalling a tale where knowledge of the minutiae of train timetables was required, the story stopping to deal with interminable testing of alibis. Fortunately, Burton writes with a much lighter touch and while the story does lose its head of steam and careers worringly down branch lines from time to time, it arrives at its grand terminus with an elegant set of solutions to the problem at hand.
The train on which Saxonby, a successful and wealthy businessman, is travelling home on slows down when the driver spots a red signal in the tunnel. It turns green again and the train builds up pace, but during the time in the tunnel, Saxonby, who was alone in a locked compartment, was found dead, shot with a pistol which was lying nearby. It looked like a case of suicide, but there was no apparent reason why the businessman should have taken his own life.
There were no planned works in the tunnel and there were signal boxes at both ends of the tunnel from which there was a perfect view of who went into and out of the tunnel. And why was Saxonby’s railway ticket missing from his wallet? Arnold and Merrion suspect foul play but are perplexed as to how a murder could have taken place, let alone why or by whom, especially as Saxonby taken particular care to ensure that his closest relatives were out of the country at the time and that his confidential secretary was on a business trip to Manchester.
The resolution of how the murder was committed is ingenious, although I am sure I have come across it before in a short story. It leads Merrion to conclude that there were two people involved, A and B, and the rest of the book is taken up with identifying who they are and why they committed murder.
Arnold and Merrion uncover a plot to fleece a business rival and settle old scores, forgery, a duped former employee, the use of an actor to impersonate key characters, and duplicitous assistants. A seemingly cast-iron alibi is proven to be false when Merrion realises that a new-fangled form of transport had been used, an interesting insight into how that form of travel was developing but was not so common as to be considered as an obvious way to get somewhere in a hurry.
The narrative could have got bogged down with the minutiae of the investigations with its many dead ends, but Burton is judicious in his choice of leads to concentrate on. These lead to some engaging and entertaining scenes and encounters, while he disposes of the more mundane lines of enquiry with surprising rapidity. He provides enough information for the reader to deduce by whom and why the murder was committed. This coupled with a narrative laced with more than a touch of humour makes for an entertaining read.
