James Ronald's The Secret of Hunter's Keep (1931) is the second, somewhat shortish, novel in Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 11: The Sealed Room Murder (2024) originally serialized in Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser during the December month of 1931 – published in book form under the title The House of Horror (1935). The editor, Chris Verner, restored the original title as being more suitable for this lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek spoof of writers like Edgar Wallace and Carolyn Wells. A mystery of adventure and romance packing "enough secret passages and hidden doors to satisfy most readers for the rest of their lives."
Basingstoke had acted first as a criminal, "two burglaries he planned and carried out alone were never traced to him," before becoming an amateur detective "running down burglars and handing them over to justice." Getting bored by the whole thing, Basingstoke toyed with the idea to commit a murder, but a timely discovered talent for writing contained his murderous ambitions to the printed page as he became a bestselling thriller author.
The story takes place during a house party thrown to liven up the place. Basingstoke has invited his two nephews, Percy Hyth and John Ridgeway and young niece, Lucy Halperin, who he hasn't seen since they were children. The cousins meet each other for the first time. Philip Lavery and Irma Dering are bored, flirtatious socialites who amused their host with their trivial conversations and "belief that their own silly little world was the centre of the universe." Reverend Cyril Wootton and his brother, Peter Wootton, who's a Scotland Yard detective ("...at present on holiday"). Someone in the first chapter mentions wonders how someone who can write such thrilling yarns can give such dull house parties, but that changes quickly when they hear bell ringing followed by the maid screaming, "the master—'e's dead" – saying she found him dead and covered in blood. But when they go to look, they find an empty room and a bloodstained dagger. Basingstoke's body is nowhere to be found.
However, The Secret of Hunter's Keep is not a locked room mystery about impossibly vanishing corpses. Basingstoke's body is not the only one to disappear under mysterious circumstances, but how the bodies disappeared is not some terrifying, unfathomable mystery. Hunter's Keep is known to be honeycombed with concealed passages, hidden doors, secret staircases and subterranean rooms. While their locations and entrances have been lost to time, someone has started to make use of them. Peter Wootton observes "Hunter's Keep was not one house, but two, and it was the house within the walls that held the secret they were bent on solving." It really does appear as if the main building is merely a front for the rabbit warren of hidden passages, rooms and staircases, but that probably makes it sound better than it actually is.
Ronald was an uneven plotter. For every Murder in the Family (1936) and They Can't Hang Me (1938), you have a Six Were to Die (1932) and Death Croons the Blues (1934), but one thing all have in common is their readability and sometimes surprisingly good characterization. The Secret of Hunter's Keep is no exception to the rule, which makes it better than most pulp mysteries of the time festooned with cliches and secret passages. It honestly little more than a very readable, sometimes amusing pile up of turn-of-the-century cliches and sniping at the thriller novel itself. More on that in moment.
The Secret of Hunter's Keep is not wholly an overly cliched, featureless but readable piece of pulp fiction. It has some points of interest. During his day as an amateur detective, Basingstoke helped Scotland Yard to catch a criminal known as "The Basher." Peter Wootton finds an unread telegram informing Basingstoke that John Albert Green, a.k.a. "The Basher," had escaped that morning from Dartmoor prison. And probably on his way to get his revenge.
Their backstory is told to the reader in the form of two excerpts from one of Basingstoke's novels based on him capturing Green. Yeah, it's blatant padding, but didn't dislike it and the only thing in the book to briefly throw me off my game. For a moment, I feared Ronald was lazily going for a variation on a well-known mystery novel (ROT13: fve neguhe pbana qblyr'f gur inyyrl bs srne, oevrsyl fhfcrpgvat onfvatfgbxr unq xvyyrq gur onfure naq jnf uvqvat, nybat jvgu gur obql, vafvqr gur jnyyf bs gur ubhfr). I'll get back to the solution. Another thing that stood out to me was the introduction of a plagiarism plot thread, when someone comes forward claiming Basingstoke plagiarized his work. How this plot-thread is revealed and eventually resolved is not without interest, perhaps the best handled part of the story, but couldn't escape the feeling Ronald was laughing here at his readers – not with them. I know pulp thrillers brandishing book titles like The Ho-Fong Mystery, The Eye of Cho-Fang and The Chinese Dagger aren't known for their quality writing or careful plotting, not without reason nor undeserving of criticism, but this came across as a politely-worded, but somewhat mean spirited, swipe at everyone who wrote and read them (ROT13: “turfr cybgf nera'g lbhef be zvar, gurl ner pbzzba cebcregl” nf gur npphfre vf pnegrq bss gb gur ybbal ova). No wonder John Norris panned the book in his 2019 review!
Well, there's the ending and solution. While I briefly entertained a slightly different solution, the final twist complete with a Scooby Doo-esque unmasking of the villain is not a rug puller of a surprise. You can see it coming from a mile ahead, but think most people will be irked that the solution (ROT13) jnyxf onpx rirelguvat gung unccrarq cerivbhfyl. Honestly, if I had bought The Secret of Hunter's Keep separately, I would have been a bit disappointed. I got this volume for the reprint of The Sealed Room Murder (1934) with The Secret of Hunter's Keep. So got to enjoy it for what it's. A lighthearted romp poking fun at the country house mystery that's fun enough, if you don't expect a serious detective novel.
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