Behind Locked Doors

"Is it a big house or is he just out to the police?" 

- Lt. Columbo (Murder Under Glass, 1978)

Looking back at my review of E.C.R. Lorac's Fire in the Thatch (1946), I noted that, while it was a good read, I'd probably end up only remembering the story's depiction of post-WWII England and the same was true for the backdrop of Murder by Matchlight (1945) – which I read before this blog was flung on the web. Lorac obviously knew how to create an evocative surrounding and giving her characters a touch of life, but Rope's End, Rogue's End (1942) indicates Lorac also knew her way around an intricate tangle of plot threads. And is it any wonder the book secured a spot in Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders and Other Impossible Crimes (1991)? Anyhow, on to the review.

Wulfstane Manor is a mansion that served as a fortified holding in the days of the Plantagenets, but has remained untouched since Queen Anne's time and the place is beginning to show its age. Lorac's (almost) turns the old, creaking Wulfstane Manor with its faded and worn furniture in a character in itself: like a very old man sitting quietly in the corner and observing everyone around him. In this case, it's what left of the once wealthy Mallowood clan. The house now belongs to Veronica and her twin brother, Martin, who suffered from infantile paralysis as a teenager and is easily affected by stress, which is partly the reason why their father left them the house – and that caused a row and fall-out between them and their three brothers.

Richard is an adventurer and "brings back unknown primulas and new Tibetan poppies for wealthy gardeners to cherish," while Basil and Paul replenished the lost family wealth by becoming "city wallahs" in the finance sector. It has always been Paul's wish to restore the old family home, but there's a lot of bad blood between Paul and Veronica. And, of course, this family is reunited at Wulfstane the day before Paul leaves for a trip around the world. Nevertheless, he tries a last ditch effort to pursued his sister to sell the house and may even tempered with their already modest income to drive his point home (pun not intended, I swear!).

The exchange between brother and sister has all the courtesy of a meeting between two diplomats from the U.S. and Soviet Union during the Cold War: "How pleasant that we can both express our aversions in a manner so academic, Paul! As a family, our mode of speech is remarkably uncorrupted by either temper or jargon" replied with "Yes. There's still something to be said for breeding... we don't descend to face-slapping tactics in practice, whatever the trend of our feelings..."

Still, the reunion wasn't a complete disaster and a row was prevented, but the following day a gunshot is heard from the upper-floor and the solid, unyielding door to the disused playroom had to be forcefully broken open and what they found was the body of one of the four brothers – a sporting gun with a piece of string leading from his foot to the trigger. A simple and obvious case of suicide, however, loose ends brings Chief Inspector Macdonald in for consultation and begins to ask pesky questions.

Rope's End, Rogue's End is a legitimate locked room mystery and doesn't relay on the cop-out solution of the murderer dumping the key in the room after breaking down the door. I hate those. And, unfortunately, usually found in these second-tier mystery novels. However, the impossibility of the murder actually strengthened the plot of the story, because it's one of few aspects in the overall story that genuinely prevents a haughty armchair detective from being too clever and cute. I think everyone who has read a few detective stories intuitively comes up with the same solution, but, factoring in that two of the four brothers are out of reach (after the murder) and how everyone's movements played out really upset every possible variation of this solution I tried. It had to be right!

I also liked how the locked room problem was presented and treated: the victim was heard moving around in the playroom before the sound of a gunshot and the only escape the window provides is a thirty foot drop. The badly maintained roof is as impassable as a minefield and alternative solutions are discussed/rejected. The actual solution is fairly simple (in theory) in comparison with its presentation, but it's acceptable and original enough to not leave me disappointed.

That being said, Rope End's, Rogue's End is not completely flawless, but it's the best and most skillfully handled detective story I have read from Lorac thus far.

After the Nightmare Has Passed

"Let me have the best solution worked out. Don't argue the matter. The difficulties will argue for themselves."

- Winston Churchill

The names of "E.C.R. Lorac" and "Carol Carnac" were pseudonyms belonging to the same novelist, Edith Caroline Rivitt, whose bibliography is an impressive résumé of a prolific mystery writer who had no problem churning out three or four books a year, but that apparently came at a cost.

If you go to Lorac's GADWiki page, there's a positive comment from the lauded reviewer of the Observer, "Torquamada," praising her pleasant style, ingenuity and sound characterization, which ran contrary to Nick Fuller's experience with Lorac that he described as pedestrian or humdrum books. My only brush with Lorac was Murder by Matchlight (1945), which I read years ago, but the only fragments from that story still clinging to my memory are the atmospheric bits and pieces about London during the blitz of the Second World War. Those dark days when ARP wardens and the wreckages of bombed houses dominated the streetscape, however, I couldn't tell you a single detail about the plot and that's usually not a good sign.

On the other hand, the recollection I did retain of Murder by Matchlight dovetailed nicely with the background of Fire in the Thatch (1946), which is set in post-WWII England and the scars that the war left run through the plot. The charred remains of the crime-scene itself brings back haunting images of bombed-out, London houses. But, first things, first...

The old Devonshire Colonel Roderick St. Cyres has a small cottage on his hands, Little Thatch, laying in neglect after the previous tenants quietly passed away and St. Cyres wants to let the place to someone who can restore the place and its garden to its former glory – except if it's a city dweller who wants to turn the house in a weekend playground. Naturally, the colonel turns down his daughter-in-law, June, who asks on behalf of Tommy Gressingham if he could take the place off his hands. The son of the St. Cyres' and June's husband is still a Prisoner-of-War, and poor June feels like she's wasting away in the countryside and wants to bring some of her friends over for a permanent play date.

St. Cyres had already received a letter of recommendation on behalf of an invalid Navy officer, Nicholas Vaughan, from a Commander Wilton and Vaughan is the one who takes possession of Little Thatch before Gressingham even gets a glimpse of it. Vaughan is a bulk of a man sporting an eye-patch, seeking a quiet life in the country and works hard at restoring the thatched house with its garden, orchards and surrounding pastures. St. Cyres knows he's preparing a home for a woman and while his tenant keeps to himself, Vaughan's blends into the community and they're genuinely upset when he dies in an all-consuming inferno. The local authority is convinced Vaughan was the victim of an unfortunate accident (faulty wiring), but Commander Wilton is convinced there's more to the case than meets the eye and asks Scotland Yard to look into the case – and they send down Chief Inspector MacDonald.

MacDonald is a bland, unassuming character with a sharp mind for facts and spotting a Shakespeare quotation when one is chucked at him, but he's just there to point at the murderer when the time came to wrap up the plot. And that wasn't a smooth job either. MacDonald himself admits that the explanation "sounds complicated in the telling, but the whole performance was possible." It wasn't so much that the solution was bad as it was unconvincing and struck me as a poor-man's John Rhode.

All in all, not a bad read or mystery, but there are definitely problems when the background theme of a nation picking itself up after a devastating war is more interesting than the plot itself, but the fact is that I will probably remember Fire in the Thatch only for its post-WWII content, which forces me to agree with "Torquamada" on one point: the progression from war (Murder by Matchlight) to peace (Fire in the Thatch) is a nice, stylistic cohesive in a series that would otherwise only be bounded together by the presence of Chief Inspector MacDonald.