8/30/19

The Night of Fear (1931) by Moray Dalton

Back in March, Dean Street Press reissued a handful of long out-of-print detective novels by the elusive "Moray Dalton," a penname of Katherine M. Renoir, who wrote close to thirty detective novels branded by resident genre-historian, Curt Evans, as "one of the more significant bodies of work by a Golden Age mystery writer" – which remained accessible "almost solely to connoisseurs with deep pockets" for decades. The Strange Case of Harriet Hall (1936) was recommended by Evans as "one of the finest detective novels" of the period.

I politely disagreed with Evans on The Strange Case of Harriet Hall, but he commented that The Night of Fear (1931) or Death in the Cup (1932) were probably more to my taste.

So, with the final quarter of the year in front of us, I decided to go with Dalton's take on the traditional, Christmas-themed country house mystery. A note for the curious: this review was written in late June.

The Night of Fear opens with a telephone call to Sergeant Lane, of the Parminster constabulary, summoning him to the home of George Tunbridge, Laverne Peveril, where a costumed Christmas party concluded with a game of hide-and-seek in the dark – during which one of the participants found a body in the long gallery. Hugh Darrow is an old school friend of the host, blinded in the Great War, who had hidden himself behind the curtain of an alcove in the gallery. As he sat there waiting, he heard a steady dripping, "like the ticking of a clock," but slower. The sound seemed to come from another alcove and when he investigated he found the body of another party member, Edgar Stallard. Who's known to the general public as "a prolific writer of memoirs of a certain type."

Laverne Peveril was packed with family and guests at the time of the murder: there are Mr. and Mrs. Tunbridge. His cousin, Sir Eustace Tunbridge and his much younger fiancée, Miss Diana Storey, who's accompanied by her domineering grandmother, Mrs. Emily Storey. She arranged the marriage between Sir Eustace and Diana. Two of his old friends, Hugh Darrow and an American, Ruth Clare. There's "a kind of protégée" of Mrs. Tunbridge, Angela Haviland, who brought along her brother, Julian. Jack "Rags" Norris brought his two sisters and two of his undergraduate friends with him. So fourteen potential suspects in all, if you exclude the servants.

Sergeant Lane is glad to have his old friend, Inspector Hugh Collier, staying with him over the holidays and assists him in the initial stages of the investigation, but, after interviewing everyone, the story takes a departure from the conventional country house mystery – resulting in Collier exiting the case on two separate occasions. Normally, in a Golden Age mystery, the local authorities tend to be grateful to have the good fortune to have a reputable inspector or famous amateur detective in the neighborhood when a body turns up, but Dalton broke with that tradition in The Night of Fear.

Colonel Larcombe is the Chief Constable and he sends Collier packing, because he prefers to run his own show with his own men. Only to call him back the following morning when Sergeant Lane is found gassed in his bedroom, but he's again removed from the case after a complaint from Sir Eustace. Collier was replaced by Chief Inspector Purley, a policeman of the treat-'em-rough school, who immediately makes an arrest. And his take on the case was nearly identical to my (incorrect) solution.

I assumed the murder of Stallard was the result of an unfortunate set of circumstances that started with the suggestion of a game of hide and seek in the dark.

You see, Darrow drew a pension as a disabled veteran and my suspicion is that he shammed his blindness, which was discovered by Stallard when he saw the supposedly blind man stumbling around in the dark when the lights went out and this was grist on his mill – because Stallard was a sensationalist who dabbled in blackmail. So he had to be silenced. Dalton provided Purley's case against Darrow with a more tangible motive, but either way, Darrow is placed in the dock. This adds one last name to the list of detectives working on the case.

In his introduction, Evans compared Hermann Glide, a private inquiry agent, to an obscure, little-known Agatha Christie character, Mr. Goby, who appeared in The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928), After the Funeral (1953), Third Girl (1966) and Elephants Can Remember (1972). A wizened little man who looks "like a sick monkey" and is constantly kneading "a lump of modeling clay." Collier recommended Ruth Clare, who's in love with Darrow, to engage Glide to help her prove his innocence. And the clock is ticking!

So, after my first, incorrect solution, I spotted the murderer, but there was a surprising, final twist in the tail of the story. A twist that would have been more effective had it been fairly clued or foreshadowed. Now this bolt out of the blue stands as the only flaw in an otherwise excellent detective story.

All in all, I found The Night of Fear to be a more accomplished detective novel than The Strange Case of Harriet Hall and one of the better Christmas-themed country house mysteries from the Golden Age. Highly recommended for those darker, longer days of December.

On a final, semi-related note: The Night of Fear was published in the same year as Molly Thynne's seasonal mystery novel, The Crime at the Noah's Ark (1931), which made me wonder if these two novels started the tradition of Christmas mystery novels – since every single example I can think of were published after these two mysteries. I know there are some short stories predating them, but not full-length mystery novels.

Just run down the list: Anne Meredith's Portrait of a Murderer (1933), C.H.B. Kitchin's Crime at Christmas (1934), Pierre Véry's L'assassinet du Père Noël (The Murder of Father Christmas, 1934) Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1936), Mavis Doriel Hay's The Santa Klaus Murder (1936), Constance and Gwenyth Little's The Black-Headed Pins (1938), Georgette Heyer's Envious Casca (1941) Francis Duncan's Murder for Christmas (1949), Gladys Mitchell's Groaning Spinney (1950), Cyril Hare's An English Murder (1951), Ellery Queen's The Finishing Stroke (1958) and Ngiao Marsh's Tied Up in Tinsel (1972). So are there are any seasonal mystery novels from the 1910s or 20s that I overlooked?

14 comments:

  1. I share your view on ...Harriet Hall. Never finished it. After the surprise element of the identity of the corpse is revealed (something any reader can figure out before the characters do) I trudged on but lost interest and set it aside with about 80 or so pages left. Just didn't care how it all turned out. However, I'll check this one out later this year based on your high recommendation.

    Later at home I'll check out Hubin for the Christmas mystery list to see if anything was published prior to 1931 and report back my findings. I suspect the detective novel with Christmas themes grew out of the Victorian tradition of ghost stories told and/or set at Christmastime. I'm sure there is one novel that is an amalgam of both ghost story and detective story published in the late 1890s or 1910s.

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    1. "Later at home I'll check out Hubin for the Christmas mystery list to see if anything was published prior to 1931 and report back my findings."

      Yes, please! I already found a slightly earlier title, from 1929, but more on that next week.

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    2. I kind of regret praising Harriet Hall so highly in the intro, I feel I set the book up for criticism! Fortunately the Moray Dalton reprints have indeed been popular with people, so there is that. Of course we already discussed the point of detection versus mystery and I understand your point. I am surprised that John disliked the book so much, as I think it's the sort of crime suspense novel he likes--at least the sort he likes it when it's *he* who has discovered the author. ;) Of course we can't all agree, I thought Nigel Morland's Mrs. Pym books bad, and John apparently loves them. (I've got a review of The Case of the Bricklayer's Aunt coming.)

      All I can say is, I find Moray Dalton one of the most compulsively readable crime writers from the period. She wasn't always strict with purist detection, as she is more of a hybrid figure, looking ahead to the crime novel. But she makes me want to turn pages, and if a writer can do that I'm happy.

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    3. On the midpoint twist in Harriet Hall, lol, all I can say I was surprised! Maybe I should have seen it coming. But I think you're less likely to see it coming if you haven't been told to look for a twist.

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    4. Of course we can't all agree...

      I think this is a testament to the richness of these vintage mysteries, which we all love, but our individual takes on them can vary greatly. There are even some readers who don't like impossible crime fiction, if you can believe such a thing.

      All I can say is, I find Moray Dalton one of the most compulsively readable crime writers from the period.

      You certainly overpraised Harriet Hale, but The Night of Fear is open invitation to read more and still hope The Black Death gets reprinted, because I want to read a detective story set in a post-apocalyptic hellscape!

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    5. Well, it is one of my favorite mysteries from the period, and I said so. I kind of wish I hadn't because I feel like I was setting the book up for a fall in some quarters. It's better to let people draw those conclusions for themselves. I feel with the Moray Daltons I wrote as more of a fan than I usually do. She really is one of my favorites from the period. For me she has the writing and character interest of the Crime Queens without some of the affectations and snobberies. I'll have more to say on the next round of reprints.

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    6. But I would take those five words now, lol, not because I don't believe them but because I'm tired of getting them thrown back in my face. But after you've read so many drearily written mysteries, it's nice to read one that makes you want to turn pages (though John says he had just the opposite reaction). It's still genre literature, of course, but Dalton gets me engaged with the situation of people trapped in a murder investigation. I want to know what happens to the people. When I read her, the books still feel fresh for the period. I know there are people who just care about clueing, etc., and that's fine, but I've become more catholic in my taste in mysteries over the years.

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  2. Isn’t Dancing Death by Christopher Bush (1931) considered a Christmas mystery? I haven’t read it yet (in my TBR pile) so I will bow to those who probably know better than I.

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    1. DSP billed their reprint of Dancing Death as a Christmas mystery, but the story takes place around New Year. So more of a winter mystery.

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    1. I did the same thing, and I wrote the intro! I think Moira Redmond said it's really a Boxing Day mystery.

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    2. I don’t know how you can keep them all straight - but your introductions are great nonetheless - I’ll read it and make the deciding vote 😜.

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  4. Sorry for the off-topic comment, but I want to warn you that the AniWay forum will be closing on Sept 5th, due to new website/lower visitor count/move to Discord. If you want to save something from the old Klassieke Detectives topic, you'd better act fast.

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    1. I don't remember anything particular worth saving from that topic, but thanks for letting me know.

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