MALICE AFORETHOUGHT by Francis Iles
I ordered a copy of MALICE AFORETHOUGHT because it appeared on one of those lists: “most influential Crime/Mystery stories ever written.” I loved the book when it arrived because it was a little hardcover gem, small like a hymnal, with the page ends painted gold and an attached ribbon for a place-marker.
MALICE AFORETHOUGHT was first published in 1931, and reading detective fiction from that era is a little like taking a trip in a time machine. The main character, Dr. Bickleigh, is a GP who lives in a country house large enough to require a servant and host tennis parties. But his wife is used to better: “Julia would consider it middle-class manners to ring a bell herself when there was a man in the room to do it instead.” The Bickleighs summon their servant with a bell, and they have a tennis court on an expansive lawn, but they still consider themselves to be in straightened circumstances financially. “…somehow, there never seemed to be quite enough money…”
It's like reading about the barristers and judges in Cecil Hare or John Mortimer novels. Readers might consider members of those professions to be fairly well-off but, in those books, they just scrape by from fee to fee, and time payment to time payment, feeling sorry for themselves.
I don’t think the authors of period detective fiction are being deliberately provocative, trying to fan working class anger. They are more likely tapping into that Downton-Abbey brand of curiosity where readers enjoy seeing people with servant-bells and tennis-nets struggle, as if they were ordinary humans.
“It was not until several weeks after he decided to murder his wife that Dr. Bickleigh took any active steps in the matter.” The novel’s very first sentence reveals it to be a Colombo-style mystery, where the reader is well aware of who the murderer is. There isn’t the traditional unraveling of clues that comes in a puzzle mystery or standard courtroom drama. The tension comes from watching the murderer avoid capture as long as possible, even as his paranoid little community starts to suspect the truth.
But there is no brilliant Colombo figure in this novel, in fact, Dr. Bickleigh gets away with murdering his obnoxious wife. So, Francis Iles manages to establish a new style of story-telling and immediately subvert it within the same volume. There is justice for Dr. Bickleigh, but a number of plot twists make that justice almost impossible to anticipate.
Physically, Dr. Bickleigh is unprepossessing, to put it kindly. He is a little worm who fancies himself a ladies’ man and is, occasionally and inexplicably, successful. He now wants to pursue a relationship with a young, rich neighbour, Madeleine Cranmere who lives alone, without a chaperone. Dr. Bickleigh impresses Miss Cranmere with his sketching ability, and is allowed to hang around her mansion, more or less, as a suitor.
But Mrs. Bickleigh knows what is going on: “’Oh you needn’t bother to pretend to me,’ cut in his wife… ‘I know perfectly well you’re not to be trusted with any decent gairl. Normally, I’ll think you’ll admit, I don’t interfere with your amusements. If a gairl is fool enough to be taken in by a man like you, she must learn her lesson. But in this case, I warn you, I will not permit it.’” Mrs. Bickleigh thinks Miss Cranmere is a mentally unstable liar, and not a proper mistress for her husband. If he finds someone more suitable, however, she’ll actually consider a divorce.
Because the novel is focused on Dr. Bickleigh’s POV, there are a series of shocking reactions like that from other characters. Dr. Bickleigh is quite self-absorbed, so he is apt to be surprised when other people exert their right to exist, and readers are surprised as well.
Dr. Bickleigh kills his wife by turning her into a morphine addict then administering a fatal dose, making it appear to be a self-inflicted accident. That’s a complex, long-term scam. He secretly medicates his wife with a product that causes severe headaches as a side-effect. Then he prescribes morphine to relieve them. He makes sure that his wife is dipping into his morphine supply, and that her sister is aware of the burgeoning addiction.
Dr. Bickleigh doesn’t even wait for his wife’s corpse to be discovered, he runs to Miss Cranmere’s house and blurts out that his wife has died, before he is actually informed of the fact, via telephone call and maid. But Miss Cranmere had already decided to end their affair and is, in fact, engaged to an age-appropriate young man named Denny Bourne.
It seems like Dr. Bickleigh committed his murder for nothing. But he realizes that Julia was right about Madeleine Cranmere, and he’s glad to be free of her. And life without his nagging wife is exceedingly pleasant. But that good outcome is ultimately undone by self-righteous anger and jealousy. One of Mr. Bickleigh’s former girlfriends, Ivy, is now married to an abusive lawyer, who deeply resents the previous relationship. He is determined to re-open the investigation into Julia Bickleigh’s death as a form of romantic revenge.
Dr. Bickleigh decides to kill Madeleine Cranmere (now Bourne) and the lawyer, William Chatford. He cultivates botulism in a home incubator, using a sample taken from a patient. The botulism is introduced into potted meat sandwiches, which the victims eat at a tea party. They don’t die, but Scotland Yard has become interested in the rumours surrounding Dr. Bickleigh, and he is ultimately charged and tried for his wife’s murder.
The novel then morphs into a courtroom drama, with Madeleine ultimately discredited as an unstable liar on the witness stand, just as Mrs. Bickleigh had prophesied. Mrs. Bickleigh’s corpse is exhumed, but it contains no element of arsenic, which the prosecution had suspected.
Not guilty.
There was, however, typhoid found in Mr. Bickleigh’s home incubator. That means he is immediately re-arrested and charged with murder in relation to the village’s only recent typhoid death: that of Denny Bourne.
Madeleine’s husband actually contracted the disease because of her mansion’s poor sanitary and water services, and Dr. Bickleigh had absolutely nothing to do with it. In fact, he had strongly suggested remedial measures, when he was still courting her.
Dr. Bickleigh is hung, protesting his innocence to the last. But as this novel demonstrates (along with 13 Miss Marples from the same era) English village life is full of barely repressed violence. The homes of Wyvern’s Cross and St. Mary Meade are teeming with it, like dishes in an incubator, and you can’t be completely surprised when random infections spread.
MALICE AFORETHOUGHT was first published in 1931, and reading detective fiction from that era is a little like taking a trip in a time machine. The main character, Dr. Bickleigh, is a GP who lives in a country house large enough to require a servant and host tennis parties. But his wife is used to better: “Julia would consider it middle-class manners to ring a bell herself when there was a man in the room to do it instead.” The Bickleighs summon their servant with a bell, and they have a tennis court on an expansive lawn, but they still consider themselves to be in straightened circumstances financially. “…somehow, there never seemed to be quite enough money…”
It's like reading about the barristers and judges in Cecil Hare or John Mortimer novels. Readers might consider members of those professions to be fairly well-off but, in those books, they just scrape by from fee to fee, and time payment to time payment, feeling sorry for themselves.
I don’t think the authors of period detective fiction are being deliberately provocative, trying to fan working class anger. They are more likely tapping into that Downton-Abbey brand of curiosity where readers enjoy seeing people with servant-bells and tennis-nets struggle, as if they were ordinary humans.
“It was not until several weeks after he decided to murder his wife that Dr. Bickleigh took any active steps in the matter.” The novel’s very first sentence reveals it to be a Colombo-style mystery, where the reader is well aware of who the murderer is. There isn’t the traditional unraveling of clues that comes in a puzzle mystery or standard courtroom drama. The tension comes from watching the murderer avoid capture as long as possible, even as his paranoid little community starts to suspect the truth.
But there is no brilliant Colombo figure in this novel, in fact, Dr. Bickleigh gets away with murdering his obnoxious wife. So, Francis Iles manages to establish a new style of story-telling and immediately subvert it within the same volume. There is justice for Dr. Bickleigh, but a number of plot twists make that justice almost impossible to anticipate.
Physically, Dr. Bickleigh is unprepossessing, to put it kindly. He is a little worm who fancies himself a ladies’ man and is, occasionally and inexplicably, successful. He now wants to pursue a relationship with a young, rich neighbour, Madeleine Cranmere who lives alone, without a chaperone. Dr. Bickleigh impresses Miss Cranmere with his sketching ability, and is allowed to hang around her mansion, more or less, as a suitor.
But Mrs. Bickleigh knows what is going on: “’Oh you needn’t bother to pretend to me,’ cut in his wife… ‘I know perfectly well you’re not to be trusted with any decent gairl. Normally, I’ll think you’ll admit, I don’t interfere with your amusements. If a gairl is fool enough to be taken in by a man like you, she must learn her lesson. But in this case, I warn you, I will not permit it.’” Mrs. Bickleigh thinks Miss Cranmere is a mentally unstable liar, and not a proper mistress for her husband. If he finds someone more suitable, however, she’ll actually consider a divorce.
Because the novel is focused on Dr. Bickleigh’s POV, there are a series of shocking reactions like that from other characters. Dr. Bickleigh is quite self-absorbed, so he is apt to be surprised when other people exert their right to exist, and readers are surprised as well.
Dr. Bickleigh kills his wife by turning her into a morphine addict then administering a fatal dose, making it appear to be a self-inflicted accident. That’s a complex, long-term scam. He secretly medicates his wife with a product that causes severe headaches as a side-effect. Then he prescribes morphine to relieve them. He makes sure that his wife is dipping into his morphine supply, and that her sister is aware of the burgeoning addiction.
Dr. Bickleigh doesn’t even wait for his wife’s corpse to be discovered, he runs to Miss Cranmere’s house and blurts out that his wife has died, before he is actually informed of the fact, via telephone call and maid. But Miss Cranmere had already decided to end their affair and is, in fact, engaged to an age-appropriate young man named Denny Bourne.
It seems like Dr. Bickleigh committed his murder for nothing. But he realizes that Julia was right about Madeleine Cranmere, and he’s glad to be free of her. And life without his nagging wife is exceedingly pleasant. But that good outcome is ultimately undone by self-righteous anger and jealousy. One of Mr. Bickleigh’s former girlfriends, Ivy, is now married to an abusive lawyer, who deeply resents the previous relationship. He is determined to re-open the investigation into Julia Bickleigh’s death as a form of romantic revenge.
Dr. Bickleigh decides to kill Madeleine Cranmere (now Bourne) and the lawyer, William Chatford. He cultivates botulism in a home incubator, using a sample taken from a patient. The botulism is introduced into potted meat sandwiches, which the victims eat at a tea party. They don’t die, but Scotland Yard has become interested in the rumours surrounding Dr. Bickleigh, and he is ultimately charged and tried for his wife’s murder.
The novel then morphs into a courtroom drama, with Madeleine ultimately discredited as an unstable liar on the witness stand, just as Mrs. Bickleigh had prophesied. Mrs. Bickleigh’s corpse is exhumed, but it contains no element of arsenic, which the prosecution had suspected.
Not guilty.
There was, however, typhoid found in Mr. Bickleigh’s home incubator. That means he is immediately re-arrested and charged with murder in relation to the village’s only recent typhoid death: that of Denny Bourne.
Madeleine’s husband actually contracted the disease because of her mansion’s poor sanitary and water services, and Dr. Bickleigh had absolutely nothing to do with it. In fact, he had strongly suggested remedial measures, when he was still courting her.
Dr. Bickleigh is hung, protesting his innocence to the last. But as this novel demonstrates (along with 13 Miss Marples from the same era) English village life is full of barely repressed violence. The homes of Wyvern’s Cross and St. Mary Meade are teeming with it, like dishes in an incubator, and you can’t be completely surprised when random infections spread.
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