The Moor Fires Mystery (1938) by Harriette R. Campbell

Back in January, I reviewed Magic Makes Murder (1943) by a little-known, long overlooked American mystery writer, Harriette R. Campbell, who settled down in Britain with her Scottish husband and used her new home country as the setting for eight detective novels – published between 1936 and 1949. Black Heath reissued all eight novels in 2021 as inexpensive ebooks and sampling Magic Makes Murder left a favorable enough. So threw a few more of her mysteries on the big pile. 

The Moor Fires Mystery (1938) is the third title in the Simon Brade series, but the central character is a governess, Miss Elvira Rose "Penny" Pengold, who has "a way of turning everything into a story." The stories she has told herself could have "filled volumes," but finds herself in the middle of a detective story when accepting the post nursery governess to Lord Serbridge's two daughters. Hetty and Mavis are the children from Lord Serbridge's previous marriage, which tragically ended when the first Lady Serbridge died from an overdose of sleeping medicine. Lord Serbridge remarried less than a year later and the second Lady Serbridge, Pam, who gave birth to a baby boy, Timothy. So they needed a governess to take charge of the two older girls.

A dazzled Penny ("£100 a year and every comfort") travels to the west coast of Scotland to take her position as governess at Olachan House, "old without being ancient and vast without being impressive," but not all is as it seems. Something terribly begins to take form during a casual, after-dinner conversation.

Lord and Lady Serbridge hosted a dinner for several friends, acquaintances and employees. Sir Archibald Ferris, a press magnate, and his wife, Lady Ferris. Dr. Arnold Almaine whose "experimental research" is largely financed by Lord Serbridge who admired his work with children. A friendly, talkative and adventurous American journalist, Mark Chase. Lastly, there's Penny and the secretary/housekeeper, Marcia Hewn. After dinner, they have brandies and chat about various subjects until Marcia remarks, "it ought to be a public offense to write anonymous letters to the press," in reference to an article about the police receiving anonymous letters about the suicide of an out-of-work journalist, Colin Sleet – whose death by strychnine poisoning was detailed in the prologue. The coroner's jury brought a verdict of suicide, while of unsound mind, but the letters suggest "the case was not sufficiently investigated" and "that the man was murdered." Colin Sleet was not an unknown name to most of the people present and Lord Serbridge ("an enemy to injustice in all its forms") presses a reluctant Sir Archibald to give the case "full publicity" in the papers. This is when things begin to happen quickly.

First, the baby disappears along with his nurse and Lord Serbridge, uncharacteristically, misses an important telephone appointment and is nowhere to be found. Everyone assumes the baby has been kidnapped and were afraid to call in the police, which is why they asked Simon Brade to take the next train to Scotland. Timothy and the nurse turn up again, safe and soundly, but Lord Serbridge's body is found on the moor. He had been ambushed, shot through the heart and the body dragged in the path of the flames. At the time, the moor is deliberately set on the fire and burned down, so everything can grow better during the summer. These burning fires definitely added to the strange atmosphere of the story, even if they served no purpose to the overall plot.

When the detective finally arrived at Olachan House, Brade is confronted with a nasty murder instead of an unpleasant kidnapping. Brade really detests murder.

I glossed over the character of Simon Brade in my review of Magic Makes Murder, but Campbell genuinely tried to do something different with her lead detective. On the surface, Simon Brade is another sophisticated detective halfway between Philo Vance and Lord Peter Wimsey. Brade is a sensitive, monocle-wearing aesthetician and collector of porcelain, who was brought up in a remote Irish castle as an only child, but "his father was a devil" and had to watch his beloved mother die – which never fully recovered from. This is why he hates murder, because "he's too sorry for unhappy people" as he's been unhappy himself. So he very much plays the role of reluctant detective and openly roots for the local policeman to beat him to the solution. Just as unusual as his character is his method of detection. Brade carries around a box of ivory cubes, "yellow with age," which he calls his toys. Every brick symbolizes a value in the case, like the suspects and possible motives, but there are also cubes representing "Picture" and "Blurs." So he moves around the cubes as he fills in the details and gathers evidence until a picture of one of the suspects appears without any blurs. Brade has to turn a murder investigation into a game to get pass his aversion of murder and being responsible for delivering someone to the hangman. You can read a more detailed explanation of his method in Chapter IX ("Brade's Brick").

So, yes, Brade is basically a gimmick character who, perhaps, would have been better served as a one-shot character, but Brade's gimmick certainly helped elevate an otherwise average detective story. Particularly the investigation! While the premise and murder present intriguing problem, the investigation is mostly concerned with alibis, timetables and postage stamps. The murderer is someone you can't help but notice sticking out as suspicious. Brade's bricks put a welcome spin on what would otherwise be a pretty routine and honestly uninspired investigation.

There were some other touches that helped elevate the overall story a little. Such as the previously mentioned fires and the trouble surrounding the funeral of Lord Serbridge. Lady Serbridge forbids anyone under suspicion to bring flowers, because it's "the only way of being sure the murderer's flowers will not lie on his coffin" and there are the Highlanders. A people "so loyal to the past, so adverse to change," who were against Lord Serbridge (an outsider) being laid to rest in the stone vault that came with the estate ("a long series of lairds slept behind those doors"). There's an incident at the funeral that is sort of left unexplained unless I missed something. Campbell may have come up short here, plot-wise, but she still knew how and where to stage a good, old-fashioned murder mystery. 

The Moor Fires Mystery is a well written and characterized detective novel with an intriguingly posed problem and realized setting, but, plot-wise, regrettably a huge step down from the excellent Magic Makes Murder. A solid and serviceable second-string mystery novel.