Rev. Victor L. Whitechurch was an Anglican churchman, author and creator of Thorpe Hazell, a vegetarian railway enthusiast, who's one of the oddest "Rivals of Sherlock Holmes" appearing in a short-lived series of nine short stories from 1905 to 1906 – collected in Thrilling Stories of the Railway (1912). Whitechurch started out as a turn-of-the-century mystery writer in the Doylean tradition, but also got the participate in the early Golden Age of the British detective story with novels like The Crime at Diana's Pool (1927), Murder at the Pageant (1930) and Murder at the College (1932). Not to mention being a founding member of The Detection Club and penning the first chapter ("Corpse Ahoy!") for the round-robin mystery The Floating Admiral (1931).
The first story is "Peter Crane's Cigars," originally published in the July, 1905, issue of The Royal Magazine as "The Ingenious Ruse of Mr. Crane," which briefly introduces Thorpe Hazell. A book collector, railway enthusiast and amateur detective "whose knowledge of book editions and bindings was only equaled by his grasp of railway details," but what made Thorpe Hazell an odd duck at the time was another one of his eccentricities – "a strong faddist on food and physical culture." A vegetarian to the extreme who was constantly practicing strange, outlandish physical exercises.
So this first story presents a fairly minor problem as Hazell has to deal with a tobacconist undercutting his competition by selling quality cigars at bargain prices ("...only paid fivepence each for them"). That brand can be "picked up very cheaply in Holland or Belgium," but not resold at those low prices unless they were smuggled into the country without paying the duties. Hazell dons a disguise to tail Crane on his monthly excursion abroad, but even the railway detective is baffled how Crane was smuggling the cigars. So you can categorize this story as a borderline impossible crime story and not something as banal or disappointing as the cigars being smuggled pass customs inside the books Crane was lugging around on his travels. Whitechurch came up with something more ambitious for the core solution, but its dependence on (ROT13) haxabja nppbzcyvprf detracts from the overall plot. Still a fun, enjoyable introduction to the series.
"The Tragedy on the London and Mid-Northern," originally published in the August, 1905, issue of The Royal Magazine, begins with Hazell perusing the morning newspaper when a headline, "SHOCKING ACCIDENT ON THE RAILWAY," catches his eye and attention. An unidentified man was found leaning out of one of the windows of an express, on the London and Mid-Northern Railway, who had a wound on the back of his head and an ear torn off. So the authorities assume the man was looking out of the window and struck his head against one of several bridges over the line, but Hazell would like to know more about the incident. Between stretches and dumbbell exercises, Thorpe Hazell becomes Thorpedyke Hazell and follows a trail of physical evidence right to the murderer's doorstep. As noted before, these are early, pre-Golden Age mysteries that reads like a blueprint of what's coming, but often lacked fair play. So Hazell is as much as an oracle as an detective. Still a fun story.
"The Affair of the Corridor Express," first published in the September, 1905, issue of The Royal Magazine, is an interesting one. A distressed Mr. F.W. Wingrave, a master at Shillington School, comes to Thorpe Hazell asking him to help find a 10-year-old school boy, Horace Carr-Mathers, who's the son of a millionaire and impossibly vanished from a moving train – vanished right under the nose of the school masters! So the London express was thoroughly searched, every compartment, luggage rack and passenger, but Horace was nowhere to be found. Hazell can see "a distinct plot" in Wingrave's account and accepts the case. I think this is the first story with a plot that has aged surprisingly well. Not only does it indulge in some clueing and foreshadowing, but the visual image of how Horace vanished from the train makes for a memorable visual image. That poor kid! One of those rare detective stories that manages actually do something with a kidnap plot.
"Sir Gilbert Murrell's Picture," originally published in the October, 1905, issue of The Royal Magazine under the title "The Car That Vanished" and anthologized in The Realm of the Impossible (2027), is another early highlight of the impossible crime story. A case that "found a prominent place in Thorpe Hazell's notebook" and for good reason. Sir Gilbert Murrell has three paintings on loan to an expedition, but they inexplicable disappear in transit, on a goods train, along with its entire waggon on a non-stop right. And to top it all off, the vanished waggon with the paintings was in the middle of the train! I don't know how feasible the disappearance-trick is or whether it can be pulled-off on a first try, but the idea is ambitious, original and light years ahead of its time when it comes to the impossible crime story. A good and entertaining impossible crime caper.
"How the Bank was Saved," published in the November, 1905, issue of The Royal Magazine as "The Frustration of Kinch," begins with admitting "Thorpe Hazell always looked upon the affair of the Birmingham Bank from a distinctly humorous point of view" – "not worth calling a railway mystery or adventure." I agree. This is a mild crime comedy in which Hazell helps a bank thwart a plot to destroy their credibility over a personal grievance. A plot involving a robbery aboard a train, but Hazell has a counter plot. A fun, light, but forgettable, criminal farce.
"How the Bishop Kept His Appointment," originally appearing in the January, 1906, issue of The Royal Magazine, is a mild, humorous adventure story in which Hazell helps a bishop get to his important speaking engagement after their train derailed. So not much to say about this one except that it has one or two good moments.
"The Adventure of the Pilot Engine," first published in the February, 1906, issue of The Royal Magazine, takes place at "a juncture when European politics were considered by diplomatists to be in a very delicate state" when Count von Neglein arrived in the country – scheduled to have "an interview with the English Prime Minister" ("...in presence of the King"). A small group of spies, headed by a man named Dubourg, plot to prevent this meeting from ever happening and the plot he has hatched makes this the most technically complicated stories in the series. A complicated and fiendish scheme involving a particular stretch of railway with quadruple tracks and switch boxes. There's even a map of that stretch of railway line. Refreshingly, Dubourg admits "there are several weak spots in the plan" and "must trust to luck." Nobody could have planned on a certain railway detective playing deus ex machine to spoil their carefully laid out and executed plot. So not too bad for a vintage spy thriller.
Note for the curious: one of the characters involved in the plot is a Russian spy, named Koravitch, who's probably the same character from Whitechurch's The Adventures of Captain Ivan Koravitch (1925). That could mean Whitechurch could have written the first, or one of the first, crossovers in the detective genre. Something deserving of being footnoted.
"The Stolen Necklace," originally published in the March, 1906, issue of The Royal Magazine, concludes this short-lived series on an underwhelming note. A short story from the late 1800s or early 1900s about stolen or misplaced diamond necklaces, strings of pearls and gold rings tend to feel like filler stories – because rarely something really is clever is done with it. This story is no exception. Hazell helps a woman retrieve a diamond necklace she lost on a train, but turn out to have been stolen. An OK story by itself (and for the time), but forgettable and very weak to end this series on. At least Hazell was satisfied with his ending ("...glad to think that the last of my little investigations of railway mysteries has cleared a good man of suspicion...").
Hold on! There are six more, non-Thorpe Hazell thrilling stories of the railway in this collection beginning with another locked room murder aboard a train.
"The Mystery of the Boat Express," published in the February, 1912, issue of The Royal Magazine, begins with a passenger of the Great Southern Boat Train paying the guard a half-crown to lock his compartment ("...I do not wish to be disturbed"). When the train arrived at its destination, the guard unlocks the compartment and discovers the passenger has been shot through the head. So it appears to be a case of suicide, but the evidence screams murder. How can a man alone inside a locked compartment, on a moving train, have been shot? The solution to that conundrum makes "The Mystery of the Boat Express" another footnote worthy title. I think the locked room aficionados has seen a variation, or two, on this trick before, but this story predates them all by more than twenty years. Other than that, very much a short story of its time.
"How the Express was Saved," originally published August, 1911, issue of The Royal Magazine, runs along similar lines as some of the previous stories. It revolves around a group of disgruntled railway strikers who were told by their employer to hit the road. So they hatch a plot to derail the train, on which their General Manager is traveling, pitching it straight into the river. In my opinion, the best written of Whitechurch's railway thrillers complimented by a beautiful map of the scene where the train is to be derailed.
I have very little to say about the last four, fairly minor short stories from The Royal Magazine. "A Case of Signalling" (1911) has a maid and her railway worker boyfriend spoil a burglary. "Winning the Race" (1911) is another affair of international intrigue and concerns trying to get one train to arrive before the other. "The Strikers" (1911) is much the same as "How the Express was Saved," but not as good. Finally, "The Ruse That Succeeded" (1911), in which the Russian spy Koravitch has to be smuggled out of Britain. I guess this story comes from The Adventures of Ivan Koravitch.
So, all in all, Whitechurch's Thrilling Stories of the Railway is an interesting, but mixed, collection of short stories. The best of these stories are "The Affair of the Corridor Express," "Sir Gilbert Murrell's Picture," "The Mystery of the Boat Express" and "How the Express was Saved" followed at some distance by "The Tragedy on the London and Mid-Northern" and "The Adventure of the Pilot Engine." You have to judge these stories by the standards (or lack of standards) of the pre-Golden Age period when the detective story of the 1930s and '40s slowly started to take its form. That's perhaps the biggest strength of Thrilling Stories of the Railway is showing this transition from one period to the other. Like the best from this period, they read like a blueprint or premonition of the coming Golden Age (e.g. Isabel Ostrander's The Clue in the Air, 1917). Whitechurch's railway mysteries belong to that category with its technical, more ambitious and complicated plots, impossible crimes, diagrams and floor plans. Whitechurch was not the first to include floor plans and diagrams, but they were still far from a staple of the detective genre. So definitely enjoyed this collection and its historical window into the development of the detective story. Recommended not only to vintage crime fans, but fans of vintage fiction in general.
