A Telegram From Le Touquet

A review of A Telegram from Le Touquet by John Bude – 240406

A Telegram from Le Touquet, originally published in 1956, has been recently reissued as part of the excellent British Library Crime Classics series. Taxonomically it is the twenty-second and penultimate in John Bude’s long-running William Meredith series, but, in truth, he plays only a minor albeit vital part in the tale. The heavy lifting in the investigation on the French Riviera is conducted by Inspector Blampignon of the Sûreté National, who featured in Bude’s earlier Death on the Riviera (1952).

The book falls into two unequal parts. The first part is narrated by Nigel Derry through whose eyes we are introduced to the main characters of the story and begin to understand the tensions and emotional undercurrents that are bubbling to the surface at his aunt Gwenny’s country house that Easter. To his astonishment his desire to marry Sheila, Gwenny’s ward, is vetoed without an adequate explanation. Gammon, an old soak and a beau of Gwenny’s, seems to be falling out of favour with a younger, more dapper Frenchman now in tow, and begins to make a beeline for Gwenny’s dowdy and naïve sister, Deborah Gaye. And there is some mystery surrounding the bohemian artist, Skeet, who seems to have some kind of hold on Gwenny and is involved in a knife fight with her latest beau, an occurrence that decides Gwenny to shut up the house at short notice and decamp to her holiday home in the south of France.

Gwenny never gets there. Her body is found in a trunk by her servants, the Fougères. To their surprise they had received a telegram from her advising them instead of arriving on the Sunday she would not reach the house until the Tuesday. Nigel also received a telegram, the eponymous missive from Le Touquet, inviting him unexpectedly to join his aunt. Some incriminating evidence that links him to her murder is found in a car.

The second part of the novel, which describes the events leading up to the discovery of the murder, the subsequent investigation and the revealing of the culprit, is narrated in the third party and, oddly, having done much to focus attention on Derry and to implicate him in the murder, Bude quickly absolves him of any involvement which, together with the switch of narrative focus, gives the book a very disjointed feel.

To add to the feeling of disappointment the culprit is easy to spot, although the locus of the murder and the herculean efforts required to get the body to the south of France show an astonishing degree of ingenuity. The motive, Gwenny’s hostility to the proposed marriage and Skeet’s hold over her are only revealed after a telephone call, the contents of which are not disclosed to the reader at the time but are pulled out of the chapeau with a Gallic flourish at the grand reveal. That the nuts and bolts of the crime are only revealed through a confession and the culprit suffers an all too convenient heart attack which eliminates any issues over which jurisdiction should deal with the murder adds to an overwhelming sense of anticlimax.

Blampignon is about as far removed from Poirot as you can imagine. Portly, sweaty, energetic, only uttering the occasional “Eh bien”, “Mon Dieu” and “Merde” to indicate his Gallic origin, his approach is less about engaging the little grey cells as rolling his sleeves up and getting stuck in. As he remarks at the end, the murderers only real mistake was to send that telegram. Had they not, they could easily have got away with murder.

The book is an entertaining enough read and the first part allows Bude to round his characters in the reader’s mind, but there are too many unsatisfactory features to make it a true classic.

The Poisoned Chocolates Case

A review of The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley – 240221

It is fascinating to have one’s assumptions and, indeed, expectations of a murder mystery challenged from time to time. One of the attractions of the cosy style murder is that out of chaos order emerges as the sleuth uses their powers to assemble a convincing picture out of a multiplicity of clues, be they physical or chance remarks, to bring the malefactor to justice. Occasionally, the puzzle might be nuanced that there are a couple of solutions and the reader is left to use their own judgment as to what really happened. The underlying assumption is that each clue is really only capable of having one interpretation and it is that which the writer through their sleuth allows to settle in the reader’s mind.

Anthony Berkeley drives a coach and horses through these preconceptions in his enthralling and thought provoking The Poisoned Chocolates Case, the fifth in his Roger Sheringham series, originally published in 1929 and reissued, rightly, as part of the British Library Crime Classics series. The novel’s premise is simply brilliant. Give six people who have earned their “criminological spurs” the same set of facts and clues of a case which has to date baffled the police, represented by Chief Inspector Moresby, and give them a week to see what they make of it. Using a range of detective techniques, ranging from the deductive to the inductive and all points between, and pursuing their own investigations through a mixture of large tips to key informants and plundering their impressive lists of personal contacts, it is perhaps unsurprising that they come up with six different answers.

The six amateur detectives are members of Sheringham’s Crime Circle, a forerunner of the Detection Club which Berkeley was instrumental in establishing the following year, and the case presented to them is the murder of Joan Bendix who died after ingesting some chocolates, each of which had been injected with precisely six minims of nitrobenzene, a flavouring agent used in chocolate manufacturing and toxic in large doses. The chocolates had been given to her by her husband, Graham Bendix, who had received them in the Rainbow Club from Sir Eustace Pennefather, who, in turn, had unexpectedly received them in the post. Bendix had eaten a couple of the chocolates and was, like his wife, unwell but survived the experience.

Sir Eustace was an acknowledged womaniser who had, amusingly and somewhat embarrassingly for the Circle, had had a dalliance with the daughter of one of their own members, the lawyer Sir Charles Wildman, but his conquests were more extensive. As the investigations progress, it emerges that each of the protagonists have their own dark secrets that could be motive enough for committing murder most foul. The police’s working theory is that it is the work of a fanatic who wanted to rid the world of Pennefather in a plot that went wrong.

Sir Charles Wildman fingers Lady Pennefather, Mrs Fielder-Fleming Sir Charles, Bradley in his two attempts concludes logically that it could have been him before positing that it was a woman unknown, one of Pennefather’s discarded mistresses, Sheringham puts forward a case that the culprit is Bendix, Miss Dammers asserts that it is Sir Eustace, and the nervous ad unassuming Mr Chitterwick goes for Miss Dammers.

The reader, of course, is free to make up their own mind and the British Library reissue includes two further reconstructions, one from Christianna Brand and the other from Martin Edwards. I took the decision not to read these until a day after I had read Berkeley’s original so that I would not be overly influenced by the later suggestions.

Berkeley has produced an eye-opening experiment that shows that facts and clues can be manipulated to the creator’s own ends. It is brought off with some verve and panache in a well written and humorous novel. The word classic is bandied about too loosely these days but this book rightly wears that crown.

Just be careful what you eat this Easter!

Crossed Skis

A review of Crossed Skis by Carol Carnac – 240214

The sadly underrated Edith Caroline Rivett wrote under a number of pseudonyms, particularly E C R Lorac, but chose to issue her Julian Rivers series, amongst others, under the byline of Carol Carnac. Crossed Skis, a reference to the acknowledged safety signal that a skier needs assistance, is the eight in that series, originally published in 1952 and reissued as part of the British Library Crime Classics series.

There are two distinct threads to the story. The first involves a skiing party organised by Bridget Manners who travel on New Year’s Day to the Austrian resort of  Lech am Alberg from London. There are sixteen in the party making it a logistical nightmare for Bridget to organise, especially as there were some last minute drop outs and additions. Not everyone knows everyone else and the composition of such a large party allows Carnac to draw in people from different backgrounds and social circles.

The other is sparked off by a fatal fire at a boarding house in Bloomsbury run by the wonderfully tragicomic Mrs Stein and in which a badly charred body is found. Curiously, an impression made by a ski stick is found in the mud outside the property. The victim is assumed to be the tenant, Gray, and in a flash of genius Rivers of the Yard takes fingerprints from the coins in the gas meter and discovers that the dead man was known to the police as a cat burglar who had dropped a packet of cigarettes after an audacious robbery.

The device of intertwining two distinct strands of a plot into one works well on a couple of levels. Firstly, it keeps the novel moving at a cracking pace and, secondly, we are able to use snippets of information gleaned in one area to assess the implications of what is going on in the other. The carefree holiday amongst the skiers soon dissipates as one of the group discovers that they are missing some money, leading some of the shrewder members to consider that they do not really know all their travelling companions very well, an impression enhanced by some jokey references to passport photographs not being very true representations of the holder and the realisation that one of the late additions to the group only caught the train by the skin of their teeth.

Meanwhile in London, Inspector Rivers develops a theory that the man behind the murder and arson attack is a skier and with his colleague, Lancing, is soon on the track of skiing parties that left London on New Year’s Day. Inevitably, all pistes leas to Lech am Alberg. Alerted by news from a friend that Scotland Yard are sniffing around, Frank Harris and Kate Reid, the latter based on Carnac herself, also do some sleuthing themselves and realise that one of their number is a bad hat, coming to the same conclusion as the professionals.

Carnac uses the fact that there are sixteen members of the party cleverly. The reader is barely introduced to them at the beginning and get little more than a pen picture, allowing her to drip feed more and more pertinent information as the story progresses, thus avoiding unnecessary preconceptions. As the culprit is male, this narrows the field down to eight and by the time that Rivers arrives in Lech and undertakes an audacious ski trip in foul conditions we are down to just two, one of whom crashes into a tree trunk in a dramatic denouement. There are enough clues lightly sprinkled through the text for the reader to draw their own conclusions.

A feature of Rivett’s writing is her highly attuned sense of place and her love of the natural world. Her descriptions of the Alpine scenery are wonderfully evocative, especially when contrasted with the drabness of post-war London in winter. The reader requires little knowledge of skiing, it is very much a light background theme, leaving time to marvel at a gentle but compelling account of how the dynamics of a group work and unravel and how a clever and likeable policeman gets his man. Highly enjoyable.

Big Ben Strikes Eleven

A review of Big Ben Strikes Eleven by David Magarshack – 240127

Magarshack was better known as a translator, especially of Russian novels and in particular Dostoevsky, but turned his hand in the 1930s to writing detective fiction. Big Ben Strikes Eleven, which was originally published in 1934 and has now recently been reissued as part of the British Library Crime Classics series, was the first of his three efforts.

Two of my enduring impressions of “classic” Russian literature, of which I have read mercifully little, is that they are overlong and full of deep introspection, traits which, unfortunately, has introduced into his crime fiction. The length of the book is extended by the suspects and witnesses either refusing to co-operate by refusing to answer questions or by giving their own particular version of what happened and even the humblest of characters, the window cleaner who discovers the body, is allowed the space to ruminate upon what implications his find will have on his life.

The book concerns the death of Sir Robert Boniface, found shot in his car close to Hampstead Heath. Was he murdered or was it suicide? As is the way with these novels, the victim is a deeply unpleasant man full of overarching ambition, not beyond a bit of fraud to achieve his business goals and betting the fortunes of his company and those of his investors in a wild attempt to alter the world order. It emerges that the Board of his company has rumbled his plans and are trying to force him out or at least clip his wings. Was this enough to drive him to suicide?

The absence of a gun at the scene suggests, though, that it is murder and there are several suspects with motive enough to kill Boniface. The principal suspect is Frank Littlewood, the disenchanted nephew who has recently been sacked by Boniface and has written a virulent article that indicates that he knows enough to dish the dirt on his uncle. Another with just cause is Matt Caldwell, the stereotypical bohemian artist, who painted a portrait of the businessman which revealed his true character but which Boniface took exception to and refused to pay for.

The third prime suspect is Benjamin Fuller who works in Boniface’s personal office and is spotted by Superintendent Mooney, who is leading the investigation for the Yard, disposing of the gun. His wife is Boniface’s lover and will not grant him a divorce to allow him to marry, perhaps motive enough although the death of the magnate will not solve the impasse in his marital affairs.

The resolution of the case revolves around those irritating little clues that do not fit easily into what otherwise seems prima facie to be an open and shut case, a grey handkerchief, a cinema ticket, a discarded cigar, and some scratches on the paintwork of Boniface’s car. Always be suspicious of a perfect alibi, especially when presented by an inscrutable secretary who clearly knows more than they let on.

The pace of an otherwise pedestrian book only livens up at the end when the culprit makes a break for it and rushes to their death on Westminster Bridge. When Mooney reflects on what has happened and what he could have done to prevent it, Big Ben strikes eleven. Mooney is a fairly colourless character but is more considered in his actions than his more impetuous colleague, Inspector Beckett, and has the knack of worrying the awkward details into a coherent picture.     

The book has its moments but it is easy to see why Magarshack concentrated on developing a reputation as a translator.

Somebody At The Door

A review of Somebody at the Door by Raymond Postgate – 240115

Sometimes when surfing the world wide web it is possible to go down so many rabbit holes that you forget what it was you were initially trying to find out. I got this feeling as I read Raymond Postgate’s Somebody at the Door, originally published in 1943 and reissued as part of the British Library Crime Classics series, the first of two books in his Inspector Holly series. The book has an unusual structure which makes it feel like a collection of short stories book ended by a murder mystery.

The story starts off promisingly enough with a train journey. A carriage allows the author to assemble a collection of characters who would otherwise be unlikely to be together but in Postgate’s case at least five of the other nine passengers in the compartment in which Henry Grayling is travelling not only know him but have reasons to hate him. According to his wife, Renata, after getting off the train, Grayling arrives home later than he is accustomed to in a distressed state, collapses, she takes him first into the kitchen to see what is the matter with him and then to bed, before summoning the doctor and the vicar. Grayling dies shortly afterwards and after a post mortem it is established that he died from inhaling mustard gas.

The questions that Inspector Holly has to determine is how the mustard gas was administered, when and by whom and whether the empty attache case found near his house in which he was carrying his firm’s wages had anything to do with the attack. His working assumption was that the mustard gas was administered in the railway compartment, a theory supported by the fact that the two sitting nearest to Grayling, Charles Evetts and the vicar, had symptoms suggestive of being in close proximity to mustard gas.

In pursuing his enquiries, Holly, a dour, meticulous and not overly bright man, unearths the backstories of the prime suspects and the reasons for their animus towards Grayling. The vicar suspects that Grayling is only a churchwarden for the societal position rather than through any commitment to the Christian faith and, more importantly, in his role as a Councillor has been on the take, something the Vicar was going to expose when the time is right. Holly, though, cannot believe that a vicar would commit a murder.

Charles Evetts, who works for the same firm as Grayling, had been caught by him for stealing some chemicals to induce his girlfriend’s abortion, a procedure from which she subsequently dies, and has been blackmailed by a fellow employee. That he is anxious to serve King and country is, in Holly’s eyes, to his favour rather than a cause for suspicion. Ransom in the same Home Guard unit as Grayling has been humiliated by him over the use of gases. Then there is a German, Mannheim, probably refugee but who has been denounced by Grayling as either a Nazi or a sympathiser.

The story behind Mannheim’s arrival in England is a novella in its own right, a tale of how some earnest British socialists uncover a plot to hand over refugees seeking passage to safety to the Nazi authorities. In pursuing the case, one of them pays with his life. Frankly, this is the most interesting part of the book and there is more active investigation and deduction than is exhibited in solving the Grayling murder. The final suspect is Hugh Rolandson who is having an affair with Renata, which Grayling has rumbled and is threatening to expose with the consequence that he, Rolandson, and Renata will be ruined.        

Only at the end does Holly work out that he has been on completely the wrong track from the start and a fresh examination of the suspects and their possible motives reveals another solution. This is a murder that probably could not have been committed other than in wartime. Several of the suspects have access to and been trained in the use of poison gases and the blackout means that lighting is at best dim and in rooms where there is no blind impossible to switch on.

Postgate treats the denouement rather brusquely, as though Grayling’s murder was only a plot device to allow him to explore the more interesting backstories. It gave the book a very disjointed feel, but there are some interesting episodes and he captures the wartime atmosphere well.