These Names Make Clues (1937) by E.C.R. Lorac

Edith Rivett was a British mystery writer who prolifically produced detective novels and short stories under two different pseudonyms, "E.C.R. Lorac" and "Carol Carnac," but she was a second-stringer with her seventy some novels being very uneven in quality – contributing to their decent into obscurity following her death in 1958. If you asked about Lorac, you usually got a mixed response.

A few years ago, I reviewed Death Came Softly (1943) and Nick Fuller commented Lorac is like "a cross between John Rhode and Ngiao Marsh" with "the worst aspects of both," while JJ countered that he remained "curious about Lorac purely on account of the uncommon ways she approaches what should be fairly standard problems." Lately, I have noticed a shift and you can likely put it down to the recent run of British Library Crime Classic reprints. Martin Edwards and the British Library have slowly been rehabilitating Lorac's reputation by cherry picking her best detective novels to reprint. Checkmate to Murder (1944) was good enough, in spite of some of its obvious flaws, to reintroduce Lorac to my to-be-read pile. Bats in the Bellfry (1937), Murder in the Mill-Race (1952) and the once lost, now posthumously published, Two-Way Murder (2021) currently reside on the big pile, but one of the more recent reprints sounded too intriguing to ignore or put off for too long.

Martin Edwards described These Names Make Clues (1937) in his introduction as "an intriguing detective novel" closely "in tune with the mood of traditional detective fiction of the kind we associate with 'the Golden Age of Murder’ between the two world wars," but had been practically forgotten until British Library reprinted it. There were no secondhand copies for sale on the internet nor any critical commentary in the reference books. Only a very short review from 2008 on the GADetection Wiki. Going into the book, I half-expected something along the lines of Agatha Christie's Cards on the Table (1936), but These Names Make Clues struck me as a conscious imitation of Christopher Bush's detective novels from the same period – like Dead Man's Twice (1930), The Case of the April Fools (1933) and The Case of the Bonfire Body (1936). It's not just because of how the plot was structured with two closely-timed murders, but there were several references to the characters having "the cross-word mind." A variation on a phrase I have only come across in Bush's novels to describe his series-detective, Ludovic Travers. But let's get to the story! 

These Names Make Clues begins with Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald going through his correspondence and finding an invitation from Graham Coombe and his sister, Miss Susan Coombe, to a Treasure Hunt at Caroline House on April's Fools Day.

Graham Coombe is a celebrated publisher whose firm had produced the bestseller Murder by Mesmerism, which Macdonald had sharply criticized during a diner with Coombe without being aware he had published the book. So the invitation challenges Macdonald to pit his "wits against those of the thriller writers, and others, who are competing" in a Treasure Hunt with "clues of a Literary, Historical and Practical nature" provided to the contestants. Coombe gathered eight writers to participate in the game. Nadia Delareign, Andrew Gardien, Ronile Rees and Denzil Strafford represent the so-called "thriller merchants" and Valerie Woodstock (history), Louise Etherton (romance), Digby Bourne (travel) and Ashton Vale (economics) the straight writers. All of the contestants, who have never met before, is given a pseudonym and "a clue to unravel," which has to be deciphered to get to the next stage in the game. The library and telephone-room with guides and timetables is at their disposal. The hunt ends with a final test during which each guest will be allowed to ask six questions in an attempt to deduce, or guess, the identities of their fellow guests.

Macdonald finds himself in the hospitality of a publisher "who turned the other cheek to the smiter" and "who at the same time challenged the critic to use his wits in practical combat against those whom he had derided," which makes him feel like he was hoist with his own petard, but set to work – working his way through a variety of clues and running ahead in the Treasure Hunt. The whole evening begins to acquire "a Mad Hatter quality" when the main fuse blows and the house is plunged into darkness. When the lights are finally restored, the body of Andrew Gardien is discovered in the telephone-room. Apparently, Gardien died of heart failure following a shock, but marks on his hands and a minute fraying of copper wire makes Macdonald suspect the thriller writer had been cleverly electrocuted. And the murderer had removed the gadget that did the trick. Interestingly, Gardien earned the nickname "Master Mechanic" due "to his ingenuity in inventing methods of killing based on simple mechanical contraptions" involving "bits of cord and wire and counterpoises."

Now the "Lights Out, Murder!" trope tends to be one of the genuine hacky and trite cliches of the genre, which actually would be more of obstacle to the murderer than a cover, but These Names Make Clues is an exception to the rule. Lorac had a very simple, but good, explanation why the house went dark. Particularly liked how the blown fuse ended up affecting the murderer's plan. One of Lorac's more ingenious and inspired pieces of plotting. So with a good reason for the blackout in place, the movement of everyone involved becomes much more interesting with several of the guests swearing they saw an uninvited person in the house leading up to the murder. A gray-haired, flat-footed gentleman who's nowhere to be found when the lights come back on, but this mysterious interloper is not the only complication Macdonald has to contend with.

Macdonald has a potential murder on his hands with a victim who had completely obscures his identity and past life, which becomes even more mysterious when Gardien's literary agent is shot in his private office. Gardien's name was accusingly written on the blotting paper and a gun is discovered entangled in the mechanisms of a grandfather clock, but the timing between the two deaths simply don't add up for them to have killed one another. So what really happened to those two mysterious men that lead to their equally mysterious deaths? 

These Names Make Clues is a tremendously enjoyable mystery novel in which Lorac tried to rise above her status as a second-stringer with a tricky plot attuned "attuned to the cross-word method, anagrams and reversals" with several cleverly contrived death traps. There are, however, some of Lorac's usual flaws show up like her roundabout way (like JJ said) in which she approached what should have been a fairly straightforward problem. I think the second death needlessly complicated the case and it would perhaps have better if that death had been immediately explained, which would have then added another layer of mystification to Gardien's murder. Like a lot of second-stringers, Lorac's strength was not in creating misleading, double-edged clues or even more treacherous red herrings and reasoning your way to the solution requires a bit of inspired guesswork – which is normally a serious flaw in any detective story. But the story and characters were so enjoyable, I found myself in an extremely forgiving mood. Martin Edwards noted in his introduction Lorac was elected to membership to "the world's first social network for detective novelists," the Detection Club, in 1937 (same year as Bush) and she likely "drew inspiration from her experiences and encounters on becoming a member of the Detection Club" for These Names Make Clues. For example, Miss Romile Rees, who writes as R. Rees, is "accepted by the critics as a man" on account of her dry, mordant style. Something that has happened to Lorac herself as there were not many female mystery writers who toyed around with mechanical death traps. A toy commonly associated with the technical-minded writers of the humdrum school. Speaking of the humdrums, I think Lorac subtly namedropped a few of John Rhode's pavement-themed names (like "Major Road ahead" and "just off John Street").

Something else I always admired about Lorac's novels, which is very much present in These Names Make Clues, is her awareness of what was happening in Britain and Europe before, during and after the Second World War. Checkmate to Murder and Murder by Matchlight (1945) depicted the squalor of blackouted London during the Blitz, while Fire in the Thatch (1946) takes place among the bombed-out houses of a scarred, post-war London. These Names Make Clues was written several years before the outbreak of the war, but the possibility of war is already present here with several characters being convinced pacifists and members of the Peace in our Time campaign. You can fill entire bookshelves with detective novels and short story taking place during or after the Second World War, but very few mystery writers were prescient enough to tackle a potential war during the 1930s. Only names that come to mind are E.R. Punshon (Crossword Mystery, 1934) and Darwin L. Teilhet (The Talking Sparrow Murders, 1934). This gives Lorac's novels a kind of unintended historical flavor that I can always appreciate. 

These Names Make Clues has some of the flaws you come to expect from Lorac, but the overall package of characters, plot and storytelling made it something very much worth resurrecting from the depths of biblioblivion. And, if these British Library reprints are representative of her best novels, Lorac could very well secure a place among my favorite second-stringers of the genre.

The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories (2018) edited by Martin Edwards

The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories (2018) is the third, wintry-themed anthology published in the British Library Crime Classics series, edited by Martin Edwards, collecting eleven festive stories about "unexplained disturbances in the fresh snow" and "the darkness that lurks beneath the sparkling decorations" – wrapped and presented to the reader like "a seasonal assortment box." This collection presents a wide variety of merry mayhem from the pens of some very well-known mystery writers to a few names who have only recently been rediscovered. But none of the stories have been, what you could call, anthologized to death. So let's pig on this suspicious looking, crime sprinkled Christmas pudding, shall we? Hmm, smells like bitter almonds! 

The collections opens with Baroness Orczy's "A Christmas Tragedy," originally published in the December, 1909, issue of Cassell's Magazine, which has a Christmas Eve party keeping an ear out for "the sound of a cart being driven at unusual speed." A sound that has lately become associated with a series of "dastardly outrages against innocent animals" in the neighborhood of Clevere Hall. So everyone is very keen to put a stop to these cattle-maiming outrages and the cart is heard that night, but this time it was followed by a terrible cry, "Murder! Help! Help!" Major Ceely, host of the party, is found on the garden steps with a knife wound between his shoulder blades. The local police gladly accepts the assistance of Lady Molly, of Scotland Yard, whose success or failure will decide the fate of an innocent man. Not a bad story for the time, but not one of my personal favorites. 

Selwyn Jepson's "By the Sword" first appeared in the December, 1930, issue of Cassell's Magazine and has claimed a place among my favorite seasonal mysteries. Alfred Caithness is spending Christmas with his cousin, Judge Herbert Caithness, who has an idyllic home life with a wife, Barbara, who's twenty-eight years his junior and a five-year-old son, Robert – who loves playing with his toy soldiers. So the perfect setting for an old-fashioned Christmas party, but Alfred has reasons to be more than a little envious of his cousin. He has loved Barbara ever since attending their wedding and sorely needs the kind of money Herbert has aplenty, which is why he decides his cousin has to go when he denies him another loan. So, inspired by the family legend saying that "a Caithness always dies by the sword," Alfred begins to plot the perfect murder with all the evidence pointing to an outsider. However, the entire universe, or the Ghosts of Christmas, appear to be against him as even the best-laid plans can go awry. A fantastic inverted mystery from the hoist-on-their-petards category.

John Pringle is perhaps best remembered today by his principle pseudonym, "Gerald Verner," who prolifically produced pulp-style detective and thriller novels during his lifetime. "The Christmas Card Crime," published as by “Donald Stuart,” originally appeared in the December, 1934, publication of Detective Weekly (No. 96). Trevor Lowe, a well-known dramatist and amateur detective, who you might remember from my reviews of Terror Tower (1935) and The Clue of the Green Candle (1938) is en route with his secretary Arnold White and Detective Inspector Shadgold to spend Christmas with a friend in a small Cornish village, but their train becomes stranded when the heavy snowfall blocks the line. So they have to walk back to the previous station along with seven other passengers, six men and a woman, but they have to go from the empty station to an old, gloomy inn of ill-repute. During the night, two people are murdered in short succession with the thick, undisturbed carpet of snow indicating "no one came from outside and no one has left from within." The only real clue Lowe has to work with is a torn Christmas card. A good and fun piece of Christmas pulp, but more memorable for its mise-en-scène than its plot. However, I have to give props for turning the last words of the second victim in a kind of dying message sort of pointing to the murderer.

The next two stories have been previously reviewed on this blog, here and here, but, needless to say, Carter Dickson's "Blind Man's Hood" (1937) and Ronald A. Knox's "The Motive" (1937) can be counted among the best stories in the collection. Both come highly recommended! 

Francis Durbridge's "Paul Temple's White Christmas" first appeared in Radio Times on December 20, 1946, but reads more like vignette than a proper short-short story. Paul Temple's dream of a white Christmas in Switzerland is granted when he's asked to go there to identify the main suspect in that Luxembourg counterfeit business he had help to smash. So not much to say about this one with only half a dozen pages and a razor thin plot. 

Cyril Hare's "Sister Bessie or Your Old Leech" was originally published in the Evening Standard on December 23, 1949, which is another one of my personal favorites from this collection. Timothy Trent was brought up by his step family, the Grigsons, but Timothy was the only "one of that clinging, grasping clan" who "got on in the world" and made money – someone from that family has been annually blackmailing him. Every year, around Christmas time, he receives a payment notice signed by "From your old Leech." Timothy was actually surprised by the latest demand, because he assumed he had gotten rid of Leech last February. But here he was again. Or was it a she? Timothy goes to the Grigson family party determined to smoke out the blackmailer, but, once again, even the best-laid plans can go awry and here it comes with a particular dark, poisonous sting in the tail. An excellent crime story demonstrating why Hare was admired by both his contemporary brethren and modern crime writers like P.D. James and Martin Edwards. 

E.C.R. Lorac's "A Bit of Wire-Pulling" originally appeared under the title "Death at the Bridge Table" in the Evening Standard on October 11, 1950, which is another short-short. Inspector Lang, the old C.I.D. man, tells the story of the time he had to protect an important industrialist, Sir Charles Leighton, who received threatening letters promising he will be dead before the old year's out. So he accompanies him, incognito, to a New Year's Eve bridge party where's shot to death in front of Lang's eyes and the murderer apparently managed to escape. However, the sharp-eyed detective quickly begins to pick up the bits and pieces that tell an entirely different story. More importantly, he trusts the men he has personally trained. Lorac was somewhat of a female John Rhode, as she was very keen on technical trickery, but you can't help but feel the murderer was doomed from the start by employing such a ballsy method. A pretty decent short-short. Not especially memorable, but not bad either. 

John Bude's "Pattern of Revenge," another short-short, was first published in The London Mystery Magazine (No. 21) in 1954 and surprisingly turned out to be an impossible crime story set in Norway. The story is a retrospective of a rivalry between two men, Thord Jensen and Olaf Kinck, who vy for the attention of a beautiful woman, Karen Garborg, but one morning she found dead on the doorstep of her cottage – stabbed through the heart. There was "only one set of tracks in the fresh-fallen snow," single footprints alternating with deep pock-marks, "characteristic of the imprint left by a wooden leg." Olaf has a wooden leg and his fingerprints were on the knife. So he was sentenced to life imprisonment, but a deathbed confession shed new light on the murder and attempts to right a wrong. A very well done short-short and a truly pleasant surprise to come across this unusual take on the footprints-in-the-snow impossible crime. 

John Bingham's "Crime at Lark Cottage" was originally published in the 1954 Christmas edition of The Illustrated London News and brings a slice of domestic suspense to the family Christmas table. John Bradley gets lost on a dark, snowy evening while his car is on the verge of breaking down and ends up at a lonely cottage. There he finds a woman with her small daughter and asks to use the phone, but is offered to stay the night as there's not garage around who would come out to the cottage at that time of night in foul weather. But she appears to be frightened. And it looks like someone is prowling around the cottage. A very well done piece of crime fiction that would have served perfectly as a radio-play for Suspense.

The last story to round out this seasonal anthology is Julian Symons' "'Twix the Cup and Lip," but nothing he wrote interests me and skipped it. That brings me to the end of this collection.

So, on a whole, The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories is a splendidly balanced anthology with Dickson, Hare, Jepson, Knox and Stuart delivering the standout stories of the collection with the other entries being a little too short or dated to leave an indelible impression on the reader. But not a single real dud or over anthologized story to be found. Two things that tend to be obligatory for these types of short story collections. Definitely recommended for those cold, shortening days of December.

Checkmate to Murder (1944) by E.C.R. Lorac

Edith Rivett was a British detective novelist who wrote more than 70 mysteries under two different pseudonyms, "Carol Carnac" and "E.C.R. Lorac," which can best be categorized as John Rhode-like "humdrum" novels reminiscent of Ngaio Marsh, but my limited experience with Lorac has been spotty – mostly pedestrian and forgettable. So why pick such an uneven, second-string writer on the heels of several underwhelming detective novels?

British Library Crime Classics has reissued seven of her novels over the past two, or three, years and their latest reprint, Checkmate to Murder (1944), sounded too good to ignore. I'm glad to report it's the best Lorac I've read so far.

This brand new edition is subtitled "A Second World War Mystery" and Martin Edwards wrote in his introduction that the book is a fascinating account of "a domestic crime committed at a time of national crisis." Lorac certainly exploited the blacked-out London setting backdrop better here than in Murder by Matchlight (1945) and more memorable than the depiction of post-war Britain in Fire in the Thatch (1946), which are two of her best known mysteries. But barely remember either. Something that's less likely to happen with Checkmate to Murder.

Checkmate to Murder largely takes place in, and around, the large, grimy and beetle-infested Hampstead studio of a little-known painter, Bruce Manaton, who shares the place with his fastidious and artistic sister, Rosanne – who had been badly hit by the war. And now they were constantly swinging back and forth between being broke and absolutely broke. Story opens on a cold, foggy winter evening in January and five people were gathered in that grimy, dimly lit studio. An obscure actor, André Delaunier, who sits on a model's platform garbed in a scarlet robe and a broad-rimmed Cardinal's hat. Opposite the sitter, Manaton is furiously attacking a canvas with a piece of charcoal and occasionally utterers orders at Delaunier ("Chin up, chin up—to the right a little"). On the other end of the studio, two men were playing an absorbing game of chess under a single light bulb. Robert Cavenish is an elderly, highly respected Civil Servant and the younger Ian Mackellon is "a first-class chemist" in government employ. Rosanne is preparing supper in the kitchen and occasionally pops her head around the door.

A quiet, peaceful evening in Bohemian squalor rudely disturbed when a Special Constable bursts into the studio with a limping Canadian soldier in tow. Neil Folliner is the grand-nephew of the Manaton's misery landlord, Albert Folliner, who's "a nasty old skinflint" and was either as poor as a church mouse or hoarded money.

Albert Folliner lived alone in a largely empty house, using his bedroom as a living room, which is where his grand-nephew found his body with a bullet in his head. An empty cash-box and pistol lay on the floor. Only a few seconds after discovering the body, a Special Constable enters the bedroom and chases the soldier who he saw making a bee-line to the studio "as though for a deliberate reason." So the situation looks very dire for the young soldier, but Detective Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald takes nothing for granted.

Macdonald is not the most distinguished, or colorful, of the Golden Age inspectors, but always thought their quietly competent, purely professional and dogged police work should be seen as a payoff for the lack of a personality, eccentricities or (God forbid) a private life – ensuring there are no outside distractions. Macdonald focus here is entirely on the case as he reduces the number of suspects to half-a-dozen, inquires into the previous tenants of the studio and asks what role the Special Constable had to play in the murder or why he looked so frightened. All the while, the grimness of the war hangs heavily over the story like a dark black-out curtain!

The introduction notes Checkmate to Murder takes place during "a period of British history when blackouts, fire-watching, and air raid precautions were an everyday fact of life" and "black-out regulations were a nightmare" to Rosanne, but her brother was always forgetting them and "the probability of being fined always hung over their heads." She unwittingly robbed herself of an alibi when she went outside to inspect the black-out curtains, but the whole district is dotted with derelict, or bombed-out, buildings awaiting demolition and it's mentioned that a lot of capital is tied-up in it now that the war has brought everything to a grinding halt. So this gives everyone a one-size fits-all motive to shoot the old man, because they all could use a bit of money. Lorac also showed how the war impacted people in much smaller ways. Such as how Rosanne had treasured, "like fine gold," some China tea against an emergency for months and a colleague of Macdonald had to feed a hungry witness.

There are, however, some smudges on the plot that held it back a little. Firstly, it's not difficult to figure out who did it and how. Secondly, the problem of the cast-iron alibis is acknowledged, but never explored, or discussed, as usually the case with alibi-breakers (see Christopher Bush) and can understand why Lorac danced around this issue – because a discussion would have lead to an obvious question. A question that would have given the whole game away. So if you can figure what question to ask and answer it, you'll have no problem identifying the murderer. Lastly, Lorac demonstrated her status as a second-stringer by giving the motive a personal dimension. An unnecessary, last-minute addition that actually cheapened the solution. Checkmate to Murder had worked towards the solution by showing how hard life had become during the war, "what with taxation and cost of living," which made the cash-box a perfectly acceptable motive. And fitted the overall theme of the story. So no idea why Lorac decided to add an ulterior layer to the motive.

Nevertheless, Checkmate to Murder is mostly a solid, well written and competently plotted detective novel with some finely drawn characters, an excellently realized backdrop and some good ideas (like the alibi-trick). Not everything is perfectly executed, but it's her best novel to date and comparable to some of Marsh's better efforts, e.g. Death in a White Tie (1938) and Overture to Death (1939). So recommended to readers who previously didn't have much luck with Lorac or with a special interest World War II period British mystery novels.

A Melee of Miraculous Mysteries

Years ago, I compiled a list, entitled "My Favorite Locked Room Mysteries II: Short Stories and Novellas," which covered, as one of the comments pointed out, impossible crime tales from the well-known locked room anthologies amalgamated with a handful of more obscure stories – such as Robert Arthur's unsung classic "The Glass Bridge" (collected in Mystery and More Mystery, 1966). I wanted to update this list for years, but simply had not enough material at my disposal to expend on it.

So I have been discussing more short story collections and single short stories on this blog, which has brought some gems or interesting curiosities to light. I'll be drawing on these reviews when I have read enough to finally update the list. This blog-post is meant to reduce the glut of single short stories clogging my pile of unread detective stories. I'll be going through them in the order I have read them.

Craig Rice's "...And Be Merry" is a short-short story of three pages, originally published in the January, 1954, issue of Manhunt and confronts John J. Malone with the impossible poisoning of Alma Madison. She was found dead in a locked dinette, but Captain von Flanagan, of Homicide, told Malone they had been unable to find even "a trace of cyanide in that whole apartment." The victim was under treatment of a psychiatrist and the explanation hinges on her eccentric behavior. An unusual short-short impossible crime story, but, sadly, also a very forgettable one.

Charles Larson's "Mail Me My Tombstone" appears to have been only published in the April, 1943, issue of Ten Detective Aces and is not listed in Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991).

Jim is a happily married writer of detective stories, but "the mad jangling" of the telephone briefly turns his life upside down. An old flame, named Rita Manning, has been arrested for the murder of her husband, Steven Loring, who was "a big-time gambler," but Rita tells him she was with her mother when three witnesses heard gun shots from inside the house – she wants Jim to solve the murder by posing as her lawyer. A complicating factor is that the house was securely locked and bolted from the inside with the sooth in chimney undisturbed. A minor, but pleasant, story with a solution obviously derived from a famous short story and the locked room-trick is a slight modification of an age-old trick.

Ed Bryant's "The Lurker in the Locked Bedroom" was originally published in the June, 1971, issue of Fantastic and blends fantasy, horror and contemporary crime fiction with a psychic detective and a classic locked room scenario – which was somewhat reminiscent of Edogawa Rampo (e.g. "The Human Chair" and "The Stalker in the Attic"). Aleister Houghman is called to the Swithit Hotel for Young Ladies where three young women have been assaulted and raped in Room 491, but the door of the room has "a latch, a safety chain and two bolt-type locks." So how did the perpetrator managed to get to the women? The solution is a pure, undiluted fantasy with a great and darkly humorous take on a classic trope of the horror genre, which kind of disqualifies it as a locked room mystery. However, it certainly is a memorable treatment of the impossible crime story.

E.C.R. Lorac's "Remember to Ring Twice" is one of the few short stories she produced, originally published in 1950 in the Evening Standard, which was finally reprinted in the anthology The Long Arm of the Law (2017).

Police Constable Tom Brandon overhears a conversation in the bar of The Jolly Sailor about five hundred pounds, an elderly aunt and being "fed up lookin' after the old lady." A week later, P.C. Brandon is walking his beat when this conversation comes floating back to him when, behind the locked front door of a house, he hears "a faint scream and a series of heavy thuds." The front door is unlocked and they find the elderly aunt at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck. Unfortunately, the story was way too short to play and the solution too technical to be completely fair with the reader, but it certainly was a good police story. I liked it.

The next story I read was Harry Kemelman's "The Man on the Ladder," collected The Nine Mile Walk and Other Stories (1968), which everyone appears to like, but I didn't care for it at all. The quasi-impossible situation is a man falling to his death from a roof and the murderer has an iron-clad alibi, but the solution was infuriatingly obvious. And this made the second half a drag to read.

Finally, Eric Ambler's "The Case of the Overheated Service Flat," originally published in the July 24, 1940, issue of The Sketch and is one of only half-a-dozen short stories about the refugee Czech detective, Dr. Jan Czissar – who's a thorn in the side of Assistant-Commissioner Mercer. In this story, the police is trying to hook a notorious wife-killer, Thomas Jones, who prematurely buried three wives after they tragically died from carbon-monoxide poisoning. These deaths have left him a man of independent means, but the first two deaths have been shelved as unfortunate accidents. And the police really want to nail him for the murder of his third wife. Only problem is how to proof it.

The premise of the story is very similar to Arthur Porges' "The Scientist and the Wife Killer," collected The Curious Cases of Cyriack Skinner Grey (2009), which even has a clever, science-based solution that you would expect from Porges! I really liked this tale and you can expect me to return to this series at some point in the future.

So, all in all, this medley of impossible crime stories was the expected mixed bag of tricks, but I'm glad I can now cross them off my locked room column of my to-be-read list. I'll try to pick a non-impossible crime novel for my next read.

Death Came Softly (1943) by E.C.R. Lorac

Edit Rivett was an astonishingly productive writer of detective fiction and churned out more than seventy novels under two different pennames, "Carol Carnac" and "E.C.R. Lorac," but regardless of productivity, she had been largely forgotten even by readers of the traditional detective story – until the British Library began to reprint her work. Just last year, they reissued Bats in the Belfry (1937), Murder by Matchlight (1945) and Fire in the Thatch (1946). Murder in the Mill Race (1952) will be released in May of this year.

So I decided to reacquaint myself with Lorac and her Chief Inspector Robert MacDonald, because my last read was Rope's End, Rogue's End (1942) and dates back to 2014. I first wanted to go with Bats in the Belfry, but went with Death Came Softly (1943) instead. A decision I have come to regret.

Death Came Softly opened strongly when a recently widowed and comparatively wealthy woman, Mrs. Eve Merrion, rents a empty, lavish mansion in Devonshire in order to get away from wartime London. Valehead House lays "miles away from anywhere," in a remote, wooded valley, with a large, colorful garden full of beauty and neglect. The forty-some room mansion was erected in Georgian times, but this secluded back wood is smudged with the fingerprints of "men of the stone age, Romans, early Britons and medieval charcoal burners" – all of whom have inhabited the valley in previous times. A notable landmark is "an airy, commodious and generally desirable" cavern known locally as the Hermit's Cave.

Mrs. Merrion manages to pack this large mansion with family, staff and guests. There's her elderly father, Professor Crewdon, who's an anthropologist interested in archaeology and had been "simply aching" to find a quiet spot to write his magnum opus. He would bring along his studious, owl-faced secretary, Roland Keston, and his two servants, Mr. and Mrs. Brady. Emmeline "Emma" Stamford is Mrs. Merrion envious sister, who had married an officer in the Indian Army, but barely has any money and has to count her threepence's for a taxi ride. Something that's bound to cause resentment ("it's simply not fair").

The household is rounded out by two live-in servants, Mr. and Mrs. Carter, but Mrs. Merrion is also entertaining two house-guests. A world traveler, Bruce Rhodian, who wrote a book about his "journey over the Andes" and a modern poet, David Lockersley.

These opening chapters are easily the best, most vividly written parts of the story and the secluded valley with its wild, natural splendor and lonely mansion becomes a place you would like to take peaceful stroll, but slowly grinds to a halt when a murder occurs – a rather ingeniously imagined murder. Professor Crewdon has developed the habit of sleeping on the stone bed in the Hermit's Cave, but is found dead one morning without a mark on his body. A medical examination revealed that the professor had died of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by glowing charcoal.

A brazier was found in the cave and there was plenty of charcoal, but Chief Inspector MacDonald is faced two problems: the cave was naturally ventilated and, if it was accident, how was the charcoal ignited when the professor only had a matchbox on him. This makes him think the professor was murdered.

Admittedly, the gimmick used to commit the murder was clever and something you would expect to find in a Detective Conan story or perhaps even in a John Rhode novel. Although Rhode would probably have improved and elaborated on the gimmick tremendously. The identity of the murderer and motive were competently handled, but everything between the vivid opening chapters and solution became increasingly dull, lacked inspiration and even the setting had lost their shine – making it a trudge to read. Hell, even the characterization became as thin as paper in the second half.

This stark difference between the opening chapters and the bogged down, post-murder section reminded me of Ngaio Marsh. Something referred to in these parts as "Dragging-the-Marsh." A good portion of Marsh's detective novels consists of two sections: a lively written, properly characterized novel of manners often with sophisticated, cultural backgrounds and flat, humdrum second half. This part usually consists of a series of unexciting interviews and lumbering around the scene. So I have not much else to say about Death Came Softly, because the book is guilty as hell of dragging-the-marsh.

So, in summation, Death Came Softly opened promising with a solid premise set against a beautifully painted background, but the plot was unable to sustain itself in the second half and the characters, as well as the setting, lost all its color. Chief Inspector MacDonald was even more colorless than I remembered! The plot was decent and the murder-gimmick was clever, but hardly enough to recommend the book as a whole. 

Well, this was turned out to be rather disappointing, but don't despair, I'll give Lorac another shot one of these days with Bats in the Belfry or Murder in the Mill Race. However, my next read is going to be a long overdue return to the detective fiction of Helen McCloy.

Behind Locked Doors

"Is it a big house or is he just out to the police?" 

- Lt. Columbo (Murder Under Glass, 1978)

Looking back at my review of E.C.R. Lorac's Fire in the Thatch (1946), I noted that, while it was a good read, I'd probably end up only remembering the story's depiction of post-WWII England and the same was true for the backdrop of Murder by Matchlight (1945) – which I read before this blog was flung on the web. Lorac obviously knew how to create an evocative surrounding and giving her characters a touch of life, but Rope's End, Rogue's End (1942) indicates Lorac also knew her way around an intricate tangle of plot threads. And is it any wonder the book secured a spot in Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders and Other Impossible Crimes (1991)? Anyhow, on to the review.

Wulfstane Manor is a mansion that served as a fortified holding in the days of the Plantagenets, but has remained untouched since Queen Anne's time and the place is beginning to show its age. Lorac's (almost) turns the old, creaking Wulfstane Manor with its faded and worn furniture in a character in itself: like a very old man sitting quietly in the corner and observing everyone around him. In this case, it's what left of the once wealthy Mallowood clan. The house now belongs to Veronica and her twin brother, Martin, who suffered from infantile paralysis as a teenager and is easily affected by stress, which is partly the reason why their father left them the house – and that caused a row and fall-out between them and their three brothers.

Richard is an adventurer and "brings back unknown primulas and new Tibetan poppies for wealthy gardeners to cherish," while Basil and Paul replenished the lost family wealth by becoming "city wallahs" in the finance sector. It has always been Paul's wish to restore the old family home, but there's a lot of bad blood between Paul and Veronica. And, of course, this family is reunited at Wulfstane the day before Paul leaves for a trip around the world. Nevertheless, he tries a last ditch effort to pursued his sister to sell the house and may even tempered with their already modest income to drive his point home (pun not intended, I swear!).

The exchange between brother and sister has all the courtesy of a meeting between two diplomats from the U.S. and Soviet Union during the Cold War: "How pleasant that we can both express our aversions in a manner so academic, Paul! As a family, our mode of speech is remarkably uncorrupted by either temper or jargon" replied with "Yes. There's still something to be said for breeding... we don't descend to face-slapping tactics in practice, whatever the trend of our feelings..."

Still, the reunion wasn't a complete disaster and a row was prevented, but the following day a gunshot is heard from the upper-floor and the solid, unyielding door to the disused playroom had to be forcefully broken open and what they found was the body of one of the four brothers – a sporting gun with a piece of string leading from his foot to the trigger. A simple and obvious case of suicide, however, loose ends brings Chief Inspector Macdonald in for consultation and begins to ask pesky questions.

Rope's End, Rogue's End is a legitimate locked room mystery and doesn't relay on the cop-out solution of the murderer dumping the key in the room after breaking down the door. I hate those. And, unfortunately, usually found in these second-tier mystery novels. However, the impossibility of the murder actually strengthened the plot of the story, because it's one of few aspects in the overall story that genuinely prevents a haughty armchair detective from being too clever and cute. I think everyone who has read a few detective stories intuitively comes up with the same solution, but, factoring in that two of the four brothers are out of reach (after the murder) and how everyone's movements played out really upset every possible variation of this solution I tried. It had to be right!

I also liked how the locked room problem was presented and treated: the victim was heard moving around in the playroom before the sound of a gunshot and the only escape the window provides is a thirty foot drop. The badly maintained roof is as impassable as a minefield and alternative solutions are discussed/rejected. The actual solution is fairly simple (in theory) in comparison with its presentation, but it's acceptable and original enough to not leave me disappointed.

That being said, Rope End's, Rogue's End is not completely flawless, but it's the best and most skillfully handled detective story I have read from Lorac thus far.

After the Nightmare Has Passed

"Let me have the best solution worked out. Don't argue the matter. The difficulties will argue for themselves."

- Winston Churchill

The names of "E.C.R. Lorac" and "Carol Carnac" were pseudonyms belonging to the same novelist, Edith Caroline Rivitt, whose bibliography is an impressive résumé of a prolific mystery writer who had no problem churning out three or four books a year, but that apparently came at a cost.

If you go to Lorac's GADWiki page, there's a positive comment from the lauded reviewer of the Observer, "Torquamada," praising her pleasant style, ingenuity and sound characterization, which ran contrary to Nick Fuller's experience with Lorac that he described as pedestrian or humdrum books. My only brush with Lorac was Murder by Matchlight (1945), which I read years ago, but the only fragments from that story still clinging to my memory are the atmospheric bits and pieces about London during the blitz of the Second World War. Those dark days when ARP wardens and the wreckages of bombed houses dominated the streetscape, however, I couldn't tell you a single detail about the plot and that's usually not a good sign.

On the other hand, the recollection I did retain of Murder by Matchlight dovetailed nicely with the background of Fire in the Thatch (1946), which is set in post-WWII England and the scars that the war left run through the plot. The charred remains of the crime-scene itself brings back haunting images of bombed-out, London houses. But, first things, first...

The old Devonshire Colonel Roderick St. Cyres has a small cottage on his hands, Little Thatch, laying in neglect after the previous tenants quietly passed away and St. Cyres wants to let the place to someone who can restore the place and its garden to its former glory – except if it's a city dweller who wants to turn the house in a weekend playground. Naturally, the colonel turns down his daughter-in-law, June, who asks on behalf of Tommy Gressingham if he could take the place off his hands. The son of the St. Cyres' and June's husband is still a Prisoner-of-War, and poor June feels like she's wasting away in the countryside and wants to bring some of her friends over for a permanent play date.

St. Cyres had already received a letter of recommendation on behalf of an invalid Navy officer, Nicholas Vaughan, from a Commander Wilton and Vaughan is the one who takes possession of Little Thatch before Gressingham even gets a glimpse of it. Vaughan is a bulk of a man sporting an eye-patch, seeking a quiet life in the country and works hard at restoring the thatched house with its garden, orchards and surrounding pastures. St. Cyres knows he's preparing a home for a woman and while his tenant keeps to himself, Vaughan's blends into the community and they're genuinely upset when he dies in an all-consuming inferno. The local authority is convinced Vaughan was the victim of an unfortunate accident (faulty wiring), but Commander Wilton is convinced there's more to the case than meets the eye and asks Scotland Yard to look into the case – and they send down Chief Inspector MacDonald.

MacDonald is a bland, unassuming character with a sharp mind for facts and spotting a Shakespeare quotation when one is chucked at him, but he's just there to point at the murderer when the time came to wrap up the plot. And that wasn't a smooth job either. MacDonald himself admits that the explanation "sounds complicated in the telling, but the whole performance was possible." It wasn't so much that the solution was bad as it was unconvincing and struck me as a poor-man's John Rhode.

All in all, not a bad read or mystery, but there are definitely problems when the background theme of a nation picking itself up after a devastating war is more interesting than the plot itself, but the fact is that I will probably remember Fire in the Thatch only for its post-WWII content, which forces me to agree with "Torquamada" on one point: the progression from war (Murder by Matchlight) to peace (Fire in the Thatch) is a nice, stylistic cohesive in a series that would otherwise only be bounded together by the presence of Chief Inspector MacDonald.