Subject—Murder (1945) by Clifford Witting

Clifford Witting was a British writer of sixteen detective novels, published between 1937 and 1964, which were well received at the time ("written with refreshing vitality and humour, and can produce a neat problem and an ingenious solution"), but were seldom reprinted and went out-of-print for seventy years – driving up the price of scarce, secondhand copies. A situation that remained unchanged until Galileo Publishers reissued Catt Out of the Bag (1939) in 2020 and have since reprinted six more novels.

Murder in Blue (1937) is Witting's entertainingly written, well characterized debut marred by a clumsily-handled plot and solution, but showed prodigious improvement in his fourth novel, Catt Out of the Bag. So looked forward to the reprints of Midsummer Murder (1937), Measure for Murder (1941) and Dead on Time (1948), but decided to hold off when Galileo Publishers announced a new edition of Witting's reputed masterpiece was on the way. A supposed noteworthy entry in the World War II-era of the British Golden Age detective novel.

Subject—Murder (1945) is the sixth novel in the Inspector Harry Charlton series, but the main character and narrator this time is his assistant, Detective Constable Peter Bradfield, who waved his C.I.D. exemption as reserved occupation to enlist – realizing "soldiering was going to be different from police work." Bradfield promises that the first-half of Subject—Murder was not going to be "just another rookie's war-diary" full with military recollections, but "the opening scenes of a comedy-drama that ended in tragedy." However, the account of Bradfield's first weeks of training in a far-flung outpost of Empire (North Wales) to becoming a bombardier and pay-wallah of "XYZ" Light Anti-Aircraft Battery, R.A, can certainly be read as a rookie's war diary. I suspect the first-half will test the patience of readers who hate long preambles to murder and read a review stating, "when finally the murder occurred and the police started their investigation, it had reached a point where I couldn't care less about any of it." I, on the other hand, loved the detailed, now historical, military background as Witting carefully placed and moved the pieces around on the board that will invariably lead to murder. What a murder!

The prologue makes no mystery about the identity of the future victim, Battery Sergeant-major William George Yule, who earned his nickname, "Cruel Yule," by going further than your average army bully. Someone who liked to see others in physical pain or mental distress, "particularly if he himself had been the agent of their suffering," racked up a legitimate bodycount among the men under his control. If there was someone he felt had slighted him or simply disliked, Yule would use his power and authority a contemptible, petty and sadistically subtle revenge campaign.

A best-case scenario for Yule's victims is getting transferred to another base, but one man, "the Battery's smartest sergeant," ended up getting demoted and another man committed suicide. During the first-half, Bradfield befriended an impulsive, temperamental young man, Johnny Fieldhouse, who doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut – which painted a giant target on his back. Yule's scheming ensured Fieldhouse served nine months in the goal. I think most readers today will be galled by Yule's sadism towards animals from gloating over a mouse dying in pain to "accidentally" drowning the mess kitten, Midnight, in a pail of tea and suspected of having had a hand in the death of Captain Fitzgerald a little Cairn terrier. The death of the little terrier provides the story with a mini-puzzle, of sorts, as Yule appears to have been innocent of that specific incident, but certainly not of the others.

So when Yule reaches his final hour, "there was neither manliness nor honour, but merely the harsh, brutal justice of the Dark Ages."

One morning, Battery Sergeant-major Yule "bloody, shattered, almost unrecognizable body" in a meadow with his wrists lashed together behind his back by a leather dog-lead and "roped by his ankles to foam-flecked, wild-eyed, utterly exhausted" mare – a thistle had been thrust under the dock of her tail ("the time-worn thistle trick made certain of a sticky finish for Yule"). This murder happened when they were stationed near Lulverton. So the murder, as explained in the story, comes under the investigation of civil authorities represented by Inspector Harry Charlton and Bradfield suddenly finds himself back in his old position, but has a struggle between duty and friendship when the evidence against Fieldhouse begins to rapidly accumulate.

First of all, the murder happens very late into the story with the investigation covering roughly the last third of the novel and forming a detective novella tacked on to a war-time novel, but what an excellent novella! Subject—Murder is comparable to Christopher Bush and particularly to his home front mysteries like The Case of the Murdered Major (1941), The Case of the Kidnapped Colonel (1942) and The Case of the Fighting Soldier (1942) with an array of mutual, interdependent alibis, marital skulduggery and false-identities. Even better is that the problem of the murder comes with a small, but excellent and original, locked room mystery! The forward brake-rope of a Light Anti-Aircraft gun was used to help give Yule a horsey-ride, but the brake-rope was locked away in the gun-shed secured with a heavy padlock and the key in safe custody ("if the doors were locked and the key in good hands, how the devil could the rope have been pinched?"). Locked room mysteries concerning padlocked doors don't crop up often with the two, or three, best-known examples using a slight variation of the same trick. I expected the explanation for the theft from the gun-shed to run along a similar or identical line, but Witting came up with an entirely different and original solution how "the gun-shed could be opened without a key."

Subject—Murder is neither mentioned in Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991) nor Brian Skupin's Locked Room Murders: Supplement (2019). So had no idea the book contained a locked room-puzzle or expected one, let alone a good and original one. That was a nice surprise only adding to the overall quality and enjoyment I got out of this much deserved Golden Age reprint.

There is, however, a single caveat to the ending. I mentioned the long prelude to murder turned the investigation into a detective novella, but also had the unfortunate effect that it made the murderer's capture feel like something that needed to be over and done with quickly – which really needed more time to breath in order to do it fully justice. Something you would expect from a largely character-driven mystery that tries to get the reader to sympathize with the murderer. So the ending does not fully pack the punch it needed to be heralded as a truly long-lost Golden Age classic, but, in the end, it was nothing to the detriment of my enjoyment of this thoroughly engrossing army mystery full with well-drawn characters, romantic subplots and murder silently brooding and taking shape in the background. I would place Witting's Subject—Murder among the ten, or so, best World War II-era detective novels that comes highly recommend. Even if some will experience its first-half as a Sitzkrieg.