Top Storey Murder (1931) by Anthony Berkeley

Last year, I ranked Anthony Berkeley among the "Top 10 Beneficiaries of the Reprint Renaissance" on account for going from practically being forgotten at the turn of the century to having his former prestige as an innovative, sometimes subversive mystery writer restored – which in Berkeley's case took a little longer than some of his contemporaries. A restoration process that started inauspiciously with The Roger Sheringham Stories (1993) and The Anthony Berkeley Cox Files: Notes Towards a Bibliography (1993), but the first real headway was made in the early 2000s.

House of Stratus reprinted a big chunk of Berkeley's then obscure, long out-of-print work like the then ultra rare The Layton Court Mystery (1925) and his celebrated masterpiece The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929). They also reprinted the superb Jumping Jenny (1933) and fan favorite to many, The Piccadilly Murder (1929). Funnily enough, the House of Stratus editions become overpriced collector item's not long after they went out-of-print. A small, independent publisher, Langtail Press, tried to revive those reprint, but it was the British Library Crime Classics and Collins Crime Club reissues that marked a more permanent return to print. In 2021, Collins Crime Club even reprinted The Wintringham Mystery (1926/27) that had not seen a reprint since its original serialization/publication nearly a century ago. Not to mention the unearthed short stories that have been turning up in several anthologies and Crippen & Landru's published collection The Avenging Chance and Other Mysteries from Roger Sheringham's Casebook (2004), which had two "enlarged editions" published in 2015 and 2023.

So bringing Berkeley's work back to print and restoring his reputation ("the cleverest of us all") can be called one of the success stories of the reprint renaissance. Somehow, someway, what should have been a regular Roger Sheringham novel decided to shroud itself in obscurity by defying getting reprinted.

Top Storey Murder (1931), alternatively published as Top Story Murder, was among the first to be reprinted by House of Stratus, in 2001, but no new editions since it slipped out-of-print again with used copies being unreasonably priced – dissuaded me from picking it up sooner. That and kind of expected Top Storey Murder to have been part of the British Library Crime Classics series by now. I'm sure Top Storey Murder is going to get a long overdue reprint before the decade is out, but recently lucked across a copy. So let's dig into this often overlooked, seventh title in the Roger Sheringham series.

Berkeley's Top Storey Murder begins with Sheringham meeting Chief Inspector Moresby for a lunch appointment as a way to keep in touch with Scotland Yard ("Scotland Yard called it ‘Mr. Sheringham working the pump-handle'"). However, the telephone cuts short their lunch appointment as Moresby is summoned to the scene of a crime at the top floor flat of Monmouth Mansions in Platt Street. A reclusive spinsters, Miss Adelaide Barnett, who had been found strangled with a rosery in her trashed, ransacked flat. The kitchen window was standing open and a rope, tied to the gas stove, was dangling out of it. Miss Barnett was a peculiar, somewhat hostile woman who garnered "a local reputation as a miser, with a bag of sovereigns sewn up in her mattress." Moresby warns Sheringham this going to be an ordinary case without much of interest to the amateur detective, "no fancy fandangos, like you get in the story-books," but Sheringham decides to come along regardless. And, despite being warned this is going to be a routine case, Sheringham immediately begins to theorize when observing the various clues/red herrings at the scene of the crime.

I think the first five chapters constitutes the best parts of Top Storey Murder pitting the imaginative, theorizing amateur detective against the practical, experienced and well-oiled police apparatus of Scotland Yard – briefly created a proto-police procedural. Moresby has a small army of experts going over the crime scene, which, of course, include the fingerprint man and police photographer. More interestingly is the presence of Inspector Beach, "specialised in this type of crime, burglary in flats," who makes a profile of the scene and checks the points ("there are twenty-two points I've got noted down") against the methods and habits of the career criminals in their filing cabinets. A single name rolls out of this process of elimination. Yes, like the board game Guess Who? Having observed all the clues and red herrings, Sheringham is convinced the murderer is one of the other residents of Monmouth Mansions.

Unfortunately, the police investigations begins to recede into the background as the police begins to search for the burglar-turned-murderer and Sheringham begins to pursue his own line of investigation.Top Storey Murder nearly reverts back to being an ordinary, 1930s whodunit in which a snooty amateur detective tries to best Scotland Yard. I liked Sheringham retreating to the Reading Room of the British Library to order his notes and think over the possibilities. Sheringham interacting with the suspects, sometimes under a false flag, is always fun, but it's the introduction of the victim's estranged niece, Miss Stella Barnett, who adds interest to the middle part and ending. Sheringham becomes more than just a little bit intrigued by the young, defiant woman who refuses to touch a penny of her misery aunt and even takes her on as his new private secretary. Stella takes to job, but simply refuses to play the Dr. Watson to Sheringham's Sherlock Holmes. If anything, Stella sandbags him and his "absurd theories" with predictable results on someone with Sheringham's personality ("the girl's becoming a positive obsession with me").

That helped the sometimes sagging middle portion from bottoming out and carry it to the conclusion, where Sheringham's unmatched talent for fabricating false-solutions got to shine in all its glory. Nothing to daunt Sheringham as he victoriously wiped the egg of his face.

So, while Top Storey Murder is not Berkeley's greatest or most original detective novel, it's still a very entertaining, top-notch Golden Age mystery playing the grandest game in the spirit of The Poisoned Chocolates Case and Leo Bruce's Case for Thee Detectives (1936). Very much worth a reprint and read!