The Case of the Running Man (1958), the 52nd entry in the Ludovic Travers series, rang in the last phase of Christopher Bush's decades-long run as one of Britain's premier mystery novelists as two more would appear in the late 1950s and counting down the final ten over the following decade – published between 1960 and '68. Bush was also one of the then rapidly shrinking group of Golden Age writers who made out of the Atomic Fifties into the Swinging Sixties, until Michael Innes turned out the light (Appleby and the Ospreys, 1986). None of them fared as well in adapting to the changes and upheavals of post-WWII Britain as Bush. Some even prefer the trim, sleek private eye novel that the series became in the 1950s to the elaborately-plotted affairs of the 1930s.
Travers, "a collector in a very humble way," is killing some time by wandering around Christie's to view the antique furniture and pictures. There he meets an elderly, practically blind collector, William Weddall, who's being assisted by his American chauffeur, Sam Martin. Weddall is an eccentric character and was taken aback when learning Travers is a private detective heading his own agency, "a very reputable one," but recovers and asks for a business card – because he has "a pretty important assignment in the near future." Over the following weeks, several small, but curious, incidents happened involving Weddall. First of all, Travers spotted him at the station deliberately missing his boat train while being tailed by a private investigator from City Detection Ltd. Secondly, Travers receives his important assignment from Waddell over the post asking him to fly to France to post a letter in Paris. Further more, Travers was hoaxed for some reason over the telephone and eventually receives two visitors, Sam Martin and Scotland Yard's Inspector Jewle, who want to talk with him about Weddall's untimely death.
Weddall's home and estate is Hinchbrook Hall, "show-place for his antiques and paintings," where he fell from a top floor window ("...and his head wasn't at all a pretty sight"). Suspiciously, an unidentified man was seen running away from Hinchbrook Hall right after Weddall's death. So an accident is presumed, murder is suspected. And the reason why Jewle asked Travers to come down to Hinchbrook Hall to have a look around. Sam also turned to Travers as he believes Weddall was murdered and wants to hire him to find the killer.
I should point out here that the 2022 reprint of The Case of the Running Man was praised for its depiction and treatment of Sam Martin, a black man, who had a very un-British master/servant relationship with Weddall even for 1958 ("very democratic... the way, for instance, he and Sam were more like friends"). That's why Sam engaged Travers to find Weddall's killer. So, really, Sam's just a character in a detective story like the rest of the cast with his actual, not wholly unimportant, contribution being a client of the Broad Street Detective Agency – handing Travers a reason to play his card very close to the chest. Travers needs to do a good deal of digging and thinking in a case with no obvious motives and immediate suspects. A case where the behavior of the victim is as baffling as his own death and second, unambiguous murder could bring a solution either closer or pushing it farther away.
This is, of course, glossing over nearly every character and the finer plot details making up The Case of the Running Man. Like I said, the Ludovic Travers novels from this period tend to be sleek, compactly-plotted mysteries and The Case of the Running Man is a very sleek, compactly-plotted mystery and going into the finer details edges closely to spoiler territory. While sleep and compact, The Case of the Running Man has two smudges. Firstly, the plot probably would have worked even better had been presented as inverted mystery as the obvious murderer was propped up by a fantastic motive and alibi-trick. I have seen one, or two, variations on this motive before, but it's still great and believe this is the earliest example on record. Secondly, the alibi-trick, while absolutely grand and strengthening the ending, it's a literal throwback to one of the earlier novels. Bush employed a variation on this alibi-trick even better twenty years before. Again, the alibi-trick is still great, tightly executed and ensured a satisfying conclusion. But not quite good enough to place it among the top tier titles from this series.
Other than that, The Case of the Running Man comes highly recommended to longtime fans of the series.
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