Death Strolls the Boardwalk

"The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter."

- Sam Spade (Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, 1929)

In my previous blog-post, I reviewed The Cell Murder Mystery (1931) by Donald Bayne Hobart, which was reissued by Coachwhip, alongside The Clue of the Leather Noose (1929), as a twofer volume – simply titled Two Mysteries (2014). Why not, I thought, polish off this double edition in one go and have it done with. Or else, it would be sitting, unfinished, on my TBR-pile for weeks or perhaps even months. So here we are again!

One of the most notable aspects of the book is the historical and scenic backdrop of the crime-scene, which seems to be the reportedly famous Boardwalk of Ocean City, New Jersey.

There are only two, very minor, references that give the location away: one of them is a rather obvious, throw-away line mentioning the place by name ("Ocean City looked like a fairyland...") and the other was a reminder to one of the suspects that New Jersey electrocutes its condemned murderers, but both of them were made halfway through the book – suggesting that the author actually tried not to make the location of his novel too obvious. However, Hobart should have known that mystery readers are a skulk of curious and persistent foxes!

A second point of historical interest was the immediate scene of the crime: a rolling chair parked on a public spot of the Boardwalk. A rolling chair is, usually, a (covered) two-seat cart that can be hired by vacationers to be rolled across the Boardwalk by a chair-pusher. During the late 1800s and early twentieth century, they were a sign of luxury, but, nowadays, they're only a novelty attraction.

The Clue of the Leather Noose begins with the discovery of a rolling chair, "parked close to the outer rail and facing the sea," which turned out to contain the body of a retired and unscrupulous stage producer, Mr. Watson Gregg, who had been evidently murdered – strangled with "a peculiar cord of saffron leather." Before the murder was discovered, onlookers, one of them a policeman, saw a number of people near the rolling chair: one of them a tall gentleman, "who appeared to be having a very amusing conversation with Gregg," but there were also two women who stopped at the chair. Both of them heavily veiled (of course!). This was preceded by "a slender, golden-haired girl" getting out of the chair and "hurrying off the Boardwalk crying."

She was recognized by Larry Benson as his love-interest, Lannon Gorden, which he neglects to tell to Police Captain Jerry Blake and his chief aid, Detective Dan Flannigan, but there were also other characters abound on the Boardwalk. Gregg's physician, Dr. Fulda of New York, who found the body and called upon Benson for help. They're quickly joined by a Giovanni Danton and the doctor notes that "there seemed to be a tense antipathy between these two men."

There is, however, one important witness missing from the scene of the crime: John Hagen, the chair-pusher.

So, there's more than enough interesting material for a potential interesting detective story, but, as I observed in my previous blog-post, Hobart was not one of the genre's greatest plotters. As a pulp-writer, he knew how to spin a yarn and rapidly move a story from one event or revelation into another, which makes for some pleasantly paced storytelling, but his plots are not exactly sterling material – which never seem to be able to fully deliver on their premise or play fair with the reader. Some key points and evidence were unfairly withheld from the reader by Captain Blake.

Nevertheless, Hobart is not an unpleasant writer and keeps you moving along with the story that involves an "evil-faced blackmailer," a Japanese servant, a dotty aunt who celebrated the death with a dinner party, alongside a handful of additional characters, as well as a number of (attempted) murders. But, once again, you should not expect all of this to result in a rug-puller of a final chapter, because Hobart was not that kind of a crime writer.

The treatment of the murderer and motive was, somewhat, interesting, but hardly enough to make for a fully satisfying mystery novel.

So, that's two lukewarm reviews in a row, however, I have something that might end this blog-post on a semi-interesting note. As you probably guessed, I found the boardwalk setting and the rolling chair to be (historically) interesting, which made me wonder what some of Hobart's god-tier contemporaries would've done with such a premise. I actually began to imagine how my favorite mystery writer, John Dickson Carr, would've tackled this problem and actually was able to come up with a full-fledged, Carrian-styled explanation for the strangling death of Watson Gregg. I also turned it into an impossible crime, but used (nearly) all of the elements that were already in the story.

Hey, it's Christmas is almost upon us. So why not work my magic and conjure up a little miracle for you all to enjoy?

If Carr had been the author of The Clue of the Leather Noose, the doctor would have been revealed as the murderer and he would have approached the rolling chair twice. The first time as the unknown gentleman, who was seen having a very amusing conversation with the victim, which was an animated talk because Fulda was explaining why he was on the Boardwalk in disguise – probably spinning a tale about seeing a married woman (or something along those lines). He offered a very amused Gregg a swig from a his pocket flask, which was, of course, doctored with a sleeping draught. 

The point of the sleeping draught is that he would not be knocked out immediately, because the doctor had to ditch his disguise for the second and final phase of his murderous scheme. And this is where his plans begin to unravel. Unknown to the doctor, Gregg is seen (by the police officer) being approached by the two previously mentioned women and every time there are signs of life coming from the strolling chair. But, eventually, the effects of the doctored drink kicks in and Gregg falls into a deep, deep sleep.

Atlantic City, N.J. (1890): roller chairs on boardwalk ©

When the doctor returns, he is seen leaning into the vehicle, "as he seemed to speak to the occupant," but he actually put the titular noose around Gregg's throat and drew it so tight "that it was deeply embedded in his flesh" - which is an action that only takes a couple of seconds. So, while an unconscious Gregg is strangled to death by a tightly pulled leather noose, the doctor pretends he found an already dead body.

Any twitches or final spasms of the body are easily obscured as "it was growing dark" and the wicker and glass sides, as well as the heavy top, placed the interior of the rolling chair in a shadow. So by the time an official homicide detective arrived, Gregg would have been slowly strangled to death. The book-title also gets an actual meaning with this method. Anyway...

Unfortunately, the doctor can't shovel the blame on the shoulders of the mysterious, and non-existent, gentleman he created. And the patrolling policeman is baffled, because how could someone have taken several minutes to strange a man right under his nose without being seen? It seems completely impossible! I know, I know, it would have made more sense, as well as having been easier, if the doctor had simply poisoned Gregg, but where would the fun have been in that?

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little re-imagining of the plot and I'll try to pick something better for the next review. But, for now, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope to see you all back next week!

The Imperfect Cell

"No prison on earth is airtight."

- Richard Michaelson (Michael Bowen's Washington Deceased, 1990)

Donald Bayne Hobart was a productive pulpeteer, who primarily focused on mysteries and westerns, but also wrote comic book stories and he was even credited as a coloring artist, which allowed him to earn a living over the span of half a century – covering the decades between 1920 and 1970. During this period, Hobart also penned a whole slew of novels, mostly westerns, but his output also included a handful of obscure, long-forgotten detective novels. Surprisingly, two of them are easily available!

Back in 2014, Coachwhip reissued The Clue of the Leather Noose (1929) and The Cell Murder Mystery (1931) as a twofer volume. As you were probably able to gauge from the post-title and opening quote, I went for the second book contained within this volume and my reason for this was as simple as it's predictable: Robert Adey listed The Cell Murder Mystery in Locked Room Murders (1991). It's getting tiresome, isn't it?

However, The Murder Cell Mystery has something in common with the previous mystery novel I reviewed, which is that neither can really be labeled as an authentic locked room mystery. Technically, Hobart's take on this particular type of detective story can be considered an impossible crime, but the claim is a shaky one and the explanation probably disqualify it such to many readers – which was both embarrassingly stupid and a blatant cheat. But I'll return to this aspect of the plot presently. Fortunately, the story barely gave any attention to the impossible angle and the first chapter opened with a very different kind of crime: a burglary and a stabbing.

Ted Ames is moving "stealthily through the grounds of the vast, gloomy estate" of Fosdick Martin, a wealthy banker, who is the owner of a famous collection of unset diamonds. A collection Ames was ordered to steal on behalf of a sinister figure, known as "The Lizard," who is "one of the most ruthless and cold-blooded criminals" of the underworld, but the reader is quickly made aware of the fact that there's more than one prowler on the premise – one of them a masked man in the shadow-strewn garden and an unknown woman. And they're both very much aware of Ames' movement. Ames notices some very peculiar activity himself inside the house.

Martin is overheard bitterly quarreling with someone in the study and he sees the banker's private-secretary, Perry Fulson, leaning against the closed door and with one "ear pressed tightly against the panel as he listened to the conversation in the room beyond." So, there are a lot of people sneaking about the premise, but was one of them responsible for seriously wounding Martin with a knife when the room was plunged into darkness? Who was the woman who warned Ames that the police was called?

Enter the Chief of the North City Police Department, John Kenny, alongside his right-hand man, Detective-Sergeant Tim O'Shay, who immediately detain two of the people who were present at the crime-scene as material witnesses. One of them is the private-secretary, Fulson, while the other one, Grant Ellery, was the person overheard fighting with the victim. He was a business partner and Fulson "had hysterically accused Ellery of murdering Martin," but he asks Chief Kenny time to think things over, before making a statement, which ends up costing him his life – as someone managed to gain access to his holding cell and stab him to death. This is where I have the biggest problem with the story.

Chief Kenny is described as "a man to be reckoned with," both mentally and physically, which reportedly made "the best chief of police North City had ever possessed." However, that proved to be a sad comment on the competence of his predecessors.

He never shows to be shocked or is worried that someone, somehow, wandered into his prison cells, opened one of them and killed an important witness in a high-profile case. But it gets worse! The explanation shows this was only possible because Kenny had been very careless in one regard, which eventually led to a second stabbing in those very same prison cells and another prisoner was able to escape from them – resulting in yet another deadly knife-attack. And the killer's method for entering the prison cell and Kenny's mistake were also never hinted at. So don't try and figure it out.

Not a very competent chief of police, if you ask me, and had Ellery Queen known about this case he would've probably been less guilt-ridden about his own mistake in Ten Days' Wonder (1948).

All of that being said, The Cell Murder Mystery is still a well-told, nicely paced and very pulpy crime story with a large, sprawling cast of characters, which does an excellent job at throwing the reader from one situation and revelation into another – clearly showing the author had his roots in the pulps and magazine publications of his time. The emphasis here is obviously on entertaining storytelling rather than crafting an intricate puzzle that poses a tricky challenge to armchair detectives.

So I found the lack of a proper puzzle-plot and the idiotic locked room to be slightly disappointing, but overall, the book was not a drag to read and blitzkrieged through the chapters. I was definitely entertained. It's just a very pulpy kind of mystery and you've to keep that in mind when you pick this one up.