5/18/18

Dead Man Twice (1930) by Christopher Bush

Dead Man Twice (1930) is the third title in Christopher Bush's Ludovic "Ludo" Travers series and has been recommended to me several times by Nick Fuller and Curt Evans. The book considered to be one of the stronger titles from the early period of the series and not entirely without reason.

Reprinted by Dean Street Press
In this early title, Travers is still working as a financial adviser for that distinguished inquiry, advertising and publicity firm, Durangos Limited, which means that his role is still that of a chameleon in the background and cedes the stage to his friends, Superintendent Wharton and John Franklin – head of the Detective Bureau of Durangos Ltd. So the story has a slightly different feeling than those that have a more prominent role for Travers.

Franklin is visited in his office by Kenneth Hayles, a writer of hackneyed, cliché-ridden thrillers, who wants to use him and his office as a model for his next novel, but Hayles also co-authored Two Years in the Ring. A book he wrote together with Michael France, a gentleman boxer and heavyweight champion of Europe, who's scheduled to fight Toni Ferroni in New York and everyone expects him to bring the world title back to England. So their meeting ends with Franklin getting an opportunity to meet the public hero of the moment.

However, Frankling comes down to Earth again when France wants to consult him on a string of threatening letters, which gave him a few days to leave the country or his "numbers up," signed by "Lucy" and gave Franklin three specimens of handwriting to compare – all three specimens were procured from people who stand close to the boxer. France also asks Franklin to drop by his house, but when he arrived it looks as if nobody is home. The hammering with the door knocker and ringing the bell gets no response whatsoever.

After a while, the valet of France, Mr. Usher, arrives and opens the door, but what they find inside is a scene as bizarre as it's inexplicable.

The body of the butler, named Somers, was lying on the rug of the lounge with tumbler next to his outstretched arm and on the table, next to the decanter and siphon, stood "a small, blue bottle with a red poison label." A suicide note is found, "this is really the end of everything," but Usher recognizes the handwriting as that of his master, Michael France! So this prompts them to further explore the house and they find a second body in an upstairs room. France lay on the bedroom floor with a bullet wound in his forehead and a tiny, toy-like pistol two feet from his outstretched hand. However, the medical evidence reveals that the shot was fired from "a devilish awkward position" and "the bullet might have missed the brain altogether." And the awkward angle of the bullet is a clue as to what happened in that bedroom!

Travers is only a background figure in the investigation, who analyzes the published work of France and Hayles, which leaves all of the legwork to Franklin and Wharton. Once again, the performance Superintendent George "The General" Wharton demonstrated that we lost a great lead-character for a series of detective novels.

Layer by layer, Wharton slowly peels away the mysteries and is "worming his way into some subterranean and buried essential," but the complications are numerous and one of these is that there was a six-inch circle of glass cut out of the window – except this was not a garden-variety burglary. And then there's France's involvement with the wife of the well-heeled, aristocratic racing motorist and his chief financial backer, Peter Claire, who had planted Usher in France's house to keep an eye out. Compounding these confusing jumble of problems and the contradictory facts at the scene of the crime are a couple of durable alibis.

The unbreakable alibi is a trademark of Bush's detective fiction and this begs comparison with another craftsman of cast-iron alibis, Freeman Wills Crofts, but Bush's plotting technique actually makes him closer to John Dickson Carr and John Rhode than to Crofts.

The murder of France could have easily been presented as an impossible situation and Bush's plots are often borderline or quasi-impossibilities (e.g. The Case of the Bonfire Body, 1936), but rarely crosses the border to become a full-fledged locked room mystery. Regardless, this could have been a nifty locked room yarn and the method, which also helped the murderer forging a cast-iron alibi, could have been plucked from the pages of Rhode's mystery novel. As a matter of fact, I have seen variations of this trick in the works of both Carr and Rhode.

Nevertheless, this could have been a nifty locked room and the murder method is something straight out of of a Rhode's novel. As a matter of fact, I have come across variations of this trick in the works of both Carr and Rhode. John Russell Fearn even used a very similar trick to create an actual locked room murder, but I believe Dead Man Twice predates all of them.

So I really liked this plot-strand of the story, which came with diagrams and floorplans, but the poisoning plot wasn't bad either and the nature of the crime, with all its complexities, fitted the personality of the murderer like a glove – which nicely contrasted with the more plot-technical killing of France. But the best part of the plot is how these plot-strands were intertwined and threw one of these plots in disarray.

Only thing you can hold against the plot is that the identity of the culprits were rather obvious. A problem corrected by the intriguing question as to how the murders were committed and the attempt to fit every piece of the puzzle together to form a logical and coherent picture of all the events.

I've not read the first title in this series, The Plumley Inheritance (1926), but feel confident in stating that Dead Man Twice is the first of Bush's baroque-style detective novels that introduced his favorite plot-device of having two murders taking place in close proximity of each other and link them together with a bale of plot-threads. An approach he used to great effect in Dancing Death (1931) and The Case of the April Fools (1933). The result is usually a pleasantly intricate, mind-twisting and challenging detective story and Dead Man Twice is not the exception to this rule.

Dead Man Twice is a grand old-fashioned detective story and more than worthy of the praise it has received, but, personally, I would not go as far as placing it right alongside the superb Cut Throat (1932) and the equally superb The Case of the Missing Minutes (1936). Dead Man Twice stands a step below them along with the previously mentioned The Case of the April Fools, The Case of the 100% Alibis (1934) and the Carrian The Case of the Chinese Gong (1935), which is not a bad company to be in.

So, a long story short, I continue to enjoy my exploration of Bush's detective fiction and will return to him soon, but first have to pick a title. Currently, I have whittled down my options to three titles: The Case of the Dead Shepherd (1934), The Case of the Hanging Rope (1937) and The Case of the Green Felt Hat (1939). Ah, luxury problems!

15 comments:

  1. Hello TomCat,do you follow the Detective Conan anime series ?How many episodes have you watched up until now ?Was there a episode inspired by the hound of baskervilles where a flaming hound was the main mystery?
    Also I just wanted to let you know that Ho Ling has been very disrespectful to me in his blog.He's a complete jerk & self-centered Guy.I asked him some questions regarding some matter.Instead of answering them,he ignores me & on top of that he insults me.Which is why I have decided not to follow his blog anymore,and from now on I will follow yours.You have been kind enough to answer questions unrelated to your post,unlike him.The reason he gets angry is because I ask questions.But when someone else asks irrelevant questions,he answers them.Dont know why he hates me.Hope you understand me

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    1. You must be referring to the Inubushi Castle, The Ablazed Demon Dog episode. I do remember seeing that set of anime episodes.

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    2. Yes,you are right.Did you like it,Wing Wong?

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    3. Hmm, a tough one to judge. On one hand, most of the cases where Heiji shows up, I do enjoy. The solution behind how the flaming hound works does border on the fantastical though, in my opinion.

      Gosho Aoyama is very fond of intricate mechanical tricks, and whether it manages to be presented as being feasible/believable does vary a lot between stories. But I will give the man credit just for the sheer volume of stories he had to produce over the years --- he is able to come up with some pretty bizarre or intriguing setups/crime scenes from time to time.

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    4. Thanks for your reply,Wing Wong.

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  2. Sorry for posting again.The Identity Of The Black Organisation Boss has created a shock among readers,but has also created a new mystery.Its like knowing the name of someone,but you dont know how he looks like,where he is.It was this kind of reveal.Dont you want to know the identity?

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    1. "Hello TomCat,do you follow the Detective Conan anime series ?How many episodes have you watched up until now ?Was there a episode inspired by the hound of baskervilles where a flaming hound was the main mystery? "

      No, I only follow the North American release of the manga and have only seen a handful of episodes, which I recently reviewed. So no idea whether there's an episode inspired by The House of the Baskervilles.

      "Dont you want to know the identity?"

      No. Like I said, I follow the English releases of the manga and like to learn for myself. By the way, I want to re-read the whole series when the English editions reach volume 70. That would be a good moment to be on the lookout for the Boss.

      I'm not getting involved with the problems you have with Ho-Ling. You sort that out with him.

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  3. Thanks for your reply once again.

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  4. TomCat,I was recently researching about Asian Detective Fiction.To my surprise,I found out only India & Japan were the pioneers of Detective Fiction Genre during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.Though India is a country with many states,only one particular state ( Bengal ) took keen interest in this genre.So many Golden Age Detective Fiction Novels In India were written in Bengali.They were heavily inspired by the Conan Doyle,Christie & Chesterton Novels.At the same time in Japan,Detective Fiction Genre was introduced by Ranpo,Yokomizo Seishi & others.They drew their inspiration from Dickson Carr,Queen Novels.So, while Indian Detective Fiction Novels were classical detective stories of whodunnit,Japanese Detective Novels were whodunnit & howdunnit.They gave more emphasis on howdunnit & trick oriented crimes.Sadly after World War 2,the standard of Indian detective Stories declined rapidly whereas the standard of Japanese detective stories grew rapidly.Add to that manga effect which is a culture in Japan,so more writers emerged.At present,Japan is reaping the benefits,whereas Classical Indian Detective Fiction Novels have become extinct.Modern Indian Writers put emphasis on crime thrillers,not detective novels.I recommend you to try out 2 Indian Detective Books in particular (translated in English from Bengali ) which was written in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.Then you can have an idea on Indian Detective Fiction which was the first Asian country to succesfully adapt the genre.Here's the link of the 2 books
    www.ebooks-downloads.net/ebook-pdf/picture-imperfect-and-other-byomkesh-bakshi-mysteries

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    1. I couldn't exactly tell you why detective stories flourished in Bengal, but it probably has something to do with the presence of the British in combination with the regional history and interest in philosophy and literature.

      I have already have two short story collections by Saradindu Bandyopadhyay on my TBR pile. They were added after reading "The Venom of the Tarantula" in The Realm of the Impossible.

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    2. How did you get introduced to Indian Detective Fiction ? Did someone suggest to you or you researched on your ownn ? What was your opinion after reading Indian Detective Fiction for the first time?Have you ever reviewed any particular story?If not,will you please do a review on Indian Detective Fiction in the near future?

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    3. I only read "The Venom of the Tarantula," my only exposure to Indian detective fiction, which I reviewed as part of The Realm of the Impossible anthology. Yes, I will return to the Indian detective story, sometime, in the future.

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    4. Thanks for your reply,TomCat

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  5. I agree with your take. For me the telling wasn't as cleanly cut as it could have been but it has a lot of ingenious elements.

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    1. As far as plot and ingenuity goes, this one really set the tone for what was to come in the series. I'm looking forward to the next ten releases. Maybe I'll do another three, back-to-back, reviews of the war-themed titles from that upcoming batch.

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