The Case Of The Red Brunette
A review of The Case of the Red Brunette by Christopher Bush – 241012
Originally published in 1954 and reissued by Dean Street Press, Bush’s forty-fourth novel in his Ludovic Travers is a bit of a conundrum. It is, as is usual with a Bush novel, a well-thought out and plotted mystery which draws together several disparate strands to create a satisfying whole but there is very little variation in pace and tone and there is more than a little padding as Travers regales us with the minutiae of his days where he is killing time waiting to see someone or for something to happen.
Perhaps a major contributory factor to the monotone of the book is the absence of George Wharton, Travers’ usual sleuthing companion with whom he has a competitive and somewhat uneasy relationship. The book cries out for their repartee and the desire on the part of each of them to outdo the other and get to the solution first. Instead, Travers’ companion is Hallows, a worthy enough individual but, as he is an employee of the Broad Street Detective Agency which Travers owns, is more of a yes man, a doer, and the occasional sounding board. That competitive tension is notable for its absence.
This is a solo effort for the Broad Street Detective Agency, operating outside of the aegis of the Yard, called in by James Landlace to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of his brother, Harry. Harry was a respected pillar of the community, dedicating his time and money to good causes, principally a boys club, but he was found dead in compromising circumstances, in a hotel room with lipstick on his face, shortly after having been visited by a woman with red hair and a man. James, along with Harry’s close friends and associates, are certain that this is so out of character that there is more to it than meets the eye. The police, led by the old school Chief Constable, Major Horace Silby, and his thrusting young inspector, DI Pixmore, are content to accept it as an accidental death.
Harry Landlace had another string to his bow as a councillor, determined to root out corruption within the corridors of the city council. He had already scored a notable success in exposing illicit deals between a builder and a couple of councillors and, the editor of the local newspapers, Mullen, hints, he was on to something even bigger. Was this why he was set up in a honey trap? Was it something to do with the illicit gambling business Travers stumbles upon which seems to have the implicit approval of the police? Or why did a policeman resign in disgust when he was repeatedly asked to do some gardening at Silby’s house?
The first task is to track down the identity of the woman with the red hair. Bush is developing a bit of a fetish about the way women can change the colour of their hair, in two recent novels it had been by hair dye out of a bottle, while here it is by the use of a wig. However, despite the book’s title, the woman, Vera Willmay, has a more distinctive feature, a peculiar wiggle when she walks. At Hallows’ suggestion, Travers sets up an ingenious plan to track her down, using the best of the boys who patronized Landlace’s club. The woman is identified but before she can be of use in Travers’ enquiries, she is murdered.
Nevertheless, Vera brings together a number of disparate themes. She was involved in the gambling operation along with her cousin, the head waiter at the Regal, Mercier aka Draper, and her former husband was a speedway star whose best friend was a youthful Pixmore. Throw in a brooch and a gorgeous antique tea caddy and the square begins to be circled.
What Landlace had stumbled upon was certainly municipal corruption but at a level in these rather more morally lax times which would barely merit a few lines in a newspaper and it is hard to imagine that it would warrant a murder. Still, the desperate do desperate things when reputation is all. Rather reluctantly, Travers accepts the tea caddy for his troubles.
For those who like a gory or ingenious murder, this book is going to disappoint. Harry Landlace’s death was not even murder as he suffered an adverse reaction to chloral hydrate and the honey trappers were left with a body to deal with, although Vera’s death was . This is a well-written, professionally told story that gets us from A to B with more than a little detour, and leaves no loose ends but, for me, it just lacked a little sparkle. Perhaps I am going to have to get used to a post-Whartonian world.
