The Double Turn (1956) by Carol Carnac

Last year, the British Library Crime Classics reprinted E.C.R. Lorac's Murder As a Fine Art (1953), published as by "Carol Carnac," which proved to be an excellent accessory to their run of Lorac reprints with an unusual plot and memorable impossible crime – bringing brutalism to the fine art of murder. So was pleased when they announced a reprint of the Carol Carnac title, The Double Turn (1956), that has been a longtime resident on my wishlist.

The Double Turn, also published as The Late Miss Trimmings, begins when Jocelyn Truby takes his niece, Susan Truby, and her friend Peter Raven to an exhibition of Victorian era paintings in the long gallery of Verulam House. They're admiring a huge canvas by one of the period greats, Adrian Delafield, "shown in the Academy of 1898." Susan is impressed with the grandeur and age of the painting ("gosh, that was last century"), while Jocelyn tells them the Great Victorian is still alive. As they're discussing Delafield, they are joined by a young man, Roy Braithwaite, who's Delafield's grandson and pitched in the conversation when he overheard them.

Adrian Delafield, now practically an invalid, lives at "Firenze" in St. John's Wood where he's looked after by an old maid and religious maniac, Miss Trimmings, who's "the power in the house" acting like its "ménagère and major-domo," but she takes good care of both the house and its owner – as she's absolutely devoted to Delafield. Delafield's only surviving daughter and Roy's aunt, Virgilia, lives in his old, detached studio and allowed the situation, because she didn't want to deprive her father of Miss Trimmings after depending on her for more than thirty years. Virgilia kept an eye on Miss Trimmings to make sure things don't go off the rails again like last time. Miss Trimmings had kept Delafield locked away to such an extent people thought he had died. Roy invites Jocelyn, Susan and Peter to visit Firenze to see the paintings in Delafield's former studio, meet the family and Miss Trimmings.

During their visit, there's an incident that in a Victorian-era novel of sensation would have been described as a portent of evil. A week later, the doctor comes by to see Delafield, but finds the house locked up, dead bolted from the inside and suspiciously quiet.

When they break their way into the house, they find part of the recently plastered ceiling had come down and the body of Miss Trimming lying at the bottom of the stairs in the hallway ("...her head was twisted on her neck..."). A tray with broken pieces of crockery and glass lay near the body. Adrian Delafield is discovered lying unconscious on the stairs of the second floor landing. So the local policeman in charge works on the assumption the crash of the falling ceiling caused Miss Trimmings to trip down the stairs and Delafield "heard her fall and tried to reach her." But why is the plasterer who worked on the ceiling nowhere to be found. That's one of the details drawing Inspectors Rivers and Lancing, of Scotland Yard, into the case. And, to be honest, they really had no reason to interfere in what looked like a normal, everyday domestic accident. It unquestionably made for a better detective story that they did.

The Double Turn is listed in Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991), but, as other reviewers have pointed out, Lorac was not John Dickson Carr who would turned the locked up, bolted house the hinge that made the plot move – somehow found a way (ROT13) gb znxr gur byq cnvagre gur xvyyre. A possibility I was trying to work into an armchair theory myself. Lorac focused on the enigmatic duo of Miss Trimmings and Adrian Delafield. Miss Trimmings' identity can be verified for sure as she made a surprisingly thorough job in blotting out her past. Not even a snippet, or two, left over from a destroyed paper trail. At the same time, questions are raised about Delafield's identity as most of his family is either dead or hadn't seem him for decades before they reunited. So part of the plot also turns on the age-old question of identity complicated by the fact "family histories are generally on the squalid side," which here is no exception. Even the family yarn how Miss Trimmings got Delafield out of France when the Nazis invaded is blurry. Rivers and Lancing still have to consider the problem of the missing plasterer and the possibility of miser's fortune stowed away somewhere, but they inevitably return to the problem of the locked house.

First of all, while the locked house itself is not given the same attention as the well-drawn characters, their domestic circumstances and potential motives, a possible (false) solution is briefly explored. A solution discounted as the killer would have had to cross the plaster debris without leaving footprints. The actual locked room-trick is not exactly routine, but neither is it blistering original. However, the somewhat unusual scene of the crime helped to prop it up and ended up doing the trick most satisfyingly. I preferred it to the lame armchair solution I had pieced together. More importantly, the trick revealed the murderer who was surprisingly well hidden among this small cast of characters lacking any of the obvious or least-likely-suspects making The Double Turn Lorac's most accomplished, well-clued whodunits. Particular (HUGE SPOILER/ROT13) gur pyhr uvqqra va gur tbqqnza obbx gvgyr vgfrys is the kind of clueing usually expected from Lorac's better remembered, often more highly regarded contemporaries. Only, tiny smudge that needs mentioning is how Rivers could have (SPOILERS/ROT13) ceriragrq gjb, znlor guerr qrnguf unq ur tvira gur ceboyrz bs gur ybpxrq ubhfr uvf shyy nggragvba rneyvre ba va gur fgbel. Not that it detracted too much from this otherwise excellent detective novel. Just something I couldn't help noticing and nitpick about.

So, I know I lavished praise on the previous two Lorac's reviewed on here, calling both Death of an Author (1935) and Murder as a Fine Art my favorite Lorac reprints to date, but The Double Turn is now my favorite Lorac reprint to date! Not exactly what I expected after all these years, but well worth the long wait. A highly recommended highlight from the twilight years of the detective story's Golden Age. Fingers crossed Lorac's frustratingly rare, out-of-print Murder in St. John's Wood (1934) is next to be reprinted.

Note for the curious: if you're curious about my lame armchair theory, I figured (ROT13) fvapr gur byq cnvagre'f zvaq jnf tbvat “tntn” ng gvzrf, ur pbhyq tvira gur byq, unys oyvaq znvq n fpner ol chyyvat n cenax ba ure jvgubhg arrqvat gb yrnir uvf orq. Fbzrguvat ur pbhyq oneryl qb naljnl. Sbe rknzcyr, jung vs ur sbhaq n ovt fcvqre penjyvat ba uvf orq furrg, pnhtug vg naq uvq vafvqr n ancxva ba gur genl. Jura fur jrag qbjafgnvef jvgu gur genl, gur fcvqre penjyrq ba ure unaq tvivat ure sevtug naq penfuvat qbja gur fgnvef. Gur byq cnvagre urneq jung unccrarq, gevrq gb trg gb ure naq sryy qbja n syvtug bs fgnvef uvzfrys. Fbzrguvat nybat gubfr yvarf, orpnhfr V nffhzrq gur ybpxrq ubhfr jnf n erq ureevat naq gur erny vzcbffvovyvgl vf ubj n arne vainyvq onfvpnyyl pbasvarq gb uvf orqebbz pbhyq pnhfrq ure gb snyy qbja gur fgnvef. Ohg vg jbhyq unir plpyrq gur fgbel onpx gb vgf fgnegvat cbvag, v.r. n ubzr nppvqrag jvgubhg n ybpxrq ebbz zlfgrel. Fb tbbq guvat zl fbyhgvba pbhyqa'g unir orra zber jebat.