What Dread Hand?
A review of What Dread Hand? By Elizabeth Gill – 231026
The second of three novels featuring Benvenuto Brown that Elizabeth Gill produced in her tragically short career, What Dread Hand? Was originally published in 1932 and rescued from ill-merited obscurity by Dean Street Press. Taking its title from William Blake’s famous poem from 1794, The Tyger, it is no surprise that much of the book concerns itself with the pursuit and unmasking of The Tiger, a Robin Hood like character who operated in France robbing from the rich who had profiteered from the First World War to give to charities supporting disabled soldiers. But it also alludes to the central mystery, by whose hand was Charles Kulligrew stabbed in the back at the premiere of Martin Pitts’ play, The Lily Flower.
Structurally, the events leading up to the murder of Kulligrew and the unmasking of the culprit form the bookends to what is an entertaining and sometimes thrilling romp through France on several wild goose chases which also serve to eliminate some of the main suspects. The actual solution to the murder is rather like a rabbit pulled out of a hat, Benvenuto Brown, Gill’s amateur sleuth and painter, assembling suspects and interested parties together and getting actress Louise Lafontaine to re-enact her famous solo scene. The appearance of an apparition-like figure during the performance so unsettles the murderer that they throw themself off a parapet and plunge to their death.
Brown is a charmingly eccentric companion and in his slightly off-the-wall way proves remarkably effective. Along the way he also clears up two other mysteries, the identity of the original Tiger, not too difficult when there is a swashbuckling Irish adventurer, full of derring-do, by the name of Terence Gale Rourke in the cast, but also the ersatz Tiger, who has sullied the bandit’s reputation by using excessive violence and even murder. The delivery of this culprit, trussed up in a carpet, is a genuinely funny moment.
There is much humour and comedy to be found in Gill’s pages which makes it a delight to read and while the plot seems to go all over the place and lose sight at times of the main mystery, what carries the book off for me is Gill’s sense of place and the strength of her characterisation. Her descriptions of rural France and the Provence bring the place to life and her careful character development, many of the detours in the story’s development filling in her principals’ backstories, means that her colourful characters come alive in the reader’s mind.
Although Brown is the sleuth, the story is told from the perspective of his cousin, Julia Dallas, Kulligrew’s fiancé with whom she realised she was more a friend than a lover. If nothing but a gal with spirit, Julia joins forces with Brown along with her aunt, Miss Milk, to travel to France – there was even the prospect of them being joined by a parrot – but her attempts to show initiative lead her into danger and to play the role of damsel in distress more times than she would care to remember. She is also very jealous of Louise Lafontaine, Kulligrew’s previous lover, although there is a rapprochement at the end, and she falls too easily for a handsome, dashing chap. She is an interesting, if flawed, character.
The shadow of the First World War is not far away. As well as the activities of the Tiger, a bitter wartime struggle is a tie that binds Kulligrew, Rourke, and Adolf Goetz, the latter who initially appears to be the archetypal baddie but whose character reveals hidden depths. There are car chases, moments of high drama, episodes of pure comedy, and a story which is entertaining, page turning and thrilling. The motivation for the murder might be a little underwhelming but that does not take away from the fact that Gill was an accomplished writer whom the genre lost too early.
