However, you're advised not to read
the book expecting to find a completely tongue-in-cheek treatment,
similar to Leo
Bruce and Takemaru
Abiko, of the classic detective story. The Death of Laurence
Vining could have been written by Anthony
Berkeley when he was in a particular foul mood. This probably
explains why such a brilliant detective story has not been reprinted
in nearly seven decades. But more on that later.
Laurence Vining was a genius as well
as "a queer fish" of independent means, which both allowed
him to devote his mind to the pursuit of knowledge, but whether his
study of man bolstered his humanity "is open to grave doubt."
An arrogant and difficult man who didn't have much sympathy, or
liking, for his fellow creatures and wasn't afraid of giving offense
in a "devilish polite" and sarcastic manner – which
earned him more enemies than friends. Only person who seemed to
understood and even appreciated him was his "very
impressionable" friend, Dr. Benjamin Willing, who became
Vining's Dr. Watson when he began developing an interest in
criminology. And on more than one occasion, Vining had succeeded
where the police had failed.
The Death of Laurence Vining
opens with the last chapter in a sensational murder trial, referred
to in the newspapers as the "Shop Murder" or "Shop Case," in
which Vining delivered the murderer of shopkeeper to justice. A
success that came at a personal price. The case ended Vining's role
as an anonymous, unofficial consultant to the police and the papers
wrote jubilantly about the eminent scholar abandoning his studies "in
order to assist in work of this kind." Scotland Yard had a
real-life Sherlock Holmes!
So a shock wave goes through the
country and newspaper headlines when Vining is killed under
circumstances defying any logical or even natural explanation.
A ticket collector at the top platform
of Hyde Park Tube Station witnessed Vining entering an empty lift,
save and sound, but, when the lift had reached the bottom, the doors
opened to reveal the body of the briefly famous detective – a
ceremonial dagger had been planted in his back. But how did the
murderer enter the lift without being seen by the tick collector or
managed to escape with the two people waiting at the bottom? Dr.
Willing offers his assistance to the exasperated Inspector Widgeon,
of Scotland Yard, to help find the murderer of his friend. An
apparently invisible murder or the possibility of a sentient dagger
aren't the only complications in the case.
Vining young, devil-may-care nephew,
Captain Jack Ransome, who wanted to marry his uncle's secretary,
Pamela Jackson, but disappeared shortly after his uncle threatened to
disinherit him. Suleiman, Vining's Malayan servant, disappeared
around the same time and, if he turned on his master, the motive
could be hidden among the many oriental treasures crammed inside his
museum-like house. Who's behind the mysterious letter, signed "Red
Hat," which lured Vining to the tube station? On top of that,
Widgeon often has to drag answers from various suspects and
witnesses.
However, the investigation that takes
up the middle portion of the story is surprisingly plain and
straightforward for, what legitimately is, one of the best detective
novels of the 1920s. A routine investigation that's taken up with
questioning witnesses, examining the scene of the crime and digging
around for the clues with the only notable highlight being a
preposterous, pulp-style false solution proposed by Dr. Willing to
explain how Vining could have been stabbed in sealed and moving lift.
You have the chalk the middle portion up as the calm before the
storm, because the eventual solution is one that hits all three
cylinders – who, why and how. The locked room-trick is meticulously
put together and the nature of the trick, as well as the ideas it
used, foreshadowed what was to come in the decades ahead. Even more
impressive is that the murderer accounted for several possibilities
and had prepared according with several backup plans. One of them
would have aborted the whole scheme, if outside elements started
working against it. Something I've never seen before!
I had both my suspicions and doubts
about the murderer's identity, because the locked room is not all
that easy to work out and the motive kind of stumped me, but the
choice of murderer and the twisted motive were unquestionably
masterstrokes. Thomas was not satisfied and went one step further in
the unusual confrontation with the murderer, which resulted in
exactly the kind of ending I've always wanted to see in a genuinely
classic detective novel. Thomas gave it to me.
So why has this minor classic and
herald of what was to come in the 1930s not been reprinted since the
1950s? I got my answer when Vining's housekeeper gave her opinion on
Suleiman using a hard R that you can hear rolling off the page and
that's not only time The Death of Laurence Vining showed its
age in a less than flattering way. So you'll be hard pressed to find
a publisher today who would be willing to reprint it and very likely
will remain out-of-print until it enters the public domain.
Yeah, The Death of Laurence Vining
definitely lived up to its mythical reputation among locked room
readers as an obscure masterpiece and, if you're willing to take the
good with the bad, you'll be treated to a brilliant, innovative and
cleverly subversive detective story worthy of Anthony Berkeley.
