Nine Times Nine (1940) by Anthony Boucher

I previously reviewed H. Russell Wakefield's The Belt of Suspicion (1936), a not wholly uninteresting genre curiosity, but a curiosity nonetheless and one of a dubious, uneven quality – resulting in a lackluster review. So wanted to pick something good for the next one and settled on revisiting a classic.

Anthony Boucher's Nine Times Nine (1940), originally published as by "H.H. Holmes," is the first, of only two, mystery novels that make up the short-lived Sister Ursula series. A 1981 panel of writers and reviewers voted Nine Times Nine the ninth best locked room mystery up till that point. Not surprisingly as the book is pure, undiluted fan service for impossible crime addicts often grouped together with other non-John Dickson Carr fan favorites like Clayton Rawson's Death from a Top Hat (1938), Hake Talbot's Rim of the Pit (1944) and John Sladek's Black Aura (1974). Jim, of The Invisible Event, picked Nine Times Nine for his "Locked Room Library—One Hundred Recommended Books" calling it "pure detective fun from first to last” with "a very clever puzzle that hides its vanishing murderer well." Nine Times Nine was left off from my own "Updated Mammoth List of Favorite Locked Room Murders & Impossible Crimes" in favor of Boucher's often overlooked The Case of the Solid Key (1941), but have been second guessing that decision. So high time to give it second appraisal and see if it should be included in a future update.

Nine Times Nine is a detective novel written by a detective fan for detective fans is made clear from the start beginning with the dedication, "this locked room is dedicated to John Dickson Carr, facile princeps and prince of facility." Followed by a handful of excerpts from newspaper articles with a sort of pre-Challenge to the Reader to the "hypothetical Mycroft" at home to see how they fit in with, what the headlines, would come to call "The Astral Body Murder." After this, the reader is told how Matt Duncan, a freelance writer, came to be involved with the well-known Wolfe Harrigan and his household.

Wolfe Harrigan is a well-known author and authority on bogus, screwball cults and religious flavored rackets, a debunker, but the Roman Catholic Harrigan sees himself as "a lay crusader" combating heresy – desperate to reach the plain, ordinary lower-middle-class man and woman. The primary victims on which these cults and spiritualists prey. Duncan becomes his assistant/writing partner and takes him along to attend a meeting of the Children of Light. One of the latest pseudo-religious cults to spring up in California, but the leader of this cult is a bearded, yellow-robed and self-proclaimed immortal, Ahasver. In fact, Ahasver claims to be no less a figure than the Wandering Jew. During the meeting, Ahasver and his followers call upon the Nine Times Nine to curse and destroy their enemy ("free us from this evil man, O Nine Times Nine!"). The enemy in question is Wolfe Harrigan. Something that amuses the crusading debunker to no end. Well, not until later that day.

In the afternoon, Duncan notices the yellow-robed Ahasver standing in Harrigan's study, leaning over his desk facing his enemy, from the croquet lawn. And immediately smells potential danger. But their knocks on the study door remain unanswered. When they look through the french windows, they see Harrigan lying next to his desk with "the face shot half away." No one else is in the study, least of all a yellow-robed cult leader! So how did he manage to disappear from a room with every door and window either securely locked or under observation?

Nine Times Nine is Sister Ursula's first appearance, but she's practically a non-entity in the book who makes a couple of brief appearances before she gathers everyone to explain the apparent miracle murder. Halfway between an armchair oracle and a deus ex machina. So the book follows around Duncan as he goes from Harrigan's literary assistant to Lieutenant Terence Marshall's semi-official Watson. Marshall could use some help as he notes that “apparently this damned locked-room business is old stuff to mystery novelists, even though it's new in my police experience.” That's not the only detective story trope to turn up in the locked study. Such as an obscured dying message, “sort of thing Ellery Queen has so much fun with,” and Ahasver coyly admitting to having shot Harrigan while possessing a perfectly tight alibi – backed up by 108 witnesses. This, of course, results in the obligatory locked room lecture when Duncan sits down with Marshall and his wife, Leone, who's a huge fan of impossible crime stories ("...one hundred and eight sworn statements"). So they sit down to discuss Dr. Gideon Fell's "Locked Room Lecture" from The Three Coffins (1935) and try to figure out which locked room-trick can be applied to their impossible murder. Robert Adey called it one of the best locked room lectures/discussions of impossible crimes in fiction and find it hard to disagree, especially when a hint of Carrian brilliance is casually dropped (SPOILER/ROT13: jura gur jebat, ohg fgvyy fbzrjung pbeerpg, fhttrfgvba vf bssrerq gung gur inavfuvat svther pbhyq unir orra “n fgnghr nf ovt nf n zna,” ohg “ubj qvq gung trg bhg bs gur ebbz?”). Remembering parts of the solution, I immediately noticed how clever that is.

However, the seemingly impossible murder of Wolfe Harrigan and the involvement of the Children of Light is only part of the plot and characters. There are more characters and other subplots complicating matters, but decided for this one to concentrate purely on locked room fun.

So how does Nine Times Nine fare as a locked room mystery? Was the 1981 panel correct in voting it the ninth best locked room mystery? Yeah, kind of. I don't think Nine Times Nine should be considered top 10 material today, but back during the post-WWII locked room novel slump, it frankly deserved to be ranked a bit higher. Nine Times Nine is certainly better than either Rawson's Death from a Top Hat and Queen's The Chinese Orange Mystery (1934). Boucher's solution for the vanishing murderer certainly is not routine, original even, but it has to be admitted the killer was incredibly lucky it went off without a hitch. So much could have gone horribly wrong when trying to pull a stunt like that and suppose it was the reason why I picked The Case of the Solid Key for my best-of list. That aspect didn't bothered me as much this time around. Probably because I now recognize it as a cut, or two, above the average, non-JDC locked room mystery from the period. Back then, I mostly had Carr and a few other titles to compare it with.

Boucher's Nine Times Nine proved to be a lot better and more fun than I remembered. It's not a perfect locked room mystery, or detective story, but a pretty good, solid effort written especially for the enjoyment of locked room mystery fanatics – past, present and future. On that account, I can warmly recommend Nine Times Nine.