"There's the danger of making theory fact. And the full story wasn't told. When is it ever? Well, whatever the truth of that business, old man, from now on the open mind is going to be no mere figure of speech for you and me."- Chief Inspector Dan Pardoe (Dorothy Bowers' Shadows Before, 1939)
Last year, I reviewed Annie Haynes' final
and posthumously published mystery novel, The
Crystal Beads Murder (1930), which was completed upon her untimely
passing by an uncredited colleague and currently the assumption is that the
finishing touch was done by "Anthony
Gilbert" – who would became an accomplished mystery novelist herself in the
succeeding decades. Shamefully, I began to neglect Haynes as soon as I
discovered her and several months had to pass before I returned to her
detective fiction.
Which brings me to the subject of this
blog-post: Who
Killed Charmian Karslake? (1929). The book was another posthumously
published novel, but one Haynes was able to finish before passing away. I
picked this particular book on the assumption that it was a detective story
with a theatrical background, but it turned out to be an old-fashioned,
village-type of mystery such as the one I previously reviewed.
Scenery of Who Killed Charmian
Karslake? is a "quaint old spot," a tiny and quiet village named
Hepton, where the Penn-Moreton family is perked on the top rung of the social
ladder as "the little tin gods of the town."
Hepton Abbey is the ancestral seat of the
Penn-Moreton’s and was bestowed by King Henry VIII "upon his reigning
favorite," during a period known as the Dissolution of the Monasteries,
which was turned in "something of a showplace" without too many
sacrifices to its original ambience – high-up, diamond-paned windows, thick
walls that are "un-desecrated by modern prints" and rooms that had once
served as monks' cells. It's a place that lends itself perfectly to guided
tours whenever guests are being entertained, but the showpiece of the latest house
party at Hepton Abbey is one of the visitors.
The great American actress, Charmian
Karslake, who had taken London by storm had surprisingly accepted an invitation
from Lady Moreton to attend the party. She had "refused all others since
coming to England," but apparently accepted this one on account of her
enormous interest in "antiquities of all kinds" and the "Abbey is
distinctly unique." After all, Karslake wears an old and valuable necklace,
often spoken of as her "sapphire mascot," which was once in the
possession of the "ill-fated Paul of Russia" and "the murdered Queen
Draga of Serbia." Karslake had been warned that misfortune stalked the
owners of the sapphire ball and could potentially attract the "cupidity of
some of the criminal classes," but she laughed at the very notion of her
mascot bringing her bad luck – which is exactly what it seems to have to done.
Charmian Karslake fails to make an
appearance at the breakfast table the following morning and the door to her
bedroom has to be broken down, which reveals a room in confusion and the body
of the famous actress laying on the bed. She had been shot while struggling for
her life. The local police appealed to Scotland Yard and they dispatched one of
their best minds, Inspector Stoddart, to the scene of the crime.
Inspector Stoddart is confronted with a
very respectable cast of potential murderers: Sir Arthur Penn-Moreton and Lady
Moreton. The younger brother of the Lord of the Manor: Richard "Dicky"
Penn-Moreton and his wife Sadie, daughter of Silas P. Jugg, the "canned soup
magnate" from America who observes that "British sleuths seem to be a
bit backward" and cabled one of the "sharpest sleuths in the States"
to make the crossing, but J.B. Harker sadly never makes an appearance. I
would've loved a race to the solution between two detectives. Anyhow, a friend
and barrister of the family, John Larpent, his fiancée, Paula Galbraith, and
Karslake’s French maid, Celeste, further round out the cast of suspects.
However, Stoddart realizes that, in order
to answer the titular question, he has to discover who Charmian Karslake was in
a prior life, because she seemed to very familiar with the village for a stranger.
She also spoke with a man during the party whom she called Peter Hailsham,
which was the name of a "rag-and-bone picker" who sold mixed sweets and
bottles of ginger-pop, but has been dead and buried for decades. And the man
Karslake spoke with vanished after the party.
I think Stoddart's excursion into the
past and reconstruction of Karslake's true identity makes up the best parts of
the book, which deserved a better and stronger conclusion.
Haynes was rather vague or even
contradictory about certain plot-details: when the body was discovered it was
pointed out there were "two tiny burnt holes in the midst of the red stain,"
but the ending mentioned only one "sharp pop." Than there is the
question of the locked bedroom door: did the murderer lock the door after the
deed was done or was the key "knocked out of the way when the door was
broken open," but, if the key was still on the inside of the door, then how
did the murderer manage to escape from the bedroom? A police microscope
confirmed that nobody left the room through the window. And, no, the scientific
principle behind that conclusion was never explained either.
I wonder if Who Killed Charmian
Karslake? was not entirely completed upon Haynes' passing and someone else
had to come in to dot the I's and cross the T's, but overlooked these small,
unanswered plot-details in what appeared as a nearly finished manuscript.
What really finished the book for me was
the person who was picked to fulfill the role of murderer. It felt as a rather
arbitrary choice and the moment I realized this person was the murderer I
cringed. Cringed really, really hard.
So, in summation, I enjoyed a large swath
of the story, but the plot collapsed in the final chapters, which is a shame,
because it started out as a really good detective story.
I read this last week! Like you, I was disappointed, but I thought the book as a whole was lacking. It really felt like a turn of the century mystery, with its physical clues, suspicion falling on a nice young thing, true love going astray, and stilted prose.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear you found the entire story lacking. I enjoyed that turn of the century atmosphere and old-fashioned plot-devices, but they were rendered pretty much ineffective with the poor handling of the ending/solution. I can forgive a lot as long as the plot is reasonable sound.
DeleteHaving read and reviewed all Haynes Inspector Stoddart and Inspector Furnival mysteries last year, I do agree this is one of Haynes' weaker works, especially as you say in its ending. I think the best Haynes novels I have read are The Crime at Tattenham Corner and The Abbey Court Murder (latter of which intelligently incorporates aspects of Lady Audley's Secret).
ReplyDeleteI knew I should have gone for The Crime at Tattenham Corner, instead of this one, but I'll keep that one in mind for when I return to Haynes. Thanks for the recommendations!
DeleteI think some of your questions may well have been related to the late composition and the death of the author. But generally on questions of technical finesse she's of an earlier era.
ReplyDeleteI was okay with the murderer choice, but, lol, I know what you are getting at there! ;)
Catherine Aird pulled a similar trick. Granted, it was done as a joke, but my response to the book was to "get lost." I've yet to return to Aird's work. Suffice to say, I do not like that kind of revelation.
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