The Case of the Flying Donkey (1939) by Christopher Bush

Christopher Bush's The Case of the Flying Donkey (1939) is the 21st novel in the Ludovic Travers series, originally published under the attention-grabbing title The Case of the Flying Ass, but Dean Street Press decided to reprint this, once exceedingly rare, novel under a less foolish sounding title – a title change that was not explained, or acknowledges, in Curt Evan's introduction. I think The Case of the Flying Jackass would have been a better compromise between the old and new title.

The Case of the Flying Donkey forms a two-book arc, of sorts, with The Case of the Climbing Rat (1940) set in France before the outbreak of the Second World War. Evans described these novels as  "a heartfelt tribute to a nation that soon was to be mercilessly scourged by German invasion and occupation." However, the rummy story of the flying donkey also shows that the English can find the French a trying people to be around.

Three years previously, Travers purchased a painting in Paris on the advise of his artistic friend, Inspector Laurin Gallois, of the Sûreté Générale, who acts as the substitute of the sorely missed Superintendent George Wharton. 

The picture is a still-life by Henri Larne, "a new, tremendous figure in French art," who signs all his work with the tiny drawing of a winged donkey, but, years later, this picture attracts the unwanted attention of a dodgy, Parisian art dealer, Georges Braque – a slippery rascal who left behind an invitation to visit him when he's in Paris. Travers is intrigued as to "the precise nature of his rascality" and happened to be planning to spend a fortnight abroad with his wife, Bernice, but Gallois advises him to ignore Braque until he contacts him. And just to tell his strange story to Larne to see what he makes of it.

Not long after his talk with Gallois, Travers is called on the phone by Braque to ask if he could see him at his private apartment at six o'clock, but, when Travers crossed the threshold of rue Jourdoise, he stumbles over the still warm body of the disreputable art dealer. A knife was stuck sideways in the ribs!

The Case of the Flying Donkey has several converging plot-lines, but they're all involve the handful of characters that populate the story, which makes the story feel like a small, private affair. Firstly, there's the famous painter, Henri Larne, with his parasitical half-brother, Pierre, who exhausted his brother's patience. Elise Deschamps is the model Henri employed as a model for his next painting, but she turns out to have a link with Braque. What about the Braque's business partner, Bernard Cointeau, who has the misfortune of having an unconfirmed alibi? Or the two servants, Hortense and Bertrand, hovering in the background.

So, most readers probably won't have any problem with reeling in the murderer from this small pool of suspects well before the end of the story, but this still leaves you with two questions to answer, why and how, because the murderer possesses "an alibi which is more than perfect" – an alibi-trick Travers labeled as "one of the best" he has ever encountered. There's an undeniable elegance and imaginative quality as to how the alibi was staged, but Travers has encountered better and more original cast-iron alibis. 

For example, Cut Throat (1930) and The Case of the Missing Minutes (1936) are masterpieces of the alibi-busting detective story with fiendishly clever manipulations of time, while The Case of the Hanging Rope (1937) has one of the most audacious alibis in the series with a highly unpredictable element. That being said, this alibi-trick still showed, as Nick Fuller once said, that Bush was to the unbreakable alibi what John Dickson Carr was to the impossible crime.

The strongest link in the plot was the scheme, "a veritable gold-mine," which is at the heart of the murder case that tied everyone, and everything, together and gave the story its title. Particularly, the motive and the shady art dealings were very well done.

However, The Case of the Flying Donkey lacked the complexity of the earlier 1930s novels and is comparable, plot-wise, with the latter, less densely plotted, entries in the series such as The Case of the Haven Hotel (1948), The Case of the Fourth Detective (1951) and The Case of the Amateur Actor (1955). A short and relatively minor novel that could have been even shorter had Gallois shown all his cards to Travers and not regarded "the mystifying of his partner as the first essential." Gallois redeemed himself a little when he clasped eyes on a couple of monstrosities of modern art and told Travers "there is the kind of thing on which I would not even spit."

So, on a whole, I found The Case of the Flying Donkey to be an unevenly written and plotted detective story that read like an expended short story or novella, which makes it only recommendable (with reservations) to loyal fans of the series – who are the most likely to appreciate the different track Bush took here. But, if you're (somewhat) new to the series, I recommend you start at an earlier point in the series.