"As long as Satan walks the earth, evil walks with him. Even here... someone held hands with the devil..."
- Simon Ark (Edward D. Hoch's "City of Brass," from City of Brass and Other Simon Ark Stories, 1971)
Lately, the Dean Street Press began resurrecting
the literary legacy of Winifred Peck, which began with one of her mainstream
works, Bewildering Cares
(1940), together with both of her detective novels and I reviewed one of them
earlier this month – a splendidly imagined mystery entitled The
Warrielaw Jewel (1933). I alluded in that review to Peck's famous
relatives and singled out her younger brother, Ronald A.
Knox, who penned several highly regarded mystery novels. Knox was also a
Catholic priest and a theologian of some renown, but he was not the only family
member who served the church.
The father of Winifred and her five siblings,
one sister and four brothers, was the Right Reverend Edmund A. Knox, fourth
Bishop of Manchester, while another one of her brothers, Wilfred Knox, "earned
distinction as an Anglican clergyman and theologian" – which likely
resulted in a discussion or two between her Protestant and Catholic brothers.
Evidently, Peck drew on her family
background when she briefly returned to our beloved genre with her second, and
last, mystery novel, which was given the Episcopalian-sounding title of Arrest
the Bishop? (1949). The story is set inside the walls of a Bishop's Palace
and takes place in anticipation to both Ordination day and Christmas, but the
arrival of an unpleasant and scandalous character casts a shadow over the
proceedings. However, I should point one or two things before I begin poking
the plot.
Peck dedicated Arrest the Bishop?
to her husband, Sir James Wallace Peck, who helped her plotting the book and
the dedication tells how he "horrified a guest" by announcing at
breakfast they were going to make it "a fatal dose of morphia." Or
terrified her housekeeper with a note asking to tell "Lady Peck we must have
an inquest." This endeared them to me! Secondly, the book, similar to its
predecessor, qualifies as a historical mystery, because the story takes place
in the then recent past, which is two years after World War I – during a dark,
snowy December in the year 1920. So the characters that fought in the trenches
of the Western front add an extra layer to the depiction of ecclesiastical life
at the Bishop's Palace. On top of that, the book can also be read as a
Christmas mystery and all of this makes for an interesting detective story.
The villain of the piece is the wicked
Rev. Thomas Ulder: a silver-tongued drunk and a scoundrel whose tenure as the
head of the Theological College was dogged by "tales of bad management,"
financial discrepancies and muttered curses of his name by candidates who
passed through the college – followed by "definite tales of drunkenness and
dishonesty." He was finally persuaded to retire to a remote village, where
the congregation was small and old, but he seems to have spent his time there
gathering material.
Thomas Ulder's intention to return to the
diocese coincides with the visit of several important guests, namely Canon Wye
and Chancellor Chailly, but the Bishop is thoroughly appalled when he learns
Ulder "is coming out to see him and his guests." On the eve of
ordination, Ulder arrives at the Bishop's Palace, but his health has
deteriorated in the intervening years and collapses as soon as he crossed the
threshold. They placed Ulder in one of the bedrooms, but someone took advantage
of this medical emergency and slipped him a fatal dose of morphine. And this is
where the trouble really begins for the poor Bishop.
Initially, it is assumed Ulder took the
poison himself, which would be bad enough, but a scrap of paper seems to
indicate he had picked up blackmail as a side trade and every name on the list
was present at the time of his death – which both strongly suggest murder. But
as bad as a suicide or murder at the Bishop's Palace, is the person who'll be
in charge of the investigation: Major Mack, the Chief Constable, who is "a
violent Dissenter" and "a real enemy of the Church." Someone who
sneers at the clerical tendency to sweep every hint of a scandal under the rug.
However, I should note here that "the burly Chief Constable" is
described as bursting with prejudices, against prelacy, pacifism and (modern)
women, but his distaste for foreigners did not extend to the Dutch. So he
probably has a point about those white feathers, harlots and fence crawlers.
Personally, I found no reason to dislike the Major. He's a good guy!
Funnily enough, the Major, "who is no
mere agnostic," is assisted by Dick Marlin, ex-military intelligence and
now a Church deacon, who sees himself as a Church Militant. They make for a
surprisingly well-matched pair of characters who ought to have had their own
series of mystery novels. Sadly, they only appeared in this one-off. A large
chunk of their work consists of drawing the past sins from all of the potential
blackmail victims, which also involves one of the Bishop's daughter and this
convinces the Major at one point that he has the "duty to arrest the Bishop."
It was Marlin who convinced him to hold off the arrest for another day.
The introductory chapters, the subsequent
investigation and the depiction of (family) life within the walls of the
Bishop's Palace makes for an excellent and fascinating story, which came close
to being superior to The Warrielaw Jewel, but the solution was prosaic
and uninspired – which prevented the book from being a truly noteworthy
detective novel. A genuine shame because I assumed, throughout the entire
story, that the book was heading to my best-of list for 2016, but the final two
or three chapters prevented that. It's really frustrating when you read a
mystery that's consistently great and then fails you in the end. Anyway...
Thanks for the heads up on this one. It sounds interesting. I have a particular interest in mysteries which were published in the immediate post-World War II period. They seem to have a flavor all their own. They feel like the writings of someone who has awakened from a nightmare and found himself lying in ruins; there is something off-kilter about them that feels interesting. The Golden Age has exhausted itself, and a completely different type of mystery, as in Spillane, is about to make its debut, a type more consistent with the tenor of the times.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, it seems as though Crippen & Landru are finally, after many years, getting ready to publish their Simon Ark volume, because they have finally announced a date of Spring 2017 for publication. This means we will probably see it in about three years' time. I hope they reprint the early stories that have never been reprinted because I always liked those the best.
This one takes place a few years after the First World War and shows glimpses of the aftermath of that war. Most notably in the character of Dick Marlin, who decided that saving souls, one at a time, was the best he could do for the post-war world.
DeleteI once suggested to Douglas Greene, on the GAD group, to just publish The Complete Short Stories by Edward D. Hoch, but even members of the group thought that was a bit much. But good to know a new Hoch collection is looming on the horizon.