Baynard
Kendrick was a detective novelist and one of the founding members
of the Mystery Writers of America, even serving as their first
president, but Kendrick's most enduring contribution to the American
detective story was his sightless private-eye, Captain Duncan
Maclain, who was used by the late Stan Lee as a moden for Daredevil –
a blind lawyer and resident superhero of Hell's Kitchen. So you can
argue Captain Maclain is the bridge between the (pulp) detective and
comic book superheroes.
Captain Duncan Maclain
lost his eyesight during the First World War, but "endless hours
of rigorous training" sharpened his remaining senses and
eventually turned his disability into a strength.
The office of his
detective agency is fitted with high-tech recording equipment and has
a subbasement, or "Bat Cave," where he practices blind target
shooting with his friend and partner, Spud Savage. Over a period of
two decades, Captain Maclain had tender fingertips trained in the
sense of touch, muscles wracked with disciplined exercise and "keen
ears" deafened by "ten thousand shots from an automatic"
while he learned "to shoot at sound." And, as an extension
of his acquired skills, he has two specially trained German
Shepherds, Schnuke and Driest.
In the first novel of the
series, The
Last Express (1937), Captain Maclain proclaimed he had
reversed "the old adage about the land of the blind where the
one-eyed man was king," because he had become king in "a
land of two-eyed detectives" – none of whom knew how to see
as well as he did. However, his blindness is not merely a cheap
gimmick. The books are generally very well written and cunningly
plotted (e.g. The
Whistling Hangman, 1937).
So, after having
neglected this series for years, I decided to finally return to it
and settled on Death Knell (1945).
Death Knell is the
fifth entry in the series and represents an unusual personal murder
case for Captain Maclain, because the people involved are friends of
the woman he loved, Sybella Ford. A group of people who had
unfortunately gotten themselves into "a nasty jam."
The backdrop of the story
is a luxury suite, on the fourteenth floor of the Arday Apartments on
Tenth Street, which is the home of a popular novelist and gun
collector, Larmar Jordan. Jordan lives together with his wife, Lucia,
a live-in secretary, domestic servants and a cocker spaniel, Winnie.
A homely picture of a sophisticated, highbrow New York household, but
during a cocktail party, Captain Maclain notices that not everything
is as it appears.
Troy Singleton is "mistress number thirteen," or "is it twenty-four,"
who unexpectedly turns up at the cocktail party, claiming to have
received an invitation, but nobody is aware of takes responsibility
for this tactless move and she returns to the apartment the following
day – which has fatal consequences. Jordan is all alone with
Singleton in the apartment when the latter is shot on the balcony as "the carillon across the street began to chime." The
murder weapon is "a single-shot, nine-millimeter German gun"
from Jordan's extensive firearm collection and happened to be only
person who could have pulled the trigger. So the police arrests him
on suspicion of murder, because the involvement of an unknown hand
appears to be a physical impossibility.
Captain Maclain is asked
by Lucia to prove her husband innocent and this requires him to find
a murderer who could not possibly have been there. And the only
possible answer is "so crazy" he refuses to confide in the
police. However, he says it could have had something to do with "the
man in a tower" across the street, but the answer is more
original than a simple sniper. After all, Singleton was shot at close
range. Captain Maclain has to match the murder method to a number of
suspects connected to either Jordan or Singleton and these suspects
include a literary agent, Sarah Hanley. A newspaper reporter, Bob
Morse, who writes profiles for the Globe-Tribune and Brownie
Mitchell, a firearms expert, who's cataloging Joran's weapon's
collection. Martin Gallagher is Singleton's husband and she never
expected him to "ever get back from the war," but turned
up right after the shooting.
So with an impossible
murder on the balcony of a fourteenth floor apartment and a troupe of
suspects makes this one of the more traditionally-styled, less pulpy,
detective stories in the series, but one with more emphasis on the
characters than the plot – which is relatively easy to solve. Once
you know how it was done, you'll know who was behind it. Nonetheless,
the story offers a brief, but interesting, glances in the psyche of
Captain Maclain.
Captain Maclain protected
himself from melancholy, "always dangerous to a blind man,"
with "an armor of mental steel," but underneath is a more
vulnerable human being who mostly lived for the people around him.
Like Spud, Sybella and the dogs. Life had hurt him badly. The book
gives a particular touching description of the footsteps of his
father and mother, which had become familiar and "something to
look forward to." But then they had silenced and "life had
gone on." Now this can come across as soap opera writing, but
Captain Maclain is an interesting enough character to forgive the
dramatic touchings.
There are, however, some
more cheerful passages in his life: Captain Maclain can find "utter
relaxation in music and talking books" or "the ability to
read himself to sleep on long cold nights with a volume in Braille
tucked under the covers beside him" and "the quilt pulled
up to his chin." You can hardly get more cozy than that!
Anyway, the personal
touches fit the story and plot, because it really is a very personal
case for the blind detective. There are two attempted murders:
leaving Sybella hospitalized and Schnuke injured. This person also
left another body in his private elevator with a dagger in his belly.
So naturally Captain Maclain feels a little hot under the collar and
even threatens to flay the murderer alive. And you don't want to get
on the bad side of the man who was the inspiration for Daredevil.
So, all in all, Death
Knell was not a bad detective novel with perhaps a plot that was
too easily solved, but with an interesting look at the lead character
and the story has piqued my curiosity in Blind Man's Bluff
(1943). Captain Maclain mentioned that he once met a murderer who
discovered "a means of pushing people out of windows" when
he wasn't there. So I might tackle that one some time in the next few
weeks or months. Or, knowing who I am, sometime in the next two or
three.
I read this one in September of 2018:
ReplyDeletehttps://kevintipplescorner.blogspot.com/2018/09/ffb-review-death-knell-1945-by-baynard.html
Thanks for the link, Barry. :)
DeleteLike the cover but don't buy the premise, any more than I do that of Daredevil.
ReplyDeleteSo I take it that you don't like superhero stories in general?
Delete