Murder in the Air (1931) by Darwin L. Teilhet

Darwin L. Teilhet was an American journalist, advertising executive, screenwriter and novelist who started out as a mystery writer, authoring seven detective novels from 1931 to 1940, four of which forming a short-lived series – featuring the irrepressible, slightly unhinged Baron von Kaz. Hildegarde Teilhet co-wrote three of the brave Von Kaz novels, but her husband began his literary career with three standalone mysteries.

The most notable, best remembered of Teilhet's trio of non-series mysteries is the prescient The Talking Sparrow Murders (1934), which takes place in Germany when the Nazis rose to power. It has the distinction of arguably being the first ever World War II detective novel beating Theodore Roscoe's I'll Grind Their Bones (1936) by two years. A big reason why it was reprinted in 1985 by Polygonics. Death Flies High (1931) and Murder in the Air (1931), a pair of aviation-themed mysteries, aren't as well remembered today, but that can be put down to neither having ever received a reprint. So, you can say they flew under our collective radars. Murder in the Air is an interesting case as it's not only an impossible crime novel listed in Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991), but the central impossibility is based on a famous, real-life disappearance from the late 1920s. More on that aspect in a moment.

Murder in the Air opens with Peter Blue, a reporter for the Paris Journal, getting fired by editor, Henry Jackson, because he has "muffed every good story" given to him. Just when is ready to leave, the telephone rings with bombshell news. Dr. von Dolbenstein, "biggest financier in Europe," vanished from his tri-motored, Rhorbach monoplane while it was flying five thousand feet above the English Channel. There were five other passengers, not including the pilot and navigator, who saw Von Dolbenstein go into the lavatory alone and not coming back – no answers to their calls or knocks. So they broke down the door only to discover Dr. von Dolbenstein has vanished into thin air! What followed was a search of the small plane from cockpit to tail-end without finding a trace. They even tried to open the cabin door, to see if he might have accidentally fallen out, but "the blast of wind from the propellers was too strong" ("we couldn't budge it"). Only thing they can do is radio the police that a well-known, influential financier known on two continents has inexplicably gone missing from a sealed airplane in mid flight.

So, if this situation sounds vaguely familiar, the "fantastic disappearance" of Von Dolbenstein was based on a notorious, real-life disappearance under very similar circumstances. On July 4, 1928, the Belgian financier Alfred Loewenstein, third richest man in the world at the time, flew from Croydon to Brussels on his private air plane with a group of six people. They reported seeing Loewenstein going to the lavatory and not returning. Only difference is that when they checked the lavatory, they found the entrance door open and it was assumed Loewenstein had accidentally plunged to his death. However, the official reading didn't stop the speculations and conspiracy theories. Teilhet's Murder in the Air probably was the first fictionalized take on the case, but not the last as you might also be reminded of Franco Vailati's Il mistero dell'idrovolante (The Flying Boat Mystery, 1935) and Helen McCloy's short story "The Case of the Duplicate Door" (1949) collected in The Pleasant Assassin and Other Cases of Dr. Basil Willing (2003).

Back to Peter Blue and Henry Jackson. When news arrives, Jackson has no reporters on hand and dispatches Blue to the airport to report on, what could be, the biggest breaking story of the decade. Blue, as the on-the-ground reporter, learns the other passengers consisted of Von Dolbenstein's two secretaries, Frederick von Stallf and Miss Geraldine "Jerry" Howard, two other well-known financiers, Harvey Gerbé and Sir William Wallace, and a former secretary, John Carson – who forced his way onto the plane before it took off. Lastly, the pilot and navigator, Clarence Pierce and Erich Rask. Blue also learns there's another layer to the seemingly impossible disappearance as "a cordon of men surged around the monoplane even before its wheels had bounced on the ground" ensuring Von Dolbenstein couldn't have been hiding on the outside, dropped off and escaped. Shortly following the disappearance, the man who called in the tip to Jackson is murdered in one of the hangars. And the victim left behind a dying message suggesting a link with the disappearance mystery.

However, this murder is of peripheral importance to the story and plot as it's barely mentioned again until towards the end. The story that follows is more of a medium boiled, almost pulp-style mystery with the plucky, elusive Miss Howard and the hardboiled John Carston giving him the most trouble, which comes with plenty of physical altercations. For example, the fifth chapter opens with a bandaged Blue waking up in a hospital bed.

Beside a couple of unruly suspects, Blue also has to deal with George St. Armand, the newly appointed Chef de la Sûreté, who's convinced Carson and Miss Howard are behind the disappearance ("they are two of the most infamous criminals"). Much to Blue's dismay who has become very interested in Miss Howard and somewhat confused why she's protecting Carson. There is, of course, the inexplicable mystery of Von Dolbenstein's disappearance from an airplane and the trouble his disappearance is causing. Before he disappeared, Von Dolbenstein was ready to market a new technical marvel, "a new, secret Diesel airplane," but the plans vanished alongside the financier. So the investors are ruined and a newspaper report how "the crash of the von Dolbenstein bubble" has already resulted in two suicides.

I have mentioned on this blog before how the "financial wizards" of the early 20th century took over the role of popular villains and ready-made, murderable victims from blackmailers in detective fiction following the Stock Market Crash of 1929 – e.g. The Mystery on the Channel (1931) by Freeman Wills Crofts. Murder in the Air is another example, but with a slight twist bringing me to the solution.

Murder in the Air is Teilhet's first stab at the detective story, a stab full of energy and enthusiasm, but a still inexperience hand at plotting reveals itself in the solution. First of all, Teilhet made a capital mistake confirming my initial suspicion was spot on. What was that mistake (HUGE SPOILER/ROT13): gur bcravat abgrq gur qbbe bs gur yningbel jnf ybpxrq naq unq gb or oebxra qbja, ohg gung ybpxrq qbbe jnf arire zragvbarq be pbafvqrerq ntnva nf n cneg bs guvf zhygvynlrerq ybpxrq ebbz zlfgrel. Jul? Orpnhfr gur ybpxrq qbbe cynlrq ab cneg va gur fbyhgvba. Fb gur svanapvre unq gb unir unq n unaq va uvf bja qvfnccrnenapr. So that brought me halfway towards the correct solution, but muddled the method a little as I considered something a little different. Something silly that was rightfully mocked in the story itself. Teilhet deserves credit, given the limited scope the situation allows for locked room trickery, for not going full pulp and trying to deliver a somewhat detective-worthy solution to the impossible disappearance. The trick is a rather involved one, but not overly convoluted, but undeniably marred by (SPOILER/ROT13) qrcraqvat ba zhygvcyr pb-pbafcvengbef naq nppbzcyvprf. Jung vf guvf... na rcvfbqr bs Wbanguna Perrx? On the upside, while the dying message is only a small part of the plot, its solution shines with brilliant simplicity. It simply stands out against the involved vanishing-trick.

So, all in all, Murder in the Air is a diamond-in-the-rough written and plotted around the central idea of how a man can disappear from an airplane, but how that idea was executed caused the plot to experience some turbulence. Other than the rough patches on the plot, Murder in the Air is highly readable, fast-paced medium boiled mystery-thriller with pulp leanings and full of promise Teilhet would deliver on in future novels. It made me curious about Teilhet's second novel and aviation mystery, Death Flies High, which looks to be a classic, closed circle whodunit aboard a transatlantic flying boat. On the wishlist it goes!