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The Wintringham Mystery by Anthony Berkeley

Another mix of humor and suspense by Anthony Berkeley.  This is an early novel, first published with the title Cicely Disappears (a perfectly accurate title) and published under the pseudonym A. Monmouth Platts (the 4th pseudonym he used that I know of).  My understanding was that Berkeley didn't think much of his writing--or murder mysteries as a form of literature--which is why he used pseudonyms.  I'm not sure what sort of life he was hoping for, but if I could be this good at something I hated to do, I would be pretty pleased with myself.  This novel was originally serialized in The Daily Mirror and it shows: each chapter is short (10 or so pages) and ends with a heart stopping cliff hanger. It's not as good as his later books, by which time he had mastered not only the "twist ending" (a term Agatha Christie used to describe his endings) but the "DOUBLE twist ending" (a term Julian Symons used to describe the endings in his very best books).  But this book is absolutely charming, engaging, and doesn't feature the sort of icky nastiness that his later books tend to have. This is the perfect example of "only loathsome people die and all the wonderful people end up financially set and married to their perfect life partner" type of book.  And what more can anyone ask for than that?

Ok, our story starts out with a 20s something Stephen Munro eating the perfect breakfast served by the perfect "man," Bridger.  Stephen and Bridger served in the military together, each saving the others' bacon more than once (trenches are briefly mentioned, enough to get the point across that they are serious, capable, and loyal people with properly functioning moral compasses).  After their service obligations ended, Stephen fell into a bit of "dosh" and Bridger did not, so they decided that he would be the gentleman and Bridger would be his "man."  Not many years later, Stephen used up the money--a brief reference is made to the financial disasters that hit England after WWI which resulted in formerly secure funds and investments evaporating like puddles in the Sahara.  So, left with no savings, no income and no cash, Stephen has to tell Bridger the news: he's pulled out of his lease, sold ALL his furniture (which is being picked up later that day) and all all his personal items and--gasp!!--he's taken up a job as a FOOTMAN in a stately home!  Bridger, like all Gentleman's Gentlemen in the 1920s, knows everything and has accepted a position as a gardener in the same stately home so he can continue to (surreptitiously) care for Stephen. Stephen is so moved by Bridger's devotion he ALMOST gets misty-eyed. He tells Bridger he is an "absolute BRICK!"  Bridger knows that already. Well, they divvy up Stephen's remaining clothes and head out with just a cardboard suitcase each.  The last thing Stephen does is toss a glam photograph of "Pauline" (no, we don't know who she is at this point) onto the fireplace embers. As the bits of the photo turn to ash, Stephen walks to the door, telling himself, "There's no place for a Pauline in the life of a footman....".

Next we know we are at the stately home of Lady Susan, the requisite elderly lady who is sassy, speaks her mind, and has zero patience for fools.  She's also got the requisite "weak heart" which means the young people hanging around her house divide into two camps: those that want her alive and so needlessly shield her from bad news (and thereby prolong the mystery) and those that want her dead (for her money, property and/or jewels) and so engage in all sorts of antics to try to literally scare her to death.  

Again we have a closed circle mystery and again the circle is JUST A TAD TOO BIG to be manageable until about half way through the book, but I shall try:

Martin:  An absolutely LOATHSOME butler (therefore a good murder victim) who is described as  having yellow flesh, tiny eyes and an leering, malicious grin. He knows all the secret passages in the house and so is constantly sneaking around, eavesdropping on everyone and leaping out when least expected. Lady Susan hates him but she can't bring herself to get rid of him because he is, after all, a really good butler.

Millicent: Niece of Lady Susan. Ostensibly she works for Lady Susan, managing her daily affairs and the household, but she is singularly inept and Lady Susan points this out at every chance.  The reader would feel sorry for Millicent except that she really IS inept--she's the "fainter" that every 1920s and 30s mystery novel needs, and she passes out every time something dramatic happens, which is often. It gets to the point that the other characters roll their eyes and sigh, "There she goes again. Come on, help me get her to the couch..."

Freddie: The only nephew of Lady Susan.  He's the Bertie Wooster type, hopeless with money but always good for a laugh. It turns out that he knows Stephen from a past life and he is constantly blurting out, "I say, why are you dressed up in that silly costume, Munro? Be a good chap and put on some decent clothes and sit at the table with us" to the mortification of all involved--except Freddie, of course.  

Cicely: Another niece of Lady Susan, I think Freddie's sister, but I'm not sure.  She's sassy and independent, smart and a lot of fun. I imagine her wearing flapper dresses with a cloche hat.  

Sir Julius Hammerstein: An older, very rich (or is he??) financier who doesn't talk much, scowls disapproval and blows cigar smoke all about the place. He's extremely unpleasant and wouldn't even be there if he wasn't engaged to....

Pauline:  Yes, THE Pauline!  Why the hell is she engaged to an loathsome old tick like Sir Julius?  Well, because her father also suffered terrible financial losses as a result of various economic crashes and immediately marrying into wealth is the only path out of the mess her family is in, as far as she can see...She's going to regret her decision, though, as Sir Julius has a terrible temper and (criminal!) secrets that he'll do anything to keep hidden...

Henry Kentibeare: A "languid" 20 something who has never done a lick of work and spends all his days sponging off wealthy people at various stately homes.  

Colonel Uffculme:  Here is the classic ex-military type who says things like, "I say!" and "Now see here!"  He sits in the corner not saying much unless someone asks him a question, and then he bores them to tears with tales of his adventures in Bengal.

John Starcross: Here's a dark horse.  He's almost 30 and has a very secret past--Martin rumormongers tales of a stretch in prison but Starcross has recently spent his time in Central America accomplishing dangerous and newsworthy feats.

Annette Agnew:  Here is another flapper.  She's a "distant cousin" of someone and so has a right to be in the house whenever big gatherings are taking place. She's a good egg and has no tolerance for nonsense--and there's going to be a LOT of nonsense before the weekend is over.

Miss "Baby" Cullumpton:  A social climber who likes to talk in baby talk (hence the nickname).  Her real passion is acquiring valuables: jewels, money, property, a title, the whole shebang. And she isn't going to stop until she's got it all. 

Stephen shows up to work early in the morning and is instructed to help the guests when they arrive--get their luggage and such, direct them to their rooms, unpack their clothes, lay out the dinner wear (I assume this is for the men only, as it would be a bit much to expect a young man to handle a woman's "smalls", right?), get them drinks and do whatever else anyone wants. By dinner time he's run ragged, but that's when his real work begins: he has to take food in to the diners, get drinks, take plates away, get coffee, tea and after dinner drinks...so what the hell does the butler do?  I have no idea. In this story, all Martin seems to do is to criticize Stephen and insinuate that he's going to do his damnedest to get Stephen fired before another 24 hours are up.

After the dinner is over, Stephen has settled down in the butler's pantry with a heap of spoons that need polishing and everyone else is gathered in the drawing room to have a seance.  This is Freddie's idea, one that "Baby" thinks is "spiffy" but that Annette thinks is "utter rot."  The idea is that Freddie is going to do a "Witches Thing" (Freddie doesn't work hard to choose words) so that someone is going to "disappear out of the universe" and then "reappear". Refusing to let Stephen "play at" being a footman, he insists that Stephen read out the incantation that will cause the magic to happen.  Pauline, horribly embarrassed to be seen by Stephen shackled to an oaf--even if he is rich, refuses to make eye contact with Stephen, which he interprets as her expressing her hostility caused by seeing him sunk so low. (The classic misunderstandings that must take place in every rom-com-murder mystery-seance scene.)  Freddie douses the lights (the ladies squeal excitedly--except for Lady Susan, who commands, "Well, get on with it!") and Stephen reads out the words by a candlelight. Then everything happens all at once: banging, yelling, screaming, smells of chloroform, shrieks, crashes, bumps and more banging...then Freddie brings up the lights and...Cicely is GONE!  

Of course everyone--including Freddie--thinks Cicely is playing a joke (it's exactly the sort of thing she would do) but  no one can figure out how she pulled it off: the room has only two doors--one out to the hallway and the other to a balcony, and both were blocked by someone for the sole purpose of preventing pranks. Freddie tells everyone that the only thing to do is to recite the "return" incantation to get her back.  So lights out and more "witch" words. Lights go back on and...no Cicely.  Hmmm...now this is looking very weird.  So, the old people decide enough is enough and retire to bed.  The young people, determined to not be fooled by Cicely, get flashlights and candles and search the house, the grounds, and then the house again and then the grounds again. Still no Cicely.  Well, now it's almost 3 am and it isn't looking so funny.  They decide it's late and they ought to go to bed so they can do a proper search in the morning.

But no one goes to bed. In fact, the rest of the novel seems to involve everyone spending all their time sneaking around, indoors and out, up and down secret passages, and in and out of the woods, bumping into each other, smacking each other with candlesticks and flashlights, shoving each other down stairs or pulling each other from behind couches...When does anyone get any sleep?  

On top of all those shenanigans, Martin makes good his promise and, flat out lying to Lady Susan about Stephen's work as a footman, gets him fired!  But Lady Susan (genuinely worried about Cicely and having been persuaded by Freddie that Stephen is "one of them") insists he stay as her guest so he can continue to investigate the mystery. Once he's out of the silly costume (that included short pants and leggings) he can get really serious about poking around at night in the dark. Then a ransom note appears: they must place £500 in an envelope in the woods attached to an old oak tree or Cicely will be no more. Is this part of the joke? Is this Cicely trying to extort funds out of her beloved aunt Lady Susan?  Has someone really kidnapped her?  And if so, how?  And where is she?  And just when things couldn't get any weirder, Martin is found, crushed, underneath the ransom-note-oak-tree branch in the woods. But why was he there--was he the ransomer?  And if the branch really just fell, why were there saw marks halfway along the end of the branch, just where it broke off from the trunk? And what has Bridger been up to this whole time? Well, pretending to be a gardener while actually solving the mystery of the missing Cicely, of course!

Even with the Cicely situation sorted, Stephen still has to break up Pauline's engagement and fall into a vast sum of money so he can be worthy of asking her to marry him--and he has 12 hours to do it...

Film review: Lady Killer (1933)

I was in the mood for a pre-code Jimmy Cagney, and of the ones we hadn't seen, I picked this one.  It's certainly one of the Jimmy Cagney-est ones, which is to say it's a bit reliant on his charms to make you ignore its faults.  It begins with the ushers of an obviously palatial cinema (there's a small army of them, all wearing natty uniforms) being marshaled military-fashion (they even sound off).  Cagney's Dan Quigley 

shows up late, smacking gum and with dice in his fist (the man in charge had talked darkly of the mens' lavatories (I was surprised to hear the word "lavatories" - maybe that's pre-code for you) being used for craps games (seems appropriate) and he's given a "this is your last chance" speech when they are discovered.  

The last chance is rather unfairly lost when he prevents a woman bringing her toy dog inside and she takes offense.  Now a free man, he is showing off his dice-throwing prowess to a shopgirl, who may or may not be a girlfriend, when he spots an attractive woman sitting a little ways off in the department store.  After clearly spotting him, she sets off out of the store, dropping her purse as she goes.  He runs after her to return it but she's already sped off in a taxi.  Fortunately, there's a card with her name (Myra Gale) and address in it, so he tracks her down to her apartment.  She invites him in for a drink, whereupon a man, supposedly her brother in law, comes in from an adjourning room and lets Dan know they've got a card game going in there.  Eager to show off his prowess, Dan asks to join.  Sadly, the cards are against him and he is cleaned out, and leaves ruefully.  But on the stairs he bumps into a man who asks where Myra Gale's apartment is as she dropped her purse and he's returning it. As always with Cagney, you can see the cogs turning on his face and he offers to return it for the man, whereupon he bursts in and demands his money back. But as they hear another knock on the door (we've already had a peek inside Myra's desk drawer and it's chock-a-block with purses) he changes his mind and announces that he's going to show them how it's done, and promises them if they stick with him they'll be pulling in a thousand a week each.  Flash forward who-knows-how-long and they own a club and they're getting ten times that.  The next rung up on their life of crime begins when a famous widow-of-a-plutocrat walks in the club and they get the idea of getting inside her mansion to case it.  This is done the next day when, as she's being driven out of her driveway, Dan crashes into her in his car and a "doctor" appears and insists that he be taken somewhere to lie down.  The unsuspecting widow volunteers her sitting room and unwisely leaves him there, where he takes the opportunity to case the joint.  Then his more thuggish accomplices do the actual robbery.  However, one of them is a bit too handy with a cosh, and eventually a butler dies from the blows to the head he keeps doling out 

and the gang has to flee the nightclub as the cops raid the joint.  Dan and Myra (who is played by Mae Clark, who famously was the girl Cagney smushed a grapefruit in the face of in Public Enemy) flee to a station where they debate where to head next.  Florida is ruled out as being hurricane-prone, but gum thrown at a spinning globe settles on LA as a destination, in part because of a brochure promising constant sunshine.  So of course the train pulls up in a torrential downpour, and worse yet there is a welcoming committee and Dan is pulled in for questioning.  Meanwhile, Myra's "brother in law" (who clearly never really liked Dan taking over the gang) Duke bumps into her and persuades her to go on the lam to Mexico City.  Before they leave, Duke calls her and says he's sending over his lawyer to pick up bail money, but of course they've disappeared by the time the lawyer arrives.  However, charges are dropped before the trial, so Dan is free to go, although he's warned to leave LA.  He doesn't, and we see an unshaven Dan supping coffee some time later when some trench-coated types spot him and shout out that they want to talk to him.  Fearing the fuzz he tries to escape but runs into a uniformed copper, allowing the men to catch up, and it turns out they're just talent scouts for the movies who like his mug.  And immediately he is showing his mettle in a prison break picture where he takes cinema verite too far and actually knocks the guard out.  He's playing an Indian Chief in another picture (there is a comical scene of all of the white actors getting painted to play Indians 

(I can't help but think this is a sly indictment, because actually this film has a lot more non-white actors in it than most films of this era, and none of them demeaning caricatures)) when, having a 15 minutes break after a grueling scene on a mechanical horse 

he finds an open trailer where he can lie down (rather than sit on his too-sore backside) and meets actual movie star Lois Underwood, who turns out to be super nice and takes a shine to him.  

And then his cunning method of writing hundreds of letters a day to the studio claiming to be from his fan club gets him bumped up to starring vehicles, and pretty soon, he's made it!  All is well, except that there is one critic writing nasty things about Lois 

who has to be taught a lesson in a bathroom...

And then, of course, the old gang shows up, threatening to reveal his past if he doesn't help them to case movie stars' houses.  The first to appear is Myra, who is draped over his bed 

when he brings Lois home, which causes her to ditch him (and not need the garlic in a comical scene 

in a film directed by an Italian director who swears by realism to be repulsed by Dan's kisses).  Will Dan be able to get rid of the gang?  

Will he persuade Lois that Myra means nothing to him?  Let's just say this movie knows its job is to entertain (I see that the first two adjectives used to describe its director Roy Del Ruth on his Rotten Tomatoes page are "competent" and "capable") and what is any Cagney film without a car chase and a shootout?  Not one for the Cagney pantheon, although it never lags and everyone acquits themselves well, with Mae Clark a particular standout.

Jumping Jenny by Anthony Berkeley

Another fantastic novel by one of my favorite authors.  This book features amateur sleuth Roger Sheringham who, I now know, is a character who features in nine Berkeley novels and inthree collections of short stories.  This is novel 8--which was a relief because I wouldn't put it past this author to have the plot work against a main character as a way to write him out of existence.  The fact that I knew that novel #9 existed gave me the courage to keep reading this one.

I can't explain how Berkeley does it, but somehow he is able to convey both the mood of a place and also the sense of characters with very minimal writing that is snappy, funny but also eerie.  Brief conversations conversations convey so much so well, you get sucked into the situation within a few sentences.  This story takes place over four days, from the night of a party to the day of an inquest.  The party is at Ronald Sutton's house, a friend of Roger's, who comes from a long line of titled people who had no wealth.  Ronald is the first in his family for seven generations to actually exert effort and in so doing managed to make enough money to repair and redesign his rotting stately home with all mod cons (as Simon would say).  On the second floor, tiny, dark, cold bedrooms have been consolidated into a music room (parquet floor for dancing, sound proofing on the walls to improve the accoustics of the stereo--that sort of thing). This is the room in which most of the action takes place. A bunch of old friends and friendly neighbors as well as a few likable relations are all invited and they must dress up as either a nortorious murderer or murder victim.  On top of the house, on a flat roof that has a balcony with a view to the woods and a bit of a garden, Ronald set up a gallows--a triangle of beams supported by wood columns from which he hung nooses dangling three scarecrow dummies. Two of the dummies are dressed in men's clothes (in other words, they had pants) and the third was in a dress. The males are called Jumping Jacks and the female Jumping Jenny--hence the title of the book.  [This is another novel from the 30s that mentions a female character wearing pants and so worrying men.  In this one, one of the women insists on wearing her husband's trousers cinched up tight around her waist as part of her costume. He's mortified but she's "too high sprited" to be stopped.]  This decision to decorate the house with pretend convicted murderers will not sit well with the police who will be taking over the house before noon the following day...

Who is at the fateful party besides our hero and authorial voice, Roger?  

Well, obviously, Ronald the home owner will be there. Ronald has had a amicable divorce--well, it hasn't been settled yet but both he and his soon to be ex-wife have found new partners and there are no hard feelings on either side, and his ex-wife, Megan, and her soon to be second husband are invited.  So is Ronald's brother, David, and his god-awful wife, Ena. Ens is one of those people who annoys everyone: she likes to say things only to shock or offend people, her emotions swing from skin-crawling coyness to explosive viciousness and back, she demands that everyone "notice" her at all times, and will resort to cringingly embarassing behavior to ensure they do.  During the party, her exhibitionism included: climbing up to the ceiling support beams and hanging upside down (she was totally sloshed by this point); demanding that several men do an "Apache Dance" [I have no idea what that means] with her, which turned out to be some sort of half wrestle/half tussle which resulted in her tearing her dress, skinning her knees, and bonking her head on the grand piano lid; shouting repeatedly "I'm going to get REALLY DRUNK! GET ME ANOTHER DRINK!!"; insisting that each of the men (except her husband) "make love to her" to show her husband that she's still got it; telling each and every person how much she hates them and/or someone else at the party and what she intends to do to make them pay for all the hurts they have caused her to suffer. She is also prone to depressive fits, has claimed she intends to commit suicide.

Blessedly, her rage built up such a head of steam that around midnight she stopped the stereo and announced she was fed up and that she was going home. Perhaps hoping for a crowd of people to plead with her to stay, she didn't get the reaction that she wanted.  Instead, everyone internally shouted with glee and waited for her to do so.  When her husband, David, handed her the keys, she knew she had overplayed her hand and threatened to NOT go home, but instead to stay and make them miserable. At that point, pretty much everyone insisted she leave--several shoving her along toward the door--and she stormed off. 

Celia Stratton and her fiance, Mike Armstrong: Celia is the younger sister of Ronald and David and, while she is too kind to say all that she thinks, she is very much of the opinion that her sister-in-law, Ena, is capable of causing tremendous heartache and suffering and that it would be better for all concerned if Ena just up and died.

Dr. Chalmers and his wife: They live locally and stayed long enough that Dr. Chalmers wasd prompted to say, "Ena is completely mad, but not enough that she can actually be institutionalized against her will."  (He was asked about this repeatedly and everyone sighed in disappointment when they realized there was no way to legally eliminate her.) 

Dr. Mitchell and his wife: They also live locally and, like the Palmers, stayed until midnight and then begged off as they had early starts the next day. 

Colin Nicolson: A "Scotch" person who is committed to telling the truth (or, at least, refuses to lie--he is willing to keep vital information to himself if not asked directly about the matter) and so is NOT the person you want to confess what you did to conceal evidence.

Osbert and Lillian Williamson: Osbert is a heavy drinker and prone to say things like, "What, ho?" and "I say!".  His most valuable trait is that he can be convinced that he did things or saw things or didn't see things on the night in question that he has no memory of because he was so drunk at the time.  Once he parrots the story a few times, he begins to think that maybe he DID wipe the dust (and so also fingerprints) off a wooden chair...

Mrs. Lafroy: She is a charming lady who is "quick on the uptake"--the "perfect woman" according to Roger--which means that she's happy to help someone bolster a thin alibi.  The only problem is that sometimes bolstering one alibi has the effect of weakening another.

There were a dozen more or so at the party when it started but all but they left early (that is, around 10 pm). Those mentioned above, except for David and the doctors and their wives, were from London and planned to stay the weekend and so were determined to dance and drink the night away.  But then...

Around 1 am, David decided that he must face the impending storm and heads home. Instead he finds a dark and quiet house--clearly, Ena isn't there. So, he trundles back to Ronald's house and tells everyone that Ena seems not to have gone home and asks them for their help looking for her. He suspects that she is hiding somewhere in the house as them all hunting for her is an excellent way for her to become the center of their attention. No one wants to drop everything to find Ena--the time she has been away were happy ones.  But, because they are fond of David, they give it a half-hearted effort and another hour passes...  

Colin, fed up with looking inside cupboards and under beds and behind rose bushes, decides to head up to the roof to have a smoke. Once he gets there, he stands just under the gallows. It is a clear, cold night and he can see stars and all the bright lights of London off in the distance. Then, the wind picked up a bit and he feels the "Jumping Jenny" blow into him--only it wasn't a straw-filled dummy but a solid, human body--Ena hanging by a noose!  

Quickly, Colin runs back downstairs and finds two other men--Ronald and Roger--and all three race back to the roof. They cut the rope, lay her on the ground and loosen the noose.  They try to revive her, but it's no good, she's been hanging up there too long--probably since just minutes after she stormed out of the ballroom, swearing she'd make them all pay for causing her suffering. Roger can tell--he hangs around police enough--that she's suffocated but not had her neck broken, which means she hung there, struggling to get out of the noose, for quite some time.  

No one is sorry that she is dead.  In fact there is an overwhelming sense of gratitude and good feeling--and especially warm feeling for David--as all know that he can now feel real happiness since Ena did the sensible thing and killed herself.  Yes, suicide seems obvious: she talked about it constantly, was prone to long, depressive funks, and she was feeling particularly sorry for herself that night. Suicide is clearly what happened and everyone feels as if the weight of the world has been lifted off each of them until Roger puts it together that while Ena was athletic (remember the ceiling beam antics), she was not tall and the only chair that she had to have stood on to place the noose around her neck is toppled over, 20 feet from the gallows. And so begins the frantic efforts of eight people who have to get their stories straight (who was with whom and when, and what did they say, do, and see) in a way that fits with the evidence so the coronor will determine that Ena really did kill herself.

And, once again, you can't possibly know how it all works out until the very last sentence of the book.

The Hog's Back Mystery

This is the first book I've read by Freeman Wills Croft (his real name), an Irish engineer in the daytime and a mystery book writer at night.  Croft was heavily involved in designing train bridges and track layouts, so he was certainly clever. His mechanical mind is apparant in this murder mystery, first published in 1933. In fact, it is so complicated, he included a map of the area of the crimes (the house, the woods, roads, bus routes and byways), a map that shows the actions of the two prime suspects on one night with times plotted out to prove that the unbelievably complicated series of events are in fact humanly possible, a description of each and every clue as it was found by Inspector French in the four weeks he investigated the crimes--including page references to when we first discovered each clue to prove to the reader that, yes, we could have figured it out, too, if we just been paying attention AND a timeline of all events, down to the minute, over the course of four weeks.  Yes, it was a damned complicated mystery. In fact, while I was very interested while I read it, it wasn't an emotionally gripping story as the struts and girders holding the story together were too apparent. Also, I never really got to know any of the characters--aside from the Scotland Yard inspector.  Everyone else is sort of 2 dimensional--I guess this is what happens when almost all events are told from his point of view. Nonetheless, the mystery was mysterious enough.

As mentioned above, the Scotland Yard investigator is Inspector French.  We are meeting French mid-career and he has already had quite a few famous successes solving other murder mysteries (which also involved engineering situations).  Croft wrote 23 French mysteries (he wrote non-French novels, too--all told about 35 novels) and this was was about his 10th or so.  Occasionally French remembers earlier mysteries he solved--conveniently he gives them the same names as the books so we can set out to buy them.  As with other Scotland Yard inspectors of this era, French is a happy man who enjoys smoking a pipe and drinking whiskey in moderation.  He loves his wife and he never works on weekends (unless he gets called in because a body has been found--but that doesn't happen too often) and he spends Sundays traveling around with is wife, picnicking and walking on trails along seasides.  He also likes to sit by the fire and do his heavy thinking when stuck on a case. We don't really meet his wife, but are told that they have been together for too many years to keep track of, and he says that they are perfectly suited to one another.

This book starts with the arrival of Ursula Stone who is visiting university friends she hasn't seen in over 10 years.  She's successfully runs a children's hospital "In Town" (London, I guess) and is taking a few weeks off for the first time in ages.  She arrives at the home of Julia, whose sister Marjorie is also visiting.  Julia recently married Dr. Earle, a semi-retired doctor who is shifting out of practicing medicine to researching medicine.  The marriage was rushed and now, a few years later, they are unhappy together.  They do not dislike each other, they just realize too well that they are too different: he wants to stay home and read and write, and she wants to gad about with young men who play golf, gamble on horses, and drive fancy sports cars.  Nonetheless, both Julia and Earle like Ursula so her visit is a happy one--until Earle vanishes.  The circumstances are inexplicable: Dinner is over, Ursula is visiting another university friend who lives about 10 miles away and Julia and Marjorie and doing the dishes and cleaning up after dinner.  Earle is in the study until he isn't--his body is gone, and there's no sign of violence.  He was wearing indoor clothes and slippers (we are told the nights are cold) and the car is in their garage. He took no papers or his wallet and no money.

It makes no sense but there is no sign of health emergency or murder, so Inspector French decides that it's a "voluntary disappearance" (someone runs away from an unhappy home or life).  Julia insists that Earle just wouldn't do such a thing.  Then it is revealed that weeks earlier he had met up with a nurse he occasionally worked with--and she has disappeared!  (Those who know her also insist that simply leaving without giving word to her employer is also completely out of keeping with her character).  So, that seems to seal it--they ran off together and he must have had other clothes and sources of money that his wife, Julia, didn't know about.

Then two weeks latr ANOTHER body disappears from the Earle home in exactly the same manner as Earle disappearance!  Well, the idea that all three have run off together (or run off in separate directions) is too stupid to believe so now we must presume that missing body 3 must be murder--and if that one is murder, perhaps the others are, too?  This prompts a far more serious body hunt than took place before when people were just looking for evidence of Earle stepping outside and slipping or having a heart attach.  And lo we have it--all three corpses--are found (in VERY grisly circumstances which I will not relate, I'll just say their deaths and decomposition are vividly described).  So now the question is: who could possibly have a motive to kill all three?  Anyone who would want to kill the doctor and nurse would seem to have no motive to kill Dead Person 3.  Anyone who would want to kill #3 would have no reason to kill the others....very mysterious.  And complicated.  I was very happy to have the maps and timelines.

First Hogbacks swim of 2025

 

Power cut follies

Fittingly, it being the official start of Summer, most of the US is now under a heat advisory.  This means high nineties, "feels-like" index in the triple digits (because of the extreme humidity).  This was kicked off for us yesterday morning in the pre-dawn hours when we had a massive thunderstorm - lightning, thunder, flash floods, the whole bit.  And it didn't bring down the temperature at all.  Since then it was in the 90s yesterday, so Frederick and I went for our second swim.  On the way home, Jami (who was at work) called to say that the power company had just texted her that "power had just been restored" - which was news to us, as we hadn't been at home (and power was unaffected at work).  "Phew - dodged a bullet there" we thought, because it's always stressful if the power goes out mid-film.  Then we got home and were relaxing when, at 3:30 there was a sudden loss-then-return-then-loss-then-return-then loss of power (in the space of seconds) and... no power.  Funnily (?) enough I had just joked to my mother over Zoom how terrible it would be if the power went out.  Well, we battened down the hatches and sealed up the house and the temperature stayed below 80.  I went into work with the air fryer trying to get power to run it for Frederick's suppertime potatoes, but the power had gone out there (although emergency power was keeping the air conditioning going, a fact I noted in case of emergencies).  Anyway, the power company, having said power would be restored by 8:30 PM (annoyingly, it was for people just one block away), kicked the deadline back to 4:30 AM, so we had to prepare for a hot night.  (I just saw a video online of somebody complaining that it was a sultry 79 degrees in Edinburgh today - well that was the overnight low for us last night.)  I had a brainwave: we went through a spell of getting refrigerated goods though the mail (ask Jami) and I, being the pack rat that I am, saved them all in the freezer we have in the basement.  So I slapped a few inside pillowcases and they were our bedmates, until the power did indeed come back at 2 AM (and of course, the lights all went on in Frederick's room).  But he was a saint through it all.  And we have blissful A/C again.  (But the power's still out at work.)

 

The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White

This is the first book I've read by White, a Welsh author who starting publishing in 1927 when she was 41 years old.  And, though she got to it fairly late in the game, she was extremely successful, with this being her most successful novel--and the source of one of Alfred Hitchkock's best movies, The Lady Vanishes. While the movie keeps the novel's key points, it does take some liberties: first, the charming pair Charters and Caldicott (who seem to be in every British movie in the 30s) are not in the novel, and , second, while we meet our heroine's love interest (played by Michael Redgrave in the movie) at the hotel at the start of the novel, there is no tussle over rooms. The movie is an unsubtle call to English people to get off their arses, take the political hostilities in Europe seriously, get armed, and start killing people.  The novel mentions the political instabilities of small European countries whose citizens don't have the decency to speak English, there is no hint of a war.  Yet the theme is the same: English people are at their worst when they are more concerned with their own selfish interests (driven by fear of their sins becoming public, loss of social status, and--most pathetic of all--a fear of missing out of key social events--what kids today call FOMO: Fear of Missing Out). But once they actually get off their arses and take a good look at what is right in front of them, they can demonstrate genuine heroism.  

So our story begins at a hotel in a tiny Alpian village in an unspecified country.  All we know is that very few English tourists know the native language (so it isn't French, Italian or German we can infer) and it sounds "harsh and choppy" to their ears.  Our heroine, Iris, has become engaged to someone who will make a suitable husband, the only problem is that she doesn't love him at all--it's not even clear she likes him. So before the big day, she and her gal pals are traveling around Europe, spending a lot of money, drinking a lot, sleeping around (their sexploits are not described explicitly but it's clear that they are having sex with married men as the wives are furious---not so much that their husbands were unfaithful but that they, the wives, cannot find someone to be unfaithful with).  Although Iris has enjoyed her time with her friends up until this last evening, she realizes she cannot stand them: they're noisy, shallow, unpleasant and, worst of all, boring. At the start of the novel, they are discussing their departure the next morning.  Iris suddenly announces that she plans to stay a bit longer.  Her friends are surprised but, perhaps tellingly, don't attempt to dissuade her of that plan. She's hurt and then becomes defiant--she's determined to stay behind and have the best day of her life alone.

Iris awakes to a much emptier hotel since about half the hotel guests are gone (they left on the train with her friends) and many of the hotel workers are packing up to go back to their home towns since it's the end of the tourist season. The remaining few people are all preparing to leave the following day.  Determined to make the most of her last day, Iris tries to enjoy breakfast but finds that all the other guests snub her, tarring her with the same brush they tarred her boistrous friends: no one will sit with her, talk with her, or even smile at her. Gripped with a loneliness she's never felt before, she decides to go on a last hike up the mountain to get one last look at the amazing views.  But, unlike days in the past, the sky is cloudy, the air is cold, and the views are leaden and dull.  Caught up in her own thoughts, she gets hopelessly lost.  Angry with herself for being so incompetant, she slips and scrapes her legs on the stony paths and feels real panic. She then realizes that she never paid attention on the previous walks, she just followed along with everyone else in the group, letting them decide which trail to take and which views to admire.  And here is a pivotal moment which launches the whole novel: she realizes for the first time in her entire life that she's never been alone--really alone. She's always followed "the crowd," letting them pick places to eat, clothes to buy, clubs to visit, echoing their likes and dislikes--her whole life has been defined by a crowd of people that she now finds absolutely loathsome. (We're witnessing a real Kafkaesque moment here.) Right then and there she decides, assuming she doesn't die of exposure on the moutain, she is going to change her ways: she's going to be her own person, assert her own thoughts regardless of what others think. (Cue foreboding music....)

Blessedly, she sees in the distance one of the couples she knows is staying at her hotel.  Legs aching and weak with hunger, she runs toward them, using them as a signpost to find her way back to familiar sights.  Once she's back at the hotel, she sits in the diningroom, alone at her table--no longer hurt from the rejection but adopting an attitude of cautious curiosity balanced with indifference.  

Let's meet the English characters:  

The Misses Flood-Porter: Two spinsters with strong views about everything, particularly how English people should behave.  (Older sister: "We always make a point of wearing evening dress for dinner, when we're on the Continent."  Younger sister: "If we didn't dress, we should feel we were letting England down.") Both are in a hurry to get home as an extremely important church event is coming up and they absolutely MUST be there for it.

Reverand and Mrs. Barnes: He's a boor and she's weak.  He's almost always airsick, trainsick or seasick, which causes his wife to fuss over him, demanding that everyone be absolutely quiet otherwise they will upset her husband and make him worse. Both are infatuated with their son, Brian, who is a few years old and has never been left alone with his grandmother before. Both promised each other to "forget" Brian and enjoy themselves on this special trip, but neither can and both are miserable, longing to pack up and get home.  Mrs. Barnes invents bad dreams about Brian to convince her husband that these are "signs" of terrible things happening to Brian.  He dismisses her claims but, caving to his own desperate desire to see that his son hasn't drown, been hit by a car and incinerated by an exploding toaster all at the same time, agrees that they should take cut their remaining travels short and take the most direct path back home as quickly as possible. Any time the train slows even to go through a tunnel they are gripped with a panic, convinced that the forces of the universe are conspiring to keep them from ever seeing their precious child ever again.

The Todhunters: Two amazingly beautiful, wealthy, well-dressed people tell everyone they are on their honeymoon. They are lying, of course, and both are married to other people. He's a barrister and will only see his mistress ("Mrs. Todhunter") in hotels at least 4 countries over, convinced that if their photos end up in the papers, his career and his wealth (which comes from his wife's family) will wither on the vine. She believes she has finally convinced him to leave his wife for her. That's not going to happen.

Professor and Max Hare: These two share a train car and love to debate everything, but in particular the jury system in English courts.  The Professor is a professor.  He teaches at a university and values scientific evidence above all else.  Max Hare is an engineer who helps small, struggling nations design and build bridges and other bits of infrastructure. He's hardly ever home and his work has put him in some politially precarious situations. He is very serious all while pretending to be silly and, of course, falls head over heels in love with Iris the minute he sees her. She thinks he's silly and isn't interested in him...at least not until page 252 (the last page of the book). The Professor has an obligation the day after the train is set to arrive in London and so he doesn't want any delays but...he could be persuaded to take an interest in a train delaying mystery if he is presented with sufficient empirical evidence. Hare isn't in any hurry but he can't stop thinking about the time he got conked on the head and had hallucinations--so vivid they seemed utterly real--right after and so is pretty certain that anyone who's had a head injury is most likely going to have very vivid hallucinations.  

While waiting on the platform, Iris feels a sudden terrible pain in her head and falls over in a faint.  When she comes to, she is on the ground, dazed, and surrounded by a circle of strange faces, none smiling or speaking to her.  She has no idea what happened. All she knows is that her head hurts and she's about to miss her train.  The people circling her try to stop her, wanting to keep her laying on the ground a bit longer, but she's desperate to leave.  She runs for the train, barely making it before it pulls out of the station.  It's over crowded and, barely able to stand, she stumbles down the corridor (prompting the Misses Flood-Porters to speculate that she is hungover or even worse, drunk mid morning), trying to find a place to sit. Finally--in the very last car--she finds a car with a bit of room.  

The people sharing Iris's train car: 

The Baroness: a short, heavy, older woman wearing all black clothes and a black veil.  She's evil and doesn't make any effort to hide it.

A vaccuous blonde woman who spends all her time adjusting her makeup and staring, blankly, out the train car window.

The small family (father, mother and young girl) who only have eyes for one another. [White's descriptions of these people is amazing: all are wearing only b/w, one all in plaid, one in stripes and one in only polka dots which, like Morse code, thump painfully on Iris's injured brain.]

Mrs. Froy: She's an older lady (the novel doesn't tell us her age but her parents are in their 80s).  She has a motor mouth so we learn ALL about her parents, her dog, her house back home in England, the back yard, the duck pond....and she's wearing an "oatmeal" tweed suit, blue blouse and a blue hat with a feather in it.  

The people in the car right next to Iris's car:

Doctor: This is the guy who can play every evil doctor in every 1930s-1950s movie, particularly if they are German. He's shifty, has a black goatee beard that he strokes when he is scheming, and he plays fast and loose with tablets he claims are "harmless" and will "cure" Iris. And if he cannot convince people to get Iris to drink tea or soup heavily dosed with these "sleeping pills" the only other thing to do is to convince her to get off the train in Trieste where he will have an ambulance waiting to take her to a "nursing home" where she can "get a good night's rest."  

Nurse: A small woman who doesn't talk, but is wearing a nurses cap and cloak the whole time, and sits staring at a "patient." Significantly, later in the novel this nurse is no longer small and youthful, but larger, beefier and has traces of a moustache.

Patient:  This person is wrapped head to toe in white gauze. and is ties to a gurney, which is in the center of the train car.  Only their eyes can be seen and they are closed, having been heavily sedated.  According to the doctor, the poor woman had her face "smashed in" and desperately needs extensive surgery. To unwrap her would be to kill her.  

The train starts and Mrs. Froy lets loose an endless stream of babble about herself, her recent job as a governess, her previous travels, places she has yet to go....she burbles--in the train car, in the corridor as they walk to the restaurant car, in the restaurtant care while they drink tea, back down the corridor and back into to their seats...on and on Mrs. Froy talks. Iris just says "Ah" and "Really?" occasionally and slowly...slowly...falls into a deep and very troubled sleep.  Sometime later the train jerks, Iris snaps awake, and sees everyone in the train car with her exactly as before...except Mrs. Froy.  Initially relieved to be free of her chatter, Iris becomes increasingly worried after a few hours go by--after all, where the hell could she be on an overcrowded train? She asks her cabin mates but none know who she is talking about.  English lady?  No, Iris is the only English lady they know about.  Lady in a hat in the seat across from Iris?  Nope, just the young blonde. Iris gets up to find someone who can corroborate her story.  And this is where her fellow English travelors really let her down: of course they've seen her with Mrs. Froy--the two walked back and forth when they went to have their tea--but each is for their own reasons unwilling to admit to it, as they know that to declare that an English lady has gone missing will cause the train to be searched, everyone questioned, perhaps even held up in the next station to be searched by the police. Nope, no one wants that, so they all insist Iris is delusional or hysterical (according to the Professor), "attention seeking" (that's the Misses Flood-Porters's assertion), confused because of the head injury (Mrs. Barnes and Hare).  Even weirder, when Iris gets back to her seat, there is Mrs Froy--only she doesn't look or act like Mrs. Froy! True, she's wearing the same oatmeal tweed suit, but this Mrs. Froy is sullen and silent and has a cruel face. See!--everyone says. There's your Mrs. Froy--she's been here the whole time! 

And here is the moment where Iris's resolve to think independently is put to the test: She's certain she met a Mrs. Froy--and not the person who is now claiming to be Mrs. Froy. But she knows her story sounds utterly insane--moreover, she also knows that she really did pass out, her head is pounding, and she hasn't eaten in two days. Yet she just can't shake the feeling that something terrible has happened to Mrs. Froy and that being a good person means trying everything in her power to help Mrs. Froy.

And so begins a mystery smothered in a psychological thriller wrapped in political intrigue as Iris not only has to convince everyone she isn't dangerously crazy, but also convince them to let her search the train when they believe letting her do so would only fuel her unhinged mind.

Where is Mrs. Froy? Will Iris get packed off into a "nursing home"?  Will she go home and marry her finace or will she end up traveling into the back and beyond with a secretly intelligent engineer? Is Brian Barnes safe with his grandma?

One last bit of trivia: Apparently White was terrified of being buried alive and so stipulated in her will that her sister would inherit her entire estate but only if she first hired a "qualified surgeon to plunge a knife into [her] heart after death." So she feared being buried alive more than being stabbed while alive? I have no idea if the court actually required her sister to follow through on this, but I hope so.