The Case with Nine Solutions (1928) by J.J. Connington

"J.J. Connington" was the pseudonym of Professor Alfred W. Stuart, a Scottish chemist and lecturer, who produced close to thirty mystery novels over a twenty year period with his series-detective, Sir Clinton Driffield, starring in seventeen of them – fulfilling the role of Chief Constable of a fictitious county. The books garnered critical acclaim from such luminaries as Jacques Barzun and T.S. Eliot. John Dickson Carr praised Connington in his famous 1963 essay "The Grandest Game in the World" (collected in The Door to Doom and Other Detections, 1980).

I had read only two of his mystery novels, Murder in the Maze (1927) and Jack-in-the-Box (1944), which bristled with promise, ingenuity and originality. But my third read in this sadly neglected series turned out to be a minor masterpiece.

The alluringly titled The Case with Nine Solutions (1928) is Connington's sixth detective novel, but only the third title in the Sir Clinton Driffield series. Nonetheless, Sir Clinton here's at the top of his game as he delves into a bizarre, quadruple murder case to which there are nine possible solutions. So let's dig in!

The Case with Nine Solutions opens with Dr. Ringwood, who's working locum for the sickly Dr. Carew, but a localized flu epidemic has prevented him from having as much as two hours of continuous sleep – concluding that "general practice is a dog's life." So an unexpected social call from a colleague, Dr. Trevor Markfield of the Croft-Thornton Research Institute, is a welcome distraction from his workload. Until the "stifled malediction" of the telephone bell summons him to the home of Dr. Silverdale.

However, the town of Westerhaven is draped in a thick fog and Dr. Ringwood, who's new to the place, has no idea how to find the place.

Dr. Markfield kindly offers to shepherd Dr. Ringwood to the Silverdale home and they tailgate through the dense fog, but, in spite of his guide, Dr. Ringwood enters the wrong house and makes a terrible discovery. A fair-haired young man lying mortally wounded on a chesterfield in the smoking-room. He has two bullet wounds and the last thing Dr. Ringwood hears him mutter is "...caught me... pistol... shot... thought it was... all right... never guessed." Dr. Ringwood immediately notifies Sir Clinton and then attends to one of the sick maids next door, but when he returns to Silverdale home with Sir Clinton, they find the body of the maid who had admitted the doctor to the house on his earlier visit. She had been strangled "pretty efficiently" with a homemade garroter.

The dead man is identified as Edward Hassendean, "the cub who was hanging round the skirts of Silverdale's wife," Yvonne, who kept the hopeful young man "on her string for her own amusement," but don't waste your sympathies on young Hassendean – because Sir Clinton's excellent detective work reveals he got his just desserts. In any case, this double murder already looks like it's going to be a lot of trouble, but then Sir Clinton receives an anonymously send telegram (signed "Justice"). The message brings them to an empty bungalow where they find the body of Mrs. Silverdale sitting in a big arm-chair with a bullet wound in her head and an automatic pistol lying at her feet. However, the cause of death is hyoscine poisoning!

As noted above, Sir Clinton is in superb form here and makes some excellent deductions leading to the conclusion that the bungalow was the primary stage of two of the three murders. A conclusion that somehow makes the case both simpler and more complicated at the same time.

Sir Clinton tells Inspector Flamborough that "deaths by violence fall under three heads:" accident, suicide and homicide, which includes murder. There were two violent deaths at the bungalow and "in each case the death must have been due to one or other of these three causes." If you take one or two of these three possible ways as the cause of Hassendean and Mrs. Silverdale's deaths, there are "nine different arrangements" (see table). You shouldn't read The Case with Nine Solutions expecting to find something along the lines of E.C. Bentley's Trent's Last Case (1913), Anthony Berkeley's The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929) or Ellery Queen's The Greek Coffin Mystery (1932), because the titular solutions are understandably nothing more than possibilities – although a detective novel with eight false solutions would have been amazing! Nevertheless, Sir Clinton competently distills the truth from these nine possibilities by being observant enough to spot the differences between the real and manufactured clues.

The Nine Possibilities

 

The Case with Nine Solution has a truly brilliant plot unhampered by the narrow "circle of inquiry," which comprises of only two or three viable suspects, but, even if you spot the murderer, you're still left with explaining what exactly transpired. An apparently incomprehensible sequence of events that turned out to have an ultimately simple explanation effortlessly reconstructed by Sir Clinton. And this is topped by the final chapter, "Excerpts from Sir Clinton's Notebook," which shows you all the clues you might have missed. Why have I been neglecting Connington for so long?

Patrick Ohl, of the still dormant At the Scene of the Crime, observed in his 2011 review that you can see some of Connington's influence in Carr's work, "particularly the impressive reconstructions of Dr. Gideon Fell," but The Case with Nine Solutions brought the bewildering crime from Carr's The Four False Weapons (1937). If I remember correctly, there's some passing plot-resemblance between them. 

Equally interesting, Connington also seems to have left his mark on the work of another personal favorite of mine, Christopher Bush, whose The Case of the Tudor Queen (1938) was very likely inspired by The Case with Nine Solutions. The Case of the Tudor Queen also concerns a double death in an empty house, which could have been either murder, suicide or a combination of the two. And in both stories, the female victims are found poisoned, sitting in a chair, in an empty room. Not to mention Bush's fondness of these confusing, closely-concurring multiple murders during his early days as a mystery writer (e.g. Dead Man Twice, 1930).

So, a long story short, The Case with Nine Solutions proved to be an cleverly structured, fairly clued and solid plotted detective novel with a simple, but satisfying, solution to a confusing and seemingly inexplicable string of murders – which makes it a minor classic. On top of that, it appears to have influenced two of my favorite mystery writers. You can expect this book to make an appearance on my best-of list of 2019 and I won't wait until 2020 to return to Connington, but my next stop is going to be one of those delightful Japanese locked room mysteries. So stay tuned!

Jack-in-the-Box (1944) by J.J. Connington

Last year, I finally got around to reading a detective novel by J.J. Connington, namely Murder in the Maze (1927), who was one of the mystery novelist that was smeared as a humdrum writer and dismissed as a relic of the genre's past – a label that was also pasted on Freeman Wills Crofts and John Rhode. However, the test of time is slowly exculpating their reputation and legacy as they're finding their way back into print. Readers can now judge their stories without emptying their bank account to acquire an overpriced, second-hand copy.

Connington is one of the luckier humdrum writers whose work has been mostly reissued by now as either paperback editions or ebooks, which is why I recently decided to stock-up on his Sir Clinton Driffield series. And a couple of non-series titles. Connington still represents one of the biggest holes in my reading of the classic detective story. I think I have read more detective stories by obscure, long-forgotten writers than of the household names of the era and that's just being impious.

So I plucked Jack-in-the-Box (1944) from this freshly accumulated pile and have to say, as far as mysteries with a World War II background goes, this proved to be memorable example with depictions of the bombing raids by the Luftwaffe – which is used here to camouflage a murder victim as a casualty of war. An idea that only Rhode seems to have played around with in The Fourth Bomb (1942).

Jack-in-the-Box was published in 1944, but the story takes place in 1942 and begins when Sir Clinton Driffield and Squire Wendover are driving through the village of Ambledown and observe the wreckage left behind by the last swarm of Nazi bombers.

Ambledown took "a bit of a knock" in an attempt to destroy a nearby magneto factory, which left forty-three dead and quite some property damage, but the bombers missed their target. So everyone expects them to return and they come back early on in the novel. Connington also touches upon the effect the war has on the day to day lives of ordinary people, rationing, housing shortages and blackouts, which forced the people "to be content with the essentials" and "do without the frills" – one of the reasons why so many traditional mysteries from this period tend to be bleaker than those from previous decades. However, the initial reason Sir Clinton and Wendover drove to Ambledown is not related to the war.

A local archaeologist has unearthed a long-lost treasure trove at a digging site locally referred to as Caesar's Camp.

The place is an old Roman camp, on a tract of wasteland to the west of the village, but the spot probably has as much a connection with Caesar as "the Menai Bridge or Buckingham Palace." There was, however, a legend attached to the Roman camp about a cursed treasure promising death to the unlucky finder. Robert Deverell, President of the Natural History Society of Ambledown, brought "a collection of vessels and utensils" to light when digging for Roman-era coins. All of the objects were of gold and beaten and twisted out of shape, which made the collection easier to transport for the ancient looters who had buried their plunder there so many moons ago. A plunder that obviously came from an abbey.

This treasure belongs to the crown, but Deverell is granted permission to inspect and catalog the treasure, piece by piece, at his own home. But than the Luftwaffe pays a second visit to Ambledown and Deverell is killed by enemy action. Or so it looks like.

Apparently, an incendiary bomb had crashed through the skylight, hitting Deverell on the head, and setting fire to the house. An unlikely way to die, one in a million, but suspicion is aroused when pieces of the treasure turn out to have been taken from the scene – which included a battered crosier. Complications begin to pileup when the village is hit by an outbreak of inexplicable deaths. There are no less than five murders that have to be disentangled by Inspector Camlet, Squire Wendover and Sir Clinton (who's the Chief Constable). And, as if that wasn't enough, there's a super-normal plot-thread that places Jack-in-the-Box on the borders of the impossible crime sub-genre.

I decided to tag this post with the "locked room mysteries" and "impossible crimes" toe-tags, but this is really a borderline case rather than a full-blown impossible crime novel.

Jehudi Ashmun is a mulatto from Liberia and stands at the center of a group, in the village, who are interested in the occult and a technique, which had been lost in the mists of time, called New Force. Ashmun made an ordinary card-table talk and a loudspeaker was disregarded as a possible answer, because you can't hide a loudspeaker in "one of these slim-jim folding affairs" with "a top hardly thicker than plywood" – especially in the 1940s. The ancient powers of New Force is demonstrated by fiddling on a violin and this killed several animals.

Ashum killed an aquarium of minnows, but electricity was eliminated as the invisible killer. After this demonstration, a warren of dead rabbits were found outside. None of the rabbits had a mark on their body or even as much as a minute trace of poison in their system.

On a side note, Nick Fuller, of The Grandest Game in the World, pointed out in his review that similar figures appear in Carter Dickson's The Reader is Warned (1939) and Anthony Boucher's Nine Times Nine (1940). Interestingly, the character in The Reader is Warned claims to possess a power, called Teleforce, which can be used to kill people from a distance without leaving a mark on their body. Something very similar to Ashum's New Force.

So with stolen treasures, a murder epidemic and super-normal forces abound you need a logical, cool-headed detective to tackle these problems and Sir Clinton is more than up for the task. Sir Clinton pleasantly reviews all of the events and weighs the evidence against all of the possibilities, but doesn't neglect his duties to play the role of Great Detective and teases his friend with his knowledge of the truth. However, Wendover proved to be pretty useful Captain Hastings. He may not have grasped the solution, but his knowledge of local history and family relations helped frame the clutter of events, more specifically the murders, in a tight frame that will help readers who like a shot at beating the detective to the finish line.

Sadly, Connington inexplicably slipped in the final leg of the story when Jack-in-the-Box shifted from a tale of ratiocination into a thrilling shilling shocker with a sadistic murderer drugging and torturing a man, while trying to force another character to sign a piece of paper – a shift that happened from one chapter to the other. And it struck a decidedly false note. Despite this weird, pulpy revelation of the murderer, the plot was excellent and particularly the science behind the murders and borderline impossible events. I especially liked the explanation for the murder of the local drunk, who died of carbon-monoxide poisoning, which turned out to have an ingenious explanation that was tied to one of the bombing raids. Connington should have saved that method for another book instead of burying it in a series of murders.

Anyway, these science-based murders demonstrate that Connington was unquestionable a member of the Humdrum School of Detection.

So, on a whole, Jack-in-the-Box was an excellent mystery novel with a fascinating series of crimes, a well-drawn background and solid detective work, but the revelation of the murderer struck a false note in the story. It's a smudge on the plot, but not one that should deter you from enjoying a mostly well-written, cleverly plotted detective novel.

Through the Labyrinth

"Reason is Life's sole arbiter, the magic Laby'rinth's single clue..."

- Sir Richard Francis Burton

Alfred W. Stewart was a Scottish chemist and university lecturer who penned seventeen detective novels, all of them published under the name of "J.J. Connington," which were well received by readers and garnered praise from high-profile critics – such as T.S. Eliot and Jacques Barzun. Yet, despite all of the praise and popularity accumulated over a two decade career, Connington slipped into almost complete obscurity after passing away in 1947.

Only a handful of dedicated readers and genre historians were aware of Connington's Sir Clinton Driffield mysteries at the dawn of this century. Something that's only recently begun to be remedied when his work appeared on the radar of several (reprint) publishers.

Lately, Coachwhip and Murder Room republished practically every single title in Connington's bibliography. Since then, I keep coming across reviews, here and there, continuously reminding me that there's a beaten-up, yellowed paperback edition of Murder in the Maze (1927) on my bookshelves – which had been stuck there for the better part of a decade. So finally decided to take it down and see what all the fuzz is about.

Murder in the Maze is Connington's third mystery novel and constituted the debut of his series-character, Sir Clinton Driffield, who is the Chief Constable of a fictitious county and has a local landowner, Square Wendover, acting as his Cap. Arthur Hastings. Some readers have compared him to Dr. Watson, but Wendover impressed me more as a character along the lines of Hercule Poirot's loyal companion. Anyway, Sir Clinton happened to be staying with Wendover at Talgarth Grange when a double murder occurred in the neighborhood.

Neville and Roger Shandon are two elderly twin brothers, living at an estate called Whistlefield, who made a name for themselves in different fields and earned some money along the way.

Neville is a barrister, or King's Counsil, with the reputation of being "a brutal and domineering cross-examiner." On the day after tomorrow, Neville is expected in court to cross-examine the head-figure in the Hackleton case, "an infernal tangle," which will be transferred from the Law Court to the Criminal Court when a breach of contract can be demonstrated – which would make Neville's removal very convenient. Something that's pointed out by his own family. Roger's "rise to prosperity" is very shady and all what's known is that he made his money in South Africa and South America, but the ghosts of his "disreputable past" have come back to haunt him.

So they both could use some privacy, to work or simply be alone, which is where the titular, double-centered, hedge maze down by the river comes into play.

The Whistlefield Maze is "a relic of earlier days," when garden labyrinths were fashionable, but the place was well kept and is exceedingly more complex in comparison to the mazes at Hatfield and Hampton Court. There was more than half a mile of twisty passages, dead ends and byways with "the shortest route to either of the centers" being at least "two hundred and fifty yards in length." So you really have to know the maze in order to find your way to Helen's Bowen (center 1) or the Pool of Narcissus (center 2) without getting lost.

The centers are probably the best places to get away from the world, because there couldn't be possibly that many people wandering around its winding passages on any given day, right? Well, this is a 1920s detective novel and that means there were more people, than usual, walking around the maze around the same time a murderer struck. Twice!

Howard Torrance and Vera Forrest, who are guests of Sylvia Hawkhurst, a niece of the Shandon brothers, decided to have a frolic in the maze and make a little game out of their exploration, but suddenly, they hear "an inarticulate cry" – followed by an eerie silence. Someone had shot Neville and Roger with curare-dipped darts and the murderer was still running around the hedge maze, which makes for an excellent and memorable scene with a frightened Vera stumbling around the maze. And eventually coming across one of the bodies in the second center of the hedge maze.

Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield immediately takes control of the case and is confronted with a tangle of complicated possibilities and a liberal serving of red herrings. One of those complications is the possibility that the murders are connected to either the Hackleton affair or Roger's dark past, because they were twins and one of them could have been shot by mistake. After all, a shady person, named Tim Costock, was plucked out of the maze with a loaded pistol in his pocket.

There are, however, several possibilities a lot closer at home: Neville and Roger have a brother, Ernest, who was financially depended on them, but also a complete and utter coward. Sylvia has a younger brother, Arthur, who suffers from "occasionally flashes of abnormality" ever since "the attack of encephalitis lethargica." Arthur was an annoyance to his uncles and loved playing around with airguns, which gave the young man a potential motive and the means to kill his uncles. Lastly, there is Roger's private secretary, Ivor Stenness, who possesses the "efficiency of a machine," but turns out he also had something to hide.

As Sir Clinton attempts to piece together this labyrinthine puzzle, the murderer makes several additional attempts on the lives of the other family members. The house is burgled and an answer has to be found to a small side problem concerning a forged cheque.

So you would expect that such a rich, well written and fast-moving plot would result in a rug-puller of a detective story, but there's an unfortunate flaw in the whole scheme: the murderer's identity is painfully obvious. In fact, the murderer was so easy to spot that, initially, I rejected this person as simply being a red herring. This was, however, not the case and is what keeps the book from a place in the first rank. Nevertheless, the book still has a lot going for itself.

As obvious as the murderer may be, the plot is not bad. Obvious, but not bad. And very well written with some excellent scenes set in the hedge maze, which is effectively used by Connington throughout the story. The maze is a marvelous backdrop for a murky crime and lends itself perfectly for a suspenseful chase scene (c.f. Edmund Crispin's Frequent Hearses, 1950), but equally great is how Sir Clinton used the maze in order to engineer the murderer's demise. And that's something else that makes Murder in the Maze an interesting excursion.

Sir Clinton is described as a slight, unassuming man with a bored expression in his eyes, but, occasionally, they betrayed "the activity of the brain behind them." Most of the time he plays the fool and appears to be making mistakes, which begs a comparison with Columbo. However, the way in which Sir Clinton dealt with the villain squarely placed him alongside H.C. Bailey's Reginald Fortune and Gladys Mitchell's Mrs. Bradley. A group of detectives you don't want to tangle with when you have just committed a morally indefensible murder, because they have their own ambiguous interpretation of law and justice. I always find such detective characters to be endlessly fascinating.

All in all, Murder in the Maze is not a flawless detective story, but certainly an interesting one that was excellently written and characterized, which is perhaps best read as an introduction to Connington and Sir Clinton. However, I have to read more to know for sure whether he improved with time or was simply not all that good at hiding his murderers from his readers. So I'll get back to Connington in the hopefully not so distant future. Stay tuned!