To quaeritate is a sign of a curious and enquiring mind. A 17th century verb, it was derived from the Latin verbs of quaeritare meaning to search and quaerere meaning to ask or enquire.
An example of its usage, cited by the Oxford English Dictionary, is to be found in Tomlinson’s Renou’s Disp from 1657; “Apothecaryes quaeritated its Medicinall use, which Mithradites knew”.
Who knew that, I quaeritated?
The United States is limbering up for the long haul of its primary election process to select candidates who will ultimately run for election in 2024 for the quadrimular office of President. Quadrimular, an adjective from the 17th century, meant lasting for four years.
I expect there will be hemerine updates of progress in our news bulletins, an adjective used primarily in a medical sense to mean daily or belonging to a day, used especially in the context of a fever. It seems strangely appropriate.
A review of Fire in the Thatch by ECR Lorac – 230411
Edith Caroline Rivett, who wrote under the nom de plume of E C R Lorac, is one of my favourite Golden Age detective writers. More of her works are being rescued from obscurity, although some of the versions that are available on Kindle are often full of annoying typos. Fortunately, the inestimable British Library Crime Classics series is doing its bit to revive her fortunes and their editions can be relied upon to provide the reader with an almost error-free experience. Fire in the Thatch, set in 1944, the dog days of the Second World War, and originally published in 1946, the twenty-seventh in her Robert Macdonald series, is an excellent example of her style and craftsmanship.
One of the features of Lorac’s writing that appeals to me is her wonderful sense of place and her ability to communicate her deep knowledge of and love of the countryside to her readers. This story is set in Devon, where she was evacuated during the war. Country ways, the deep distrust amongst the locals of outsiders, the attitude to evacuees bringing their London ways to the countryside all form part of the warp and weft of this intriguing and oddly affecting tale of murder.
There are two slightly unusual features to this story. Firstly, the principal murder victim, Nicholas Vaughan, is portrayed sympathetically by Lorac. He has been invalided out of the services and wants to settle in the countryside by taking on a smallholding and working the land. He rents a run-down thatched cottage with potential, as the estate agents say, from Colonel St Cyres in the village of Mallory Fitzjohn and sets about making it habitable and working the land so that it can become productive.
Although he can be prickly at times, he is single-minded in his determination to make good the property and fulfil his dreams. He is an unlikely murder victim. The Colonel’s daughter-in-law, June, whose husband is held by the Japanese as a prisoner of war, has moved down to the village, but misses her London life. Her presence lures several of the London society set to the area, including Tommy Gressingham, whom Vaughan beat to the lease on the cottage.
Having spent the opening chapters setting up the story, Lorac plunges us straight in to the start of Macdonald’s investigation. The tragic fire has happened starting in the thatch, and a body, presumed to be Vaughan’s, has been found in the charred remains of the house. The coroner’s verdict is accidental death but Vaughan’s old naval friend, Commander Wilton, demands that the case be reopened. As the excellent introduction points out it is rare for a fire to be the cause of the first death in crime fiction, more usually being deployed to destroy evidence and, occasionally, witnesses afterwards.
Macdonald’s approach is diligent, empathetic, and after immersing himself into the village and its ways, he begins to see that there are a number of features in Vaughan’s death that do not sit easy with the verdict of accidental death. The ducks were not put away, an experienced seaman who had seen war service would not sleep through a fire, an evacuee, a young boy from Shoreditch, who could recognise the sound of individual cars, heard Gressingham’s car moving around. And why was Vaughan receiving strange telephone messages, and where did he go to on the fateful night?
Macdonald’s patient digging reveals that there is a more complex story involving Vaughan and his relationship with Gressingham’s cronies. While I was fairly certain of the identity of the murderer, although as the story went on I began to consider seriously another suspect, the whydunit was more opaque.
The denouement was a tad melodramatic and while not the most complicated of plots, there was much to be enjoyed in a good story told in an engaging style. My take away is never drive a swanky London car down narrow Devon lanes.
For some reason my thoughts have been wandering towards a coronation that never happened, that of Edward VIII who had the good grace to abdicate before he was anointed with the holy oil. The event still went ahead in May 1937 as the spare stepped in to claim the crown.
The Suffolk brewers, Greene King, brewed a special Coronation Ale to mark Edward’s coronation but their plans were thrown into disarray by the events of December 11, 1936. The ale, with an ABV of 12% and a strong fruity flavour, was made from barley and English hops, had already been bottled and was kept in the brewery’s cellars and forgotten about. It only came to light when the cellars were renovated in 2011.
Several crates of the beer are now being auctioned off ahead of May 6th with the proceeds going to The Prince’s Trust.
Cheers!
A review of At The Sign of the Clove and Hoof by Zoë Johnson
And now for something completely different. If you like your crime fiction somewhat leftfield and laced with humour then At The Sign of the Clove and Hoof, originally published in 1937 and recently reissued by Moonstone Press is one you should definitely seek out. Zoë Johnson is a new author to me, and it is probably not surprising as she seems to have only published two books, this and Mourning After which came out in 1938 and is as rare as hen’s teeth.
This book is patchy and as is often the way it starts off well and then sags a little bit in the middle before recovering its joie de vivre for an astonishing ending, which I did not see coming. The action is set in Larcombe, an out of the way village in coastal Devon, populated by a wide range of eccentric characters who congregate at the local pub by the name of The Clove and Hoof to swap stories or, when he is in port, listen to the yarns of the local seafarer, Captain John Thomas Ridd, a larger-than-life character complete with obligatory wooden leg. Johnson is in her element lacing her introductions to the village and the assortment of oddballs with much humour and although they are stereotypical, they long remain in the memory.
For such a quiet village, there is an astonishingly high body count as first the vicar is found shot dead at the bottom of a cliff near where his car is parked and then the decapitated body of a stranger, claiming to be a detective from Scotland Yard, is found. His head surfaces in front of a couple of lovers canoodling by the village pond. Next to go is the eccentric, unhinged recluse, Gedling, who has been the victim of a series of practical jokes including finding a dead fish put in his bed and being plagued by a metronome. Then the good Captain Ridd disappears, presumed dead, and mine host of The Clove and Hoof, Yeo, is poisoned by gas, presumed to be suicide as he has been spooked by the recent goings-on in the village. The sixth death sand then the bluff antiquarian and jack-of-all-trades all meet their maker inside 200 pages. Not all are murders but all are connected.
The police investigations are led by two officers with widely differing characters and approaches. The local officer, Inspector Blutton, is officious and his abrupt manner gets the backs up of the locals. He is quick to infer that Ridd, the only one-legged man in the village, is the culprit from the footprints of a large hobnailed boot and the tip of a wooden leg found near the vicar’s car.
Blutton is irked by the arrival of the ridiculously moustachioed Sergeant Plumper of the Yard. Younger and with a more sympathetic approach, he strikes up liaisons with Peascod, an artist and newcomer to the village whose metronome was found in Gedling’s house and handkerchief in the rifled study of the vicar’s home, and an eager newshound who pens features for the wonderfully named Sunday Emetic.
Plumper violently disagrees with Blutton’s analysis of the events, especially as it does not fit with all the known movements of the suspects, and looks for a more subtle motivation, hitting on blackmail consequent upon the drunken romantic liaisons of the vicar and Gedling. His investigations leads him to some amusing encounters with a gin-sodden landlady in London who has more than a tale or two to tell.
However, both are off beam and the real story behind the crime spree only emerges when the culprit gives a long and detail confession while holding Plumper hostage in a cave. Purists will shake their heads in dismay that Johnson has resorted to this mechanism to bring her tale to a conclusion, but I feel that would be misinterpreting the book.
I see it not as a piece of crime fiction but as a satire of the genre, poking fun at suspects by exaggerating their ridiculous characteristics and the investigators by ridiculing their quickness to grasp a theory and their reluctance to let go. That the truth behind the deaths was missed by all and that the reader had little chance of gaining the satisfaction of getting there before the sleuths is all part of her send up of the conventions of the genre. Even the dearth of female characters, the few that there are all assume menial roles, is not a weakness but a reflection of the male domination of crime fiction.
Seen in the that light it is a minor masterpiece.
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