The Week-End Mystery (1926) by Robert A. Simon

I ended the previous review with the promise that the next post would look at a very obscure, very vintage and very British detective novel, which is technically true, but the novel under examination today, The Week-End Mystery (1926), came from the hand of Robert A. Simon – an American writer, translator, music critic and a one-off mystery author. However, the mistake is an understandable one as The Week-End Mystery is very reminiscent of A.A. Milne's The Red House Mystery (1922), Anthony Berkeley's The Layton Court Mystery (1925) and The Wintringham Mystery (1926/27), Ronald A. Knox's The Three Taps (1927) and Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime (1929). A completely tongue-in-cheek, semi-self-conscious mystery novel of the murder-can-be-fun school associated during the 1920s with the British detective story. It became somewhat of an American specialty towards the late 1930s and '40s as Frances Crane, Craig Rice, Kelley Roos and the Lockridges arrived on the scene, but Simon was a good decade ahead of them. Albeit with a distinctly English accent. 

The Week-End Mystery sets the tone in its opening chapter as the 28-year-old assistant manager of the Universal Sugar Refining Company, Jimmy Wrome ("a pretty funny specimen"), consulting Dr. Hugh Farrigan ("a frustrated orthopedist") on broken heart disguised (poorly) as a case of indigestion. Dr. Farrigan nonetheless never to objected to handling cases outside of his field of expertise and writes Jimmy the best prescription in the history of medicine: 

Detective Stories.

Read one daily until relieved. Dose may be increased if desired.

Hugh Farrigan, M.D. 

The prescription is to be filled at "the mental drugstore," known as Curtin's, which also rents and sells books, but, to get him started, Dr. Farrigan gives him a copy of a detective novel, The Shower Bath Enigma, that happened to be in his office ("I don't usually keep medicine in stock...") – unwittingly creating a serious detective fiction addict. Jimmy fully immerses himself in the adventures of Bernard Gartlin, "the Man of a Million Masks," burning through the series "a book or two a day." A series with some intriguingly-sounding titles and plots. Such as The Statue of Liberty Tangle concerning the (impossible?) stabbing of a senator in the Statue of Liberty's torch.

A good, stiff dose of murder and intrigue proved to the be perfect antidote to Jimmy's malady, but now he might have "picked up a strange new one in the form of detectivitis" as he goes around demonstrating his new deductive abilities. For example, Jimmy returns to Dr. Farrigan and one of the first things out of his mouth is, "that was a good job you made on that Italian woman's wrist" ("how did you I attended to an Italian woman's wrist?"). Dr. Farrigan invites him to a weekend party at the house of his client, Leed Payne, who's known as "the Mystery Man of Wall Street" and his weekend parties were famous for bringing together a curious assortment of guests. And he promises Jimmy the party would provide him with a wonderful chance to practice his newly acquired skills. But one of the guests brings his old ailment back to the surface.

This guest is the woman who broke Jimmy's heart, Claire Barton, who's accompanied by the man who stole her away from him, Blake Hesbe. Other guests include a New York politician and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Francis Gulvin. And a famous saxophone virtuoso, Eddie Endle. So the party promises to be an interesting one, but a blackout and their host feeling rotten cuts its short. Payne sends his guests to the Shuffle Inn to have a dance with dinner, but, during the party, Dr. Farrigan is called back to the house by the butler. Something has happened to Payne. Something has happened to Payne. And the following morning, Jimmy learns Payne has shot himself around midnight in his bedroom. A suicide note was found on the table. All the doors and windows were securely locked on the inside.

So there's only one conclusion, suicide, but Jimmy has his doubts and astutely observes the cheap, crudely engraved and incomplete initials on the murder weapon – which suggests it might not be Payne's gun. Foolishly, he not only talks to the press, but tells a reporter he knows who murdered the banker and how. This places him on uneasy footing with the local authority represented by Captain Edgar Brinze and the Public Prosecutor, Kenworthy. Jimmy continues to be a nuisance and attract unwanted attention as he plays out his role as an amateur Sherlock Holmes. He begins to receive threatening or mocking notes ("EVERYBODY IS LAUGHING AT YOUR SILLY DETECTIVE STUNTS") and has an elusive shadow constantly shadowing him. Even spending a night in a jail cell, because he refuses to tell the prosecutor what he knows. But he carries on with all the enthusiasm that comes so naturally to the best of the amateur detectives.

Jimmy collects "a pretty mènage" of clues that comprise of threatening letters, a widely circulated copy of The Porterhouse Murder, a false mustache, ghost stories and a heart breaking tune. Among some more subtle hints and foreshadowing. While the motive requires a little bit of educated guesswork, you should be able to identify the murderer long before the end. I instinctively caught on to the murderer before those clues and hints turned up, because I, too, suffer from detectivtis. Simon did such a fine job, I entirely forgot The Week-End Mystery is a detective story parody and not really a proper detective novel. That made the solution to the locked room puzzle and how house guest ended up with a pristine alibi a crushingly disappointing (ROT13/HUGE SPOILER: zheqre ol nhgbfhttrfgvba). Yes, The Week-End Mystery is an out-and-out parody of the early detective stories and therefore the explanation to the locked room and alibis is not out of tune, but, even in a tongue-in-cheek mystery, you always hope it will be something clever. Even if its completely outrageous or downright silly. Something that has been done successfully. Jerry Coleman's "The Super-Key to Fort Superman" (1958) and John Sladek's "The Locked Room" (1972) spring to mind.

So, right up until the end, Simon's The Week-End Mystery stands with the previously mentioned novels by Berkeley, Milne and Knox, but the difference between them and Simon is in the tail of The Week-End Mystery, which continued to wink and laugh at the detective story until the final sentence – whereas his British contemporaries also tried to add something new and different. Most notably, the false-solution, the fallible detective and (ROT13) gur haeryvnoyr aneengbe. Simon did write an extremely readable and fun detective novel, it's ending regrettably downgraded the book to a mere curiosity. A highly amusing and readable curiosity, but a curiosity nonetheless. But if your taste runs towards comedic mysteries and parodies, The Week-End Mystery comes highly recommended.

I didn't want to end this second, lukewarm review in a row on a downer and as someone who suffers from an incurable form of miraculitis, I decided to try and come up with an alternative solution to the locked room problem. A solution that would also explain the alibis. So put on my deerstalker to have a big think as this alternative solution has two, all-important condition: it should explain both the locked bedroom and the croft of alibis as well as fitting the satirical theme of the story. Here's what I've come up with. 

My Solution to the Locked Room Murder: Firstly, the sudden sickness that ended the house party has to be part of a plan between Payne and his future assassin (who's playing a double game and stringing him along). Payne secretly follows the party to the inn where he meets with the murderer and gets shots, while the music of dance band inside drowns out the sound of the gunshot. The murderer plants the gun on the body to suggest Payne tried to defend himself during a robbery and got shot himself or a shady business meeting gone wrong, but the shot didn't kill Payne immediately and he stumbles home – dazed, confused and dying with a gun in hand. Payne sneaks back into the house and up to his bedroom to die, which is hardly groundbreaking stuff, but would have done the trick in 1926. But we can take it one step further. Payne went up to his bedroom to die, but did not lock the bedroom door behind him. What he did was lie down on bed, gun in hand, while his body twitched for the last time, the gun fired. This second bullet is lodged in the narrow crack underneath the bedroom door and effectively becomes a door wedge that makes it appear as if the door was locked from the inside.

Admittedly, this solution requires some cosmetic changes to the story to work, but they would also provide the plot with an even deeper problem and better clues. Why was Payne discovered in his street coat? Why were two bullets fired from the murder weapon and what happened to that second bullet? If he hadn't shot himself, what about the gunshot residue on his hand and sleeve? You can even add a second impossibility when the accidental locked room-trick is discovered. You see, even if they discover a bullet had wedged the door shut, they likely wouldn't right away know it was a dying Payne who had fired that shot. So, if the butler was outside the bedroom at the time the accidental shot was fired, it would appear as if the murderer shot the door tight shut to buy time and did it with a perfect shot like Lucky Luke. And then apparently vanished from a locked and watched room. So the solution to the locked door opens, if even briefly, to a second locked room problem with an impossible gunshot thrown in for good measure. And the best thing is that it started out with the murderer trying to do the smart thing. Trying to make it look like an attempted mugging gone wrong or the result of unsavory business dealings, but then the cussedness of all things general turned it into a full-blown locked room mystery.

This is the best I could do. Hope you enjoyed it.