The Wrong Letter (1926) by Walter S. Masterman

Walter S. Masterman was an English fiction writer who dabbled in horror, fantasy, science-fiction and detective stories, twenty-six novels in total published between 1926 and 1942, but they all sunk into obscurity upon Masterman's death in 1946 – where they remained until the late 2000s. Ramble House rekindled some interest in his work when they began to reprint his oddball novels, concerning "demonic toads and toxic mistletoe," in 2008.

JJ, of The Invisible Event, has been cultivating a fascination with Masterman's "sprawling, loose style evoking detective fiction's Victorian forebears" ever since reading The Border Line (1936) back in 2016. He keeps returning to the reprints because "there's something fascinating about Masterman's insistence on writing books in this style despite the genre accelerating away from him." John Norris, of Pretty Sinister Books, is a bit more skeptical and not at all "convinced that Masterman is the genius that John Pelan would like us to believe he is." Masterman appears to have been writer who firmly entrenched himself in the pulps and liked to indulge in some of its more fantastic and outré elements (e.g. The Yellow Mistletoe, 1930). So you can probably file most of Masterman's detective (adjacent) fiction away under curiosities and oddities, but there are always exceptions and Masterman debuted with a slightly more conventional, old-fashioned locked room mystery.

Robert Adey mentioned Masterman in his introduction to Locked Room Murders (1991) as the author of "several successful impossible crime novels," like The Wrong Letter (1926), before turning "to more sinister world of giant toads and other misshapen monsters." The Wrong Letter also received a special mention as one of the fourteen additional titles to John Pugmire's 2007 "99 Novels for a Locked Room Library" and JJ selected it for his "A Locked Room Library: One Hundred Recommended Books" as "a remarkably readable and entertaining entry in the world's greatest subgenre." Even better, Ramble House reprinted the once extremely rare The Wrong Letter back in 2018. So why not take a gamble and take JJ up on his recommendation.

First of all, I need to mention that the Ramble House edition includes the original introduction by G.K. Chesterton, "I can say with all sincerity, nay with all solemn responsibility, that this detective mystery deceived me," which, to quote Jim's review of The Wrong Letter, feels "a bit like he's been caught doing something he shouldn't've and is writing this to make amends" – like a shotgun review. On the other hand, Chesterton admits the story is "on many points open to criticism" and the praise is genuine as the story avoids all of the pitfalls of the period mentioned in his preface. More on that in a moment. Secondly, The Wrong Letter is a really, really short novel running only for a svelte 111 pages. Now with that out of the way, let's dive into it. 

The Wrong Letter begins with setting up the plot and introducing the two detectives of the story, Superintendent Arthur Sinclair and Sylvester Collins.

Sylvester Collins had a successful career at the Bar and everyone expected him to "take silk," but he decided on a career as an Inquiry Agent and Amateur Detective. Although he claimed he was "not a Sherlock Holmes or anything like it" and hated the expression. So when his friends wanted to upset or tease him, they referred to him as a regular Sherlock Holmes ("like a red rag to a bull..."). Superintendent Sinclair was "more like the Scotland Yard officer or real life than of fiction" and "made no pretensions to be other than a trained official with no particular brilliance." So he was very grateful to have a friend, like Collins, "who had brains and not his experience." Coincidentally, I mentioned in my previous review of Brian Flynn's The Swinging Death (1948) that I like it when a writer combines the invaluable experience of the professional policeman with the imaginative intelligence of the amateur theorist. It was encouraging to seem them introduced like that.

The story begins with Superintendent Sinclair receiving an anonymous phone call informing him that "the Home Secretary has been murdered at his own house" and when he asked who's speaking, the voice answered "oh, no one in particular, just the murderer." A few minutes later, Collins arrives after getting a call himself that the superintendent wanted to speak with him. So they go to the house of the Home Secretary, Sir James Watson, but he's in the library with the door locked on the inside with the key still in the lock and doesn't respond to the housekeeper's repeated knocking – who confides in them that "there have been some queer things today here." Collins unlocks the door from the outside by turning the key with a pair of pliers and discover the body of the Home Secretary slumped in a chair with a bullet hole in his head! What surprised me here is how carefully the crime scene is treated as they entered it by placing mats on the floor to create a path to the body, because crime scene preservation is not always a big priority in vintage detective stories. 

The Wrong Letter begins as a fairly typical, 1920s detective novel with a body in a locked library with some of the usual characters and potential motives. Sir James Watson was a reclusive widower who lived with his only child and adult daughter, Mabel Watson. And he strongly opposed her relationship with his personal secretary, Eric Sanders. There's also a son, Ronald Watson, who left the house under a dark cloud and simply dropped off the map. However, once the plot has been setup, it kind of gets pushed to the background as Collins begins to pursue Mabel in what can be described an infernal triangle. You have to remember Masterman only gave him a little more than a 100 pages to tell the story. Not that the case comes to complete standstill. Sinclair and Collins have to contend with their superior, Commissioner Boyce, who "subsisted on the brains of his subordinates" and prefers an easy, clean cut solution. One presented to him on a silver platter when a lunatic turns himself in and makes a full confession ("...I killed that dog... because he is not fit to live"). Meanwhile, someone is playing the ghost at the house of Sir James Watson and the press keeps publishing leaks.

It has been reported that Masterman tended to be better at weaving plot-patterns than structuring a story, which is certainly true here and The Wrong Letter would have been a stronger detective story had there been a clearer structuring of the story and plot – in addition to some extra chapters. Nonetheless, Masterman weaved interesting, far-sighted patterns here that ended up holding the somewhat loose storytelling together. More importantly, the pattern weaving allowed him to drop clues and hints even when the focus was not on the investigation with a solution that was definitely original for its time. A few aspects of the overall solution anticipated two better-known (locked room) mysteries, but not necessarily where the locked room-trick is concerned. SPOILER/ROT13: V guvax zbfg ernqref jvyy vzzrqvngryl svther bhg gur zvffvat Yrjvf vf gur cebqvtny fba, Ebanyq, orpnhfr Znfgrezna ehof vg vagb lbhe snpr, ohg gur jnl va juvpu Pbyyvaf svtherf vg bhg (fcbggvat gur snzvyl erfrzoynapr orgjrra n cbegenvg bs Fve Wnzrf naq Yrjvf) vzzrqvngryl erpnyyrq Ntngun Puevfgvr'f Urephyr Cbvebg'f Puevfgznf. Gur ovt chyy va Gur Jebat Yrggre vf gur jub, abg gur ubj be jul, naq jub riraghnyyl raqf hc fbyivat gur zheqre naq vg pregnvayl jnf vaabingvir sbe gur gvzr. Nyna Gubznf gevrq fbzrguvat vaperqvoyl fvzvyvne va uvf 1928 abiry Gur Qrngu bs Ynherapr Ivavat, ohg Znfgrezna orng uvz gb gur chapu ol gjb lrnef. Obgu ner tbbq rknzcyrf ubj fbzr 1920f zlfgrel jevgref jrer gelvat gb zbir njnl sebz gur Qblyrna ren bs gur traer gb svaq n ibvpr bs gurve bja.

Masterman's The Wrong Letter is not a perfect detective novel nor a classic locked room mystery, but certainly a cut, or two, above the average, 1920s detective novel. Even it derives most of its interest today from being a historical artifact representing a period when the genre was transitioning and experienced growing pains (see ROT13 comments). I appreciate Masterman tried to do something fresh and different in 1926, which helped the detective story into the Dazzling Thirties. Just compare it to Robert Brennan's recently reviewed The Toledo Dagger (1927). An embarrassingly bad, third-rate and cliché-ridden dull mess and strongly suspect Ronald A. Knox had a copy of it on his desk when he wrote "The Ten Commandments for Detective Fiction" (1929). The Wrong Letter has its problems and limitations that held it back, sure, but it has some redeeming qualities and the short-length ensured the drawbacks didn't overstay their welcome. It's a pity Masterman's fiction became odder, and odder, because would have loved to seen him develop as a slightly more traditional mystery writer.

That being said, I'm not entirely sure if I want to return to Masterman. Only The Curse of the Reckaviles (1927) looks mildly promising and is listed in Adey's Locked Room Murders. So might hunt down the reprint of that one. If I never return to him, The Wrong Letter stands as a flawed, but enjoyable, ancestor to the pulp-style locked room mysteries by John Russell Fearn and Gerald Verner.