The Affair of the Scarlet Crab (1937) by Clifford Knight

Clifford Knight was an American author of more than twenty detective novels, published between 1937 and 1952, whose debut came when he emerged as "the winner of the $2000 Red Badge Mystery Prize." A contest in which over "three hundred new manuscripts were entered," but The Affair of the Scarlet Crab (1937) came out on top and with good reason, because the setting alone makes the book standout even during the height of the Golden Age – a scientific expedition "to that bizarre, isolated archipelago," the Galapagos Islands. More importantly, the story has a technically sound plot and even opens with a challenge to the reader!

The first page has a footnote, of sorts, telling the reader "the shadow of the murderer is cast across the page" at least twenty times. There's an index of all these clues, better known as a clue-finder, at the back of the book reminiscent of C. Daly King's Obelists Fly High (1935) and Elspeth Huxley's Murder on Safari (1938). I really wish the clue-finder had been a staple of the period, because they're fun and would enforced the fair play principle. So, without further ado, let's explore, what's perhaps, the only detective novel in existence (partially) set on the Galapagos Islands.

Carlos Lanfrey is a wealthy, versatile and talented man whose hobby is leading "small scientific expeditions into out-of-the-way places on a palatial yacht," named Cyrene II, but preparations for his latest voyage haven't gone so smoothly.

The curator of a San Marino museum, which is never named, has an incomplete Galapagos collection and the scientific expedition is tasked with collecting various specimens of flora and fauna. They'll also be examining the problems presented by "the odd assortment of wild life to be found on the various islands" and in "the seas round about." However, Lanfrey had to find a last minute replacement for his ornithologist, Dr. Charley Risner, who was hospitalized and reeled in "something of an amateur," Benny Bartlett – describing himself as "a hunter of birds." Bartlett also narrated the story and agreed to come aboard when he learned an old friend is part of the expedition, Professor Huntoon "Hunt" Rogers.

Huntoon Rogers is an overworked professor of English and needed a much deserved rest, which is why Lanfrey attracted him for the expedition and simply made him a supercargo on his luxury yacht. You can almost say Lanfrey is the Fizziwig of this story.

Rogers is not exactly one of those gifted amateur detectives, who roam the halls of academia and dabble in police business as a hobby, but is forced by circumstances to don the deerstalker, because, as one character remarks, "there's no Sherlock Holmes on board" – betraying that the book was originally intended as a one-shot and not a series. But winning the contest allowed him to bring back Rogers in an additional seventeen mystery novels. So the book became an origin story as Knight began to expand the series.

The other members of the expedition are Dr. Gorell, "an outstanding naturalist," who brought along his wife, Mrs. Gorell. Dr. French is another naturalist with a special interest in marine life and Dr. Ardleigh is an elderly, but respected, geologist. There are two people to document the expedition: Alice Wilmer is a scientific artist and a photographer from one of the film studios in Hollywood, Jack Quigley, who was also a late minute replacement. Finally, there's Lanfrey's right-hand man and a former prize-fighter, Starr, and the millionaire's troublesome nephew, Jay Cranston. And as they set sail to those islands, they gamble, get into fist fights and argue over a scientific problem dating back to the days of Charles Darwin.

Interestingly, their argument has a link to another obscure, little-known detective novel that was published in the same year as The Affair of the Scarlet Crab.

The problem concerns the question how those islands were supplied with life. Some believe there was a land bridge in ancient time over which "the flora and fauna of the islands came," while others, like Dr. Gorell, believe prehistoric men put animals on the islands as "a future food supply" – similar as to how modern navigators, like Captain Cook, left goats, pigs and goats on islands in the South Sea. Now here's the interesting part. Robin Forsythe's Murder on Paradise Island (1937) tells the story of a group of shipwrecked survivors, marooned on a deserted island, but the previous occupants left behind pigs and had cultivated sweet potatoes, yams and taro-root. This helped them survive their ordeal. Funny how both books were published in the same year, but lets get back to the story.

As the group is en route to the Galapagos Islands, Jack Quigley vanishes from the yacht without a trace and must have gone overboard, but was it an accident, suicide or was he shoved?

The last possibility is not seriously considered until a member of the expedition attempted to climb a lava ridge on Indefatigable Island, slipped and fell to his death. Or so it appeared. This time the possibility of murder is mentioned, but it becomes undeniable when the expedition is put on hold and they set sail to Panama, in order to get the body repatriated back to America, when a third and unmistakable murder is committed – a savage case of throat-cutting. Shockingly, the crushed carcass of Jimmy, the scarlet rock crab, was found on the floor next to the body.

I was becoming quite fond of that little, brave-minded rock crab who liked humans enough to greet them with "a snappy salute." An animal with a personality of its own is as difficult and tricky to write as a convincing child-character, but Jimmy was shaping up to be as good an animal-character as the foul-beaked parrot from Gret Lane's The Guest with the Scythe (1943) and the schizophrenic cat from Edmund Crispin's The Long Divorce (1951). So his untimely death felt as the most tragic of them all.

As mentioned at the beginning of my review, the plot is technically sound, but has the flaws you can expect to find a debut novel. First of all, there's the pacing of the story, or lack there of, because the story, while interesting, lacks excitement. This could have been made up by putting more emphasis on the background, but their time on the islands only cover a brief period of the book. Most of the story takes place on the yacht. Secondly, the clues are plentiful and present through out the story. However, they're a trifle weak and can be better described as hints or foreshadowing rather than clues, which require a bit of educated guess work to fit together – reason why the solution I had pieced together turned out to be completely wrong. You see, the structure of the plot resembled another well-known shipboard mystery, namely Carter Dickson's Nine-and Death Makes Ten (1940), which I modeled my solution on. They even have two identical murders (man overboard and a throat-slashing).

The link between the three victims appeared to confirm my suspicion and thought I had seen through the murderers cover, but was baffled how the murderer managed to accomplish his trick. And had I been right, The Affair of the Scarlet Crab would have featured an alibi-trick that could be measured against the best by Christopher Bush and Freeman Wills Crofts. Not to mention that the plot would have anticipated Nine-and Death Makes Ten by three years! Unfortunately, the actual explanation was not as inspired as my own and the murderer's alibi-trick was pretty mundane.

Nonetheless, The Affair of the Scarlet Crab is a competent and interesting debut novel with some good ideas, but Knight hadn't learned yet how to use them to their full potential. So I want to see how he further developed and there are intriguing-sounding detective novels in repertoire. The plot of The Affair of the Limping Sailor (1942) sounds like a winner and the book-cover of the bizarrely titled The Affair of the Skiing Clown (1941) is simply fascinating. And will probably give Ho-Ling Wong, who believes clowns are part of Satan's demon horde, nightmares for weeks! :)

So you can expect more of Clifford Knight and Huntoon Rogers later this year. 

Note: this review was originally scheduled for earlier this month, but had to move it up to make room for Soji Shimada's Naname yashiki no hanzai (Murder in the Crooked House, 1982). And this is why it followed so soon on my previous review.