The Ten Teacups by Carter Dickson

It's Carter Dickson again with one of his favorite heroes, Sir Henry Merrivale (H.M. to friends--and when did he become a "Sir"? The cost of reading these out of order is that I don't know his story arc), who is acting as an advisor to the London's Metropolitan Police.  (He wears many hats.)  It goes without saying that this is one of those locked room mysteries though a non-standard one--it even features a lecture by H.M. telling us that there are three canonical categories of "locked room mysteries" and this one isn't any of those but a "whole new breed of locked room mysteries"!  Good to have Dickson instruct us to admire his ingenuity through the voice of his most popular character.  This was published in 1937 and is set in that period, but troubles in Europe are never mentioned. What is mentioned frequently is the dramatic class change taking place in London at that time--and no one is happy about it.. [That complaint featured in one of the mysteries by Lorac I reviewed in an earlier blog (with the Scottish Scotland Yard detetective MacDonald), too, so it must have been a big part of the zeitgeist then.]  Here all the characters mention that fantastically gorgeous Victorian homes have been abandoned, have been sittting empty for years, and are going to ruin.  Meanwhile their "back buildings" which face nearby streets (stables, servant houses, carriage houses and so on) are being converted to single family homes and, since those 4, 5 or even larger person families are shoved into tiny buildings, the implication is clear that they are of a lower class and so likely criminal.  Pollution is a theme, too: the old, empty houses are covered in dust to the point that you can't see inside them even with your face pressed up against the glass and the empty streets they line look haunted. Meanwhile the newly occupied "back building" houses are grimy, cheaply renovated by shyster landlords and are predicted to be in a shambles before long. WORSE the city is building the underground and setting up stops RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF FORMERLY WEALTHY STREETS!  Imagine the idea of people who use the underground walking around previously wealthy neighborhoods!  It doesn't bear thinking about, really.  Another theme: the awfulness of police not being allowed to carry guns even though the "Lord Minister knows damned well the criminals have guns--probably bought from Americans!!".  

So this story starts with us meeting a competant albeit loud Chief Inspector Humphrey Masters in his office, sitting at his desk, harrumphing to his side kick, Sergeant Pollard, about his latest large headache: he received an odd letter in the mail which instructs him to be at Number 18 Pendragon Gardens on April 30th at 9:30 pm.  It also states there will be "ten teacups".  While certainly odd on its face we find out that it connects back to a notorious unsolved murder from two years earlier, when the police were also sent a letter that instructed them to be at a different address on a specific date at a specific time where there would be 10 teacups. And (rather unbelievably) the police had staked out the house--seeing no one go in or out--then heard gunshots and found a dead body inside an entirely empty (abandoned) house except for a small table with 10 tea cups arranged in a perfect circle on the table.  The man, a guy named Dartley who matters not a jot for our story other than that he was killed in a locked room, had been shot twice in the back of the head. And, stranger still, these tea cups were no ordinary teacups--they were hundreds of years old, covered in gold and worth (in 1937 money) £2,500!  Obviously robbery wasn't the motive. So if no one was in the building and no one got in or out and (of course) the room was locked from the inside at the time of the murder, how was it done?  The mystery was too much for everyone and thus it stayed unsolved.  And now, it seems, that same crazed murderer is up to his hijinks again!  

At this point, when Masters instructs Pollard to get a hold of Merrivale, we leave the police station and bob in and out of homes to meet various characters that figure in our story:

1. Vance Keating: Our next murder victim.  A young man who is a bit of a blowhard, likes to drink and smoke with his male friends and seduce and drop his women friends.  His main vice (and ultimate Achilles heel) is that he is certain he is more clever than everyone else. (All together, say "Nobody's smart but me!" in a Rumplestiltskin voice ala Shrek 4.)

2. Frances Gale: Vance's girlfriend/fiancee/wife (depending on who you talk to).  Does she love him?  Well, not really, but she loves the idea of being loved. Does Vance love her?  No, not at all. Does she know that?  Yes. She's the kind of female that gets extremely angry, stamps her foot, and storms off when being questioned by police.

3. Philip Keating: Vance's dull cousin: Philip parties less hard and less frequently than Vance does, works more, gambles less, invests more and, generally, watches Vance get all the attention from the sidelines. Philip and Vance both rent rooms in the same apartment building and are in and out of each other's apartments all the time, borrowing things and eavesdropping on secret conversations.  They fight, then get drunk, and then forgive each other--or do they?

4. Ronald Gardner: A friend of both Keating boys, a gun collector (!!), a bit of a shit-stirrer, and desperately pining for Frances Gale.  Does she love him?  Not in the slightest. In fact, she's pretty damned rude to him at every opportunity.

5. Mr. and Mrs. Derwent: Mr. Derwent is an elderly, retired lawyer who married unwisely. His skin and voice are papery but his mind is sharp--even though his much younger (but by no means young) wife tells everyone who will listen to her that his "mind wanders terribly".  He doesn't love his wife (and perhaps never did) but he puts up with her for no obvious reason.  Mrs. Derwent is described as being "curvy" "fulsome" "voluptuous" and "large".  She wears low cut dresses and has an unrealistic pile of surprisingly blonde hair "for someone her age".  She acts (and sometimes speaks) like a baby, but can also have a frightening glint in her eye.  She's also someone who thinks she's smarter than everyone else. She's the character that screams, faints and then surrounds herself with forceful doctors to avoid talking to police. She wants to have a torrid affair with Vance and he wants to have a torrid affair with her--the problem is that both are so busy trying to take advantage of the other financially, that the torrid  affair never happens.

6. Elder Mr. Soar and Young Mr Soar: The owners of a massive premier art and auction house.  They specialize in acquiring valuable items illegally and passing them on to people with a clean title.  Soar senior was also in the blackmailing business which is why he met an untimely end before the events in this book. Young Soar claims he wants to "run a straight business" but is burdened with hundreds of documents collected by his father that reveal all sorts of crimes and misdemeanors of wealthy and influential people. He denies their existence but those in the know know that he has many, many hiding places inside objets d'art.

7. Alfred Bartlet, Vance's valet:  This guy is extremely old and is always peeking into rooms so he can hear what is being said.  But he's also closed-lipped and gives the police the bare minimum when answering their questions, thereby leaving out a LOT of important information--which is going to cost him.

8. W. G. Hawkins, another servant of Vance's: He's less old, less curious and therefore out of danger.  But he also knows nothing and advances the case not at all.

There is a whole slew of police officers that we meet so we can hear phrases like "Lord love a duck!" but they aren't individuals and so I won't get into them.

Two events that occur before Vance's murder are worth mentioning: 

(1) On Monday afternoon, Vance and Gardner are messing around in Vance's apartment with one of Gardner's guns, a western style (American) "shooter" that has a "hair trigger" and needs to be cocked before it is fired each time.  And, because Vance is a putz, he loses control of the gun and it fires wildly knocking the tray of drinks Hawkins was bringing to them.  The gun did not have bullets in it but blanks, yet it needs "wadding" to fire and the wadding (which can be just as deadly if fired close enough to a person) was what knocked the tray and smashed the glasses. This is significant because it tells us about Vance's character (that he's a putz) and that Gardner's gun is deadly dangerous even if it doesn't have bullets in it.

(2) On Tuesday evening, the Derwents have a "murder" party and all those mentioned above who are not servants are invited.  The idea is that, once it is dark out, they turn out all the lights and one person who is "the murderer" has to find and tap a person with a murder "weapon".  Then, the victim waits to a count of 20 or something and screams, and then lays on the floor "dead."  Vance is supposed to go and is intended to be the "murderer." But just hours before the party is set to start he calls Frances and tells her he won't be going, but won't give a reason. Three weapons are placed on the mantle--a paper "knife" covered with aluminum foil, a string shaped into a "noose," and Gardner's gun with blanks in it.  A new murderer is appointed but the party is a drag and everyone leaves early claiming they have headaches.  Everyone sees the gun on the mantle up to 11:00 pm and then after that point no one sees the gun on the mantle.  Since that's the time people are getting coats on and saying their goodbyes, everyone assumes Ronald has collected his gun when he was leaving. Ronald later claims he was too drunk to think about it and so didn't collect it and had no idea where it ended up.

That brings us to Wednesday afternoon: the police surround the appointed "10 teacup house" (they want to catch the would-be murderer, not merely prevent a murder) and watch as Vance goes inside with a song in his heart and a spring in his step. This house, too, is abandoned and empty except for a few items of furniture that were delivered earlier in the day.  Watching and waiting, the police see no one else enter.  Then, at precisely 9:30, a gun is fired, they hear a scream, and then a second shot is fired.  They race in and AGAIN find a locked room.  They burst in and see pretty much the identical scene they saw when they found Dartley's corpse a few years ago: Vance's dead body on the floor with two bullet holes in the back of his neck, a small table with a fancy (and extremely expensive) gold silk cloth on it and 10 teacups on that.  One chair at the table and a divan off to the side, under a window.  And there on the floor, next to Vance, is Gardner's gun last seen on the Derwent's mantle the night before.

Well!  Needless to say the police are stumped.  Even H.M is stumped!  Then the bulk of the rest of the book is spent getting to know these rather unlikable people while seemingly getting no closer to solving the riddle: everyone has an alibi and, anyway, no one could have gotten into the room or left after the murder without the police seeing them! And what does Vance have to do with Dartley anyway? It looks very much like another Dartley embarrassment for the police of London. THEN Masters gets a third letter, again, telling him to be at a certain house at a certain time and to plan to see, you guessed it, 10 teacups. Now it looks like the murderer is just toying with the police.  So, once again, we have the same set up: an abandoned house surrounded by police hiding in bushes, covering all exits and entrances.  Then, later that afternoon Young Mr. Soar enters the building.  (Why would he do that given all everyone knows about the Ten Teacups?) After dark, but before 9:30, another person enters the backdoor. Then a THIRD person enters the backdoor just seconds before 9:30 pm. So the police rush the house and find Mr. Soar alive and well, talking with Mr Dermant. They don't like each other, but each has information the other wants. Both seem completely stymied to see the police, claiming (a) neither knows anything about a "third person", (b) there have been no gun shots, and (c) no one has killed anyone and no one has been killed.  

Well, unsurprisingly, the police aren't buying that and search the house stem to stern--tapping on walls, pulling up loose floor boards and checking loose wallpaper.  NOTHING!  Until, one police officer finds a freshly bloodied knife wrapped up in newspaper and shoved into a crevice between baseboards.  Ok, that looks bad...but where is the corpse? 

So everyone significant assembles in the almost empty parlor: there are two chairs, both covered with white sheets and a small table.  No tea cups. Masters, Pollard and H.M. stand about taking turns asking questions.  Soar sits on one chair and Derwent on the other. Eventually all sorts of secrets come out but nothing that brings them closer to solving any of the murders. One point of interest, though, is that as Derwent reveals all his sordid secrets, he gets calmer and (seemingly) more at ease--like the weight of the world is lifting. But Soar gets sweatier and sweatier, until his eyes are wildly darting about and he's fidgeting madly.  Finally he jumps up screaming, "I can't take it anymore!", pulls the sheet off the "chair" he's been sitting on and reveals the fresh corpse (secured into a chair shape with ropes and boards) of Hawkins who had been stabbed to death.

Well! Does that mean Soar killed Dartley, Vance and Hawkins?  Nope.  Did he kill any of them? Nope.  So who did?  Well, that's so complicated and bizarre you just have to read it for yourself.  And, as with all Dickson books, make sure you take copious notes as you do.

[This time Dickson does us the favor of footnoting previous pages that prove we were told all the relevant facts we need to solve the murders ourselves. The book ends with H.M. explaining everything, as he always does, to Pollard and Masters as they sit in his favorite pub having a drink and a large meal.  Every time H.M. says, "And when XX said YY..." there is the footnote number referring us to the page on which that character said exactly that. Dickson said he was accused so many times of making up facts to support impossible solutions that he started this footnote system to prove to people that, if they simply weren't so stupid, then could figure out the "mysteries", too.]

Garden Update

So these are the raised beds in the backyard with the arches assembled (finally--and I agree with everyone on Instagram who gripes: "Man, these things are overpriced!"). Now I have to fill each bed with seemingly endless loads of potting soil and mulch and compost ...  Officially, the first day of planting where we live is June 1st so I'm not actually too far behind schedule, which is sort of amazing all things considered.

Here are some of my growing bags filled with sweet potato "slips"--I have no idea why they are called that.  Growing potatoes really couldn't be simpler: you forget about them in the back of your fridge and when they have long stems you either (for white potatoes) cut them into small pieces, each of which should have an "eye" or stem growing from it or (for sweet potatoes) pluck the stem from the tato, stick it in water until roots form, and then plop that rooted stem into dirt.  Potatoes love crappy, rocky, clay soil so even better.  And since you have to "hill up" white potato stems and leaves, the bags are good because you can just top it up as the plants get bigger and bigger. And the black bags get nice and warm in the sunshine, so the tatos think it's July.

And here are the white potatoes (with leaves that look nothing like sweet potatoes) in bags about half filled with dirt.  They were doing absolutely nothing until about 3 days ago and suddenly each plant was about 4" taller every time I looked at it.  It wasn't even that hot--but it was just after June 1st and the potatoes know such things.  The really cool thing about sweet potatoes is that, if you do not pluck off the stems but just leave them on the potato, you can stick the whole thing into an aquarium (suspended so the potato is only about halfway into the water, the roots are in the water and the leaves out of the water) and the roots will oxygenate the water, clean out nitrogen (which kills fish) and also gives the fish something to nibble on, keeping the roots under control and prompting the tato to grow new roots. Isn't nature amazing?  

The rain collection system thus far.  Yes, I wrote a few weeks ago that I hated the yellow color. I still don't love it. But the thought of going to Home Depot and dealing with the place was worse than dealing with the paint.  And, anyway, with all the stuff growing back there, it won't be long before no one can see the things anyway.  So three are ready for set up.  I have two left, both primed, and waiting for yellow paint--which I ran out of and should get more from tomorrow's Amazon delivery.  For those with discerning eyes, yes, that is rhubarb in front of barrel #2.  And, yes, that is a blueberry bush inside the raised bed but in an orange bucket because I haven't yet gotten enough dirt to fill in the bed yet. The plan for those bushes is to get more dirt and then transfer the bushes out of the buckets and into their very own blueberry exclusive bed.  Blueberries are  super hardy but they require extremely boggy, acidic soil--which we absolutely do not have in our yard.  So about 8 or 10 years ago I got TINY sprigs and put them into those buckets and filled the buckets with pine chips, sand, straw and a BIT of potting soil.  Amazingly, they did all right.  But they really need a lot more love than I've given them. I've never pruned them, which (people on YouTube tell me) they "like" occasionally.  The trick is how "occasionally"--not every year as they flower on old growth.  But not too infrequently as then the old growth stops flowering and you have a bundle of useless sticks.  Why is everything so hard? I still can't keep straight which clematis vines need to be cut down to the ground each year and which need to be LEFT ALONE.

The Mysterious Badman: A Yorkshire Bibliomystery by W. F. Harvey

I decided to go with the pulp fiction sort of cover again because Why Not?

This is my first W. F. Harvey book.  Apparently Harvey only dabbled in mystery books and mainly wrote scary/horror/ghost stories that sold huge numbers. One extremely popular short story was "The Beast With Five Fingers," written in 1919, and made into an immensely successful movie (has a 95% Rotten Tomatos approval rating) starring Robert Alda (yes, Alan Alda's dad) and Peter Lorre.  

So what about this novel?  In short, it's pretty good but not amazing.  It has all the right elements: a very odd beginning, a mysterious death that the police put down as caused by suicide, followed by another death the police call an "accident," and a trio of amateur investigators who are certain that both deaths were murder and that another might soon occur as well. The trio are: Mr. Digby, a justice of the peace (not sure that that is, now that I think about it), who is, I'd guess, in his 40s and has a lot of permanent bachelor sort of hobbies: he collects underappreciated landscape paintings that increase in value eventually, he likes to go on walking holidays, and he stuffs his pockets with an extremely odd assortment of items that always end up being useful (compass, string, pocket knife--you get the idea); Mr. Digby's nephew, Jim, who is (I would guess) in his late 20s as he is a physician/surgeon but "junior" to a senior surgeon who dumps the weekend and middle-of-the-night cases onto Jim; Diana, eventual love interest for Jim (of course) and daughter of local powerful and much resented politician, Sir Richard Mottram. (So the cover: that's Jim and Diana in front, Mr. Digby in the upper center and the first corpse in the middle right.)

Ok, backstory: Sir Richard has a son, unimaginitively named Richard.  Richard jr had "an issue" (never explained in detail) with a woman and so killed her.  If convicted of murder he would be executed.  To avoid that (because he loved Richard jr?  Probably not.  But certainly to avoid scandal that would ruin his political career) Sir Richard intervenes behind the scenes and convinces people that Richard is "insane" and so cannot be arrested. He can be, however, locked up in an insane asylum for the rest of his life. However THAT could incur another sort of scandal so what Sir Richard did was set up a story that Richard jr got a bad case of wanderlust and went off to Africa or somewhere where no one cares whether or not murderous white people go there, legally changed Richard jr.'s name to Neville Monkbarns (!) and then had "Neville" institutionalized in a hospital the next town over. Ok, that was years ago--who cares now? Well...

So here is how the novel starts: Mr. Digby is on a walking holiday and soon to be joined by his nephew, Jim, for part of it (not longer because Jim can't get time off from work).  He's renting a room owned by a bookseller and his wife in a little town up north. The bookstore is below the house and Mr. Digby has a small but comfortable room on the second floor in the back. He is fed bacon and eggs every day for breakfast. One day Mrs. Lavender (that's the book store owner's wife) tells him that they would desperately love to go to the funeral of an old dear friend, but they daren't leave the store unattended. Mr. Digby instantly steps in and says he'll do it for fun. They set off just before lunch and Mr. Digby gets comfortable in the bookstore, browsing for a book that appeals. A few people step in looking for cheap novels to read while on busses and such, nothing complicated.  Around 4:00, a lean and mean looking man comes in and marches straight up to Mr. Digby and asks if he has a copy of The Mysterious Mr. Badman by John Bunyan.  Mr. Digby has never heard of it and they search the shelves together, not finding it. Mr. Digby explains he's just an interim bookstore employee and promises to ask Mr. Lavender to see if he can find a copy. The guy grumbles and leaves. An hour later in comes a fat, red-faced sneering sort of fellow.  He makes a show of looking around but then approaches the counter and asks, as if he's not really interested, "Do you have The Mysterious Mr. Badman by John Bunyan?"  Amazed, Digby says he knows they do not as another person just asked for it and they couldn't find it. This news seems to alarm the guy and he does a quick 180 and trots out of the store.  Then, some time after that, a happy go-lucky guy dressed as a chauffer comes in, pulls out a note, and reads, "Do you have a copy of The Mysterious Mr. Badman--" "By John Bunyan," interupts Digby.  Astonished and amused, the chauffer says, "Yeah! That's right, guv!"  By now Digby has moved beyond amasement to mystification and asks, "Why does everyone suddenly want this book?"  Of course the chauffer has no idea, he was sent on an errand by his boss. 

THEN not 30 minutes later a young kid comes in with a stack of books and asks if he can have money for them.  And, to no one's surprise but Digby's, there among the stack is a copy of The Mysterious Mr. Badman by John Bunyan.  Digby pays far more than the books are worth out of his own pocket and finds out from the boy that a Miss Diana, up from the Mottram house, is cleaning stuff out and told him he could keep whatever he could get for the books.  Ok, fair enough, thinks Digby.  He looks through the book, reads a bit, but can see NOTHING remotely interesting about the printing, cover, or the story.

All right a few days go by and Jim is on his way.  Digby is gearing up to hit the trails with him and while he waits, he walks around the edge of town a bit--and runs into an extremely distraught Diana.  She says she's seen a body and--oops, she's weak with faint.  Digby goes to where she points and finds a man--the same lean and mean looking guy who asked for a copy of Mr. Badman--dead as a doornail.  The local doctor isn't around so Jim, who has shown up to town by now, offers to help the coronor and local police.  He examines the body--yes, it could be suicide but it also could be murder (he was shot plumb in the middle of his forehead) but since the gun is loosely placed in his hand, the police go with suicide.  Anyway, there is only one set of tracks (excusing Digby's of course--and, no, the tracks that are there aren't Diana's). So Digby and Jim spend the day going over what they both know, but can't make any sense of it.  They examine the book again and THIS time find that two pages have been glued together just at the edges. Once separated, a small, handwritten note pops out--and it's a confession by Richard jr!  What does it all mean?

At this point, Digby suggests meeting up with Diana--the daughter of Sir Richard, remember--to ask what it could be about. And they do.  And Jim and Diana lock eyes.  And she tells the story of her brother.  And the three decide that somehow three men hell bent on blackmailing Sir Richard found out about the note (but how?). And then they decide to do a Scooby Doo and solve the murder mystery.  Barely are the words out of their mouths when they find out that Fat Angry man was "accidentally" hit by a car and died of his serious wounds after being taken to a hospital.  Well, if they had doubts before, they don't now.

The story at that point gets incredibly complicated with our three heroes running off into three different directions to gather clues, meet up at various inns and cafes to have coffee and catch each other up, get kidnapped by a Bad Guy, escape, plot revenge, get kidnapped again but this time by the Bad Guy's henchman, escape, plot some more...THEN Digby runs into a very angry man running across some boggy park area and, taking a leap of faith, asks if he is Richard jr.  He is!! Say what???  Well, not only did Bad Guy intend to blackmail Sir Richard for facilitating his son from escaping the hangman's noose, but Bad Man arranged an "escape" for Richard jr with the idea that Bad Man would then notify the plice, Richard Jr would get caught, and then (finally) have to face the consequences of his (by now) many crimes.  (Why does Bad Guy hate Sir Richard so much?  And why did the other two hate Sir Richard?  Well, one guy was the poor murdered girl's father and the other a greedy blackmailer--it wasn't personal. Why did the third guy hate Sir Richard? Never explained.) 

How are we to get out of this mess?  Don't worry, Mr. Digby uses reason and common sense and all is set right--and Bad Guy has an "unfortunate accident" which means the police never need find out what  crime(s) he, or Sir Richard, committed. And then Jim and Diana get engaged to be married and Mr. Digby gets excited at the thought of teaching Jim's future sons all his (Mr. Digby's) knowledge about fishing, walking tours and landscape paintings.

In many ways the book is absolutely typical: murders, uninterested local police, brilliant amateurs at hand, evil plotting, ingenious escapes, love, marriage...blah, blah.  But none of the bad people are punished for their crimes--indeed, the criminal justice system is entirely irrelevant to the story. But, like a good Greek tragedy, bad schemes are punished--unless you are Sir Richard who suffers no harm whatsoever (unless having a murderous son IS the punishment) and, we find out at the very end of the book, goes on to win the next election by a landslide.  

Jack on the Gallows Tree by Leo Bruce

 

I've not read anything by Leo Bruce before--another author who wrote under several different names and published LOADS of books--so I went in skeptical that he could live up to the likes of Cristianna Brand or Carter Dickson.  But having finished this, I think he's easily on a par with them.  Apparently Leo Bruce was hugely successful until the public discovered he was homosexual and from that point on he became extremely private, choosing to not publish any more books. There are no overt "homosexual tones" in this book, but the main character is a single, young man who seemingly has no interest in women and who has a younger male student as his sidekick and lackey. If that is a signal to gay readers that Bruce thinks they are morally acceptable, they are more sensitive readers than I am since I only thought about that once I read a bit of Bruce's life history.

Ok, so what's going on here? The book was published in 1960 events take place at that time. The main character is Carolus Deene (yes, really) who has solved many mysteries before so by the time this book starts his methods and personality are assumed to be known by the readers.  He's a senior history master at a fictional school or university for males only and, to the shame and humilation of his adminstrators, solves murder mysteries for intellectual exercise. Indeed he works murder into every history lesson and that's why his students adore him. Carolus works with a police detective who tolerates him well enough and this enables Carolus to attain a perfect success record, but that doesn't make it an acceptable pastime according to the headmaster. The novel begins with Carolus having jaundice just before the end of the term. The headmaster, eating breakfast and reading his newspaper, sees headlines refer to a crime wave that is "sweeping" the nation--and (horror) one murder just happened in the same spa town that Carolus has been ordered to go to for his jaundice treatments. Imagining the negative publicity as Carolus attempts to solve yet another murder, the headmaster leaps into action and convinces the school doctor to order Carolus to a "less murdery" spa town. And off Carolus goes to a boring town where no one ever gets murdered. BUT just after Carolus arrives, an especially grusome pair of murders occur and Carolus is delighted to have something to fill his boring days spent in large rooms with territorial old people who gobble up all the tea treats. And into this situation arrives Rupert Priggley, one of the older boys, who is supposed to be staying with a retired teacher to get desperately needed tutoring, but decides to assist Carolus in his investigations instead.  Carolus doesn't actually want Priggely getting under his feet, particularly since Priggley's contributions to conversations focus on how little progress Carolus has made and griping about how many errands Carolus orders Priggley to complete in a day. But, Priggley gives Carolus an opportunity to explain things which immensely helps us readers see into his thinking.

Carolus sets to work by pumping the locals for information. Bruce's description of all the characters in this book is masterful: while the novel is told from Carolus's point of view (slightly--we aren't actually in his head but are seeing the world through him), the personalities of the characters are entirely revealed through their conversations--by their speech patterns, word choices, resentments, hints and allegations. One parking lot attendant is a hopeless hypochondriac and an older couple are nudists who eat nothing but seaweed stew and "nutloaf".  According to them, everything, from television and movies to having pets to attending church "poison minds and bodies."  Excellent story telling.  And, of course, none of their stories fit together as everyone has their own perspective on what happened and why.  What did happen?  Well, two elderly ladies were strangled in one night, their dead bodies arranged in a sort of funereal pose, and each holding one long stemmed white lily. One lady was killed in her own living room and the other in her car, and then carried to a local quarry where she was laid out to be discovered. Ok, that's grisly, so what's the deal with these two ladies?  Nothing.  That's the mystery part: neither are rich, neither have huge inheritances, neither have enemies or remotely interesting histories, and neither even has anything to do with the other!  None of the prime suspects for one are prime suspects for the other. So who would possibly do this?  Of course the local police and everyone in town think it's a madman from the city who acted on inexplicable impulse--because that's the way the world is now. (It's the 1960's after all.)

For the next two weeks Carolus and Priggley travel hither and yon all around the tiny spa town, interviewing witnesses, eavedropping on gossip in the local bar, checking footprints and exchanging information with his old friend, Inspector John Moore, who was assigned to the case by London. I won't give it away as it's actually an incredibly simple and straightforward solution, only mysterious because the town is full of cranks and rubes who don't understand the significance of anything in front of their eyes and so are TERRIBLE witnesses to events--exactly what a cozy murder mystery should be.

The Unicorn Murders by Carter Dickson

 

I was searching online for in image of this book cover and found this old one, which is cool, so I decided to use this even though my book looks nothing like it.

Another novel by Carter Dickson--the guy I've mentioned in earlier blogs and who wrote under three or four different names and published loads of great books--who is considered the absolute BEST "locked room" murder mystery writer there ever has been. (And he's not even British but American!) This one was published in 1935 and while political events are not expressly mentioned, the general sense of economic and legal instability is present throughout the book. This novel is very good, but I am not convinced that it is excellent. Yet I would still recommend it to anyone who wants an exciting and very weird albeit cozy mystery.

The book it told from the point of view of our hero Ken.  He doesn't say how old he is, but I would guess in his mid to late 30s given the point he's at in his career and life.  He has been to university, served in the military but was weeded out relatively quickly and placed in "intelligence" because he has a gift for language (French and German particularly) and is smarter than most. Apparently he pissed someone off (he doesn't give details but his recent job was cut short and as the story begins is sidelined  with nothing to do and both peeved and hurt about it). We find him sitting at a table of an outdoor cafe in Paris. And then on page four the novel gets really interesting and strange and creates a set up that Alfred Hitchcock should have put to film. And Cary Grant would be amazing in the lead--but the name "Ken" has to go.  Cary Grant is not a "Ken." 

So, first, a waiter is inexplicably rude, demanding to seen Ken's "papers". Given that his papers are government employee papers, Ken is reluctant to reveal those as he's playing the part of a tourist/travelor with no particular purpose. Then the waiter gets extremely angry and calls over a policeman who assumes the worst and demands to see Ken's papers, too. So, Ken hands them over to the policeman who takes them away, claiming he he needs to "check things" with his superiors. 

Then the next weird this happens: Evelyn, a pal from university who also got scooped up into British intelligence walks over to him.  She looks nervous as hell and recites a ridiculous, seemingly meaningless nursury rhyme.  Having completed her task, she plops down as says, "Thank God it's you--I didn't know who to expect at this pick up." Now Ken realizes he's really in the soup as he has coded information he shouldn't have. He also realizes that he's still burning a torch for her (he refers to her as "wench" when exasperated).  Evelyn asks him how he's going to "get the unicorn" and he says, honestly, that he has no idea--that his "instructions didn't explain that".  He then pumps her for information, hoping that eventually he'll know enought to fake his way through to complete the job. (By this point we can see why he'd piss off his superiors.) 

Evelyn explains that she has no idea what "the unicorn" is--a weapon, a person, a book, a chemical?--it could be anything.  All she knows is that Ken is supposed to be on a specific private plane at 9 pm. Ken decides they better get a move on in case the real agent who is supposed to get her coded message (which is meaningless to both of them) shows up. And then he remembers that he no longer has his papers and there is no sign of either the policeman OR the waiter.  Now he's in a pickle because technically he's in Paris illegally and can't get home.  He's also been cut off from his handlers and so doesn't even know how to contact anyone for support.  

 As they walk back to his hotel to get his things and work out a plan, Evelyn explains that she knows that "Gasquet", a nickname of famous Parisian police cheif who is a master at disguises (sort of like Sherlock Holmes), and "Flamande", a nickname for a notorious psychopath who murders and destabilizes countries for fun and who is also a master of disguises), are involved: the unicorn is to be delivered to Gasquet and Flamande has brazenly announced to all Parisian newpapers that he fully intends to steal it and use it for evil.  

Ken gets an inspiration and convinces Evelyn to work with him. She has a car and so they decide they can drive to the pick up point together thereby avoiding public transportation that would require ID. Evelyn is easily convinced (it's implied she's pining for Ken as much as he is for her) and into her snappy roadster they jump. Then the weater gets foul and the heavens release a downpour.  THEN, as Evelyn struggles to see the road, read a map and avoid driving into a ditch, they are shot at by someone in a car speeding to catch up with them.  Is it the waiter or the policeman or both?  It certainly looks like them but in the heavy rain, Ken isn't certain.  After wild turns on narrow roads and alleys, they are out in farm country and their pursuers lose control of their car and end up in a river.  Then ANOTHER car--this time a taxi--starts after them (same guy in a different car or someone else working with that guy?), madly chasing them down, seemingly hellbent on driving them into a river. And it works--Evelyn spins out in muddy rainwater coursing through the sunken lane and they smash into a tree.  Up pulls the taxi and out jumps our old friend, H.M. (Henry Merrivale), our hero from so many other Dickson books. H.M. was chasing them but not to harm them but to warn them of the dangers they were heading into. It turns out in this novel HM is not a lawyer (or if he is, he isn't doing lawyerly things) as he ALSO works for intelligence and knows something (but not much) of the unicorn exchange between England and France, too. Fortunately, by this ponit they are within easy walking distance of the private airstrip where the unicorn is supposed to arrive. Unfortunately, they are on the wrong side of a river that is swelling in size and force by the second.  After struggling to get across, they get to the airstrip field and in comes the awaited plane. And all this has happened within the first 15 of so pages of the book!

Out of the plane climb about six people, all with outrageous back stories, appearances and accents. And then, by amazing coincidence, arrives a very dramatic character--Comte d'Andrieu (with a highly suspicious accent and backstory)--who informs everyone that his castle/home is just across the way through a bit of woods, and he welcomes them all to his home for a warm dinner, baths, drinks by the fire, and a good night's sleep.  What a fortuitous turn of events!  (But where's the unicorn and what is it?  Still our heros do not know. And who are all these people getting off the plane and do they have anything to do with the unicorn exchange?) Assisted by d'Andrieu's servants (two of whom look alarmingly like our old friends the "waiter" and "policeman"), everyone gets to the house, gets a room assignment (see backcover of book image above) and is intructed to get warm and dry and then come down for dinner which will be laid out for them in a massive dining hall on the first floor. All head up to the second floor to their rooms (where there is no electrical power so everything is in shadows and no one can tell who is who in the dark). A mere three minutes later they hear a crash, sounds of a struggle and yelling. Everyone runs out of their rooms to the hallway that leads to the top of the stairs where they see a corpse--the first of many to appear before the night is over--dead as a doornail at the bottom of the stairs.  AND he has a giant puncture wound in the middle of his forehead--a hole exactly the size and shape if it were made by a unicorn horn! Well!! Everyone is shocked (or are they?) and everyone declares they want to leave--but they can't as the rains have continued and the flotilla (where did that come from?) they used to get to the house is broken into bits and they are completely surrounded by raging flood waters.  

So much for the set up. As in all "locked room" mysteries we have a fixed number of possible murderers (no random weirdo from the outside did it), no obvious suspect, no murder weapon and no physically possible explanation for how the guy was murdered. And who is that guy anyway--is he another British intelligence agent or someone disguised as a British intelligence agent?  No one seems to know. Before the next hour is over, we find out that both Gasquat and Flamande are among those in the house and both have disguised themselves so we can't know who is the good guy and who is the lying psychopath.

They all decide to solve the murder by reconstructing the crime (meanwhile what's happening with their dinner? I couldn't stop thinking about it.  And aren't they freezing cold and desperate to get out of their soaking wet clothes? I kept thinking of Evelyn wearing soggy nylons in wet high heeled shoes--so uncomfortable) and more people are killed for their efforts.  It's not long before no one trusts anyone, accusations fly and nerves are raw.  And what in the hell is the unicorn and where is it?

Then Dickson does what he always does and has various characters propose solutions with their explanations of motive and method.  Each turns out to be impossible given the location of each suspect  at key moments and the access points of each room. (Yes there are secret windows and passages discovered but none actually explain any of the murders.) By the time I heard the 10th effort I had no idea what had really happened and what hadn't happened. Of course H.M. solves the whole thing just as the rain stops and the sun rises, bringing much needed light to the matter. And of course Ken and Evelyn make clear that they intend to spend a LOT more time together in the future. (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, perhaps.) As for the unicorn?  It was never on the plane as England had made the transfer over to Paris the day before and this whole situation was a giant trap to lure Flamande out of hiding so he could be caught.

Overall the book is both satisfying and deeply frustrating--the characters are extremely enjoyable and the snappy dialogue excellent.  But truly, even with the map of the rooms and carefully prepared time lines provided to me by H.M., I really had NO IDEA who "done it" because everyone (including H.M., Ken and Evelyn) lie repeatedly about who they are and what political or police entity they work for.  Every time someone was caught out they just spun more lies. I recommend that anyone who decides to take on this novel (1) read it in the afternoon and not just before bedtime like I did and (2) have pencil and paper to hand to make extensive notes.  

Film review: One Battle After Another (2025)

Boogie Nights came out when we were in Arkansas and for some reason Jami wasn't around (probably jobbing) so I went with two colleagues.  I remember they were a lot more impressed with it than I was, but theirs has been the consensus view.  Since then I've only seen one other Paul Thomas Anderson film, which was Punch-Drunk Love, another film I failed to see what the fuss was about.  And now we're essentially three-for-three, although I should qualify that by saying this is a very solid and engrossing, rather mainstream, a bit old fashioned Hollywood picture.  (And of the three, the one I would be keenest to re-watch, despite it being over 2 and a half hours long.)  This seems a bit like PTA doing Quentin Tarantino, to be honest: not only does it star Leonardo DiCaprio (another person whose greatness, except in his breakout role in What's Eating Gilbert Grape rather escapes me), but it's a lot of memorable set pieces, snappy dialogue (albeit less artificial in this than in your average Tarantino) and rather a lot of uncomfortable racial talk.

There's some real tensions in this movie.  On the one hand, it foregrounds "people of color" and women, but on the other, the two "stars" (and the first two people listed in the credits) are DiCaprio and, in a showy role as kind of a cartoon villain, Sean Penn.  (Third in the credits is the "star" who most impressed me, Benicio Del Toro.  I'd definitely watch a spinoff movie about his character.)  

OK, so a lightning rundown of the plot.  The first, ooh, quarter of the movie, is 16 years before the rest of it, and details the exploits of the "French 75" - a kind of American Baader Meinhof (or latterday Weather Underground, I guess) group, whom we first see breaking into an immigration detention center (back when they were just wire fences) and freeing as many people as they could.  The group is a motley, mixed-race group, for whom "Ghetto Pat" (DiCaprio) is their bomb guy.  The leader seems to be the older guy played by Wood "Avon Barksdale" Harris, and somewhere in there is one of the Haim sisters - 

the one with the snaggle tooth who was the female lead in PTA's previous (Licorice Pizza - which, as I recall, got some flack for anti-Asian insensitivity).  There are also three black women in leadership roles - "Junglepussy" (see what I mean?  Very Tarantinoesque), the calm, serious Deandra (played by Regina Hall), and, most important, the borderline unhinged Perfidia Beverley Hills, played the the ferocious hilt by Teyana Taylor.  No secret is made of the fact that she gets off on all of this, to the benefit of Ghetto Pat, who follows her like a puppy. 

However, he's not the only one.  On that first raid on the camp, Perfidia bursts in on a dozing commander, Sean Penn's Colonel Steven Lockjaw 

(sheesh.  There are a few other names like that.  Apparently this film was "inspired" by Thomas Pynchon's Vineland - he doesn't go in for that sort of thing, does he?)  Anyway, she intentionally gets him aroused in a way that gets him completely fixated on her.  This means that he stalks the French 75 until, on a job where they all dress up as respectable citizens 

he has a chance to get her alone when, to her surprise, he confesses that he doesn't care what she does so long as she meets up with him at a certain place and time (and returns his hat and gun that she took from him).  In other words, if she has sex with him he'll let her guys continue their "revolution."  Well...

True to his word, he doesn't stop the French 75... and Perfidia becomes pregnant.  She is not happy about it and prefers to continue as if she wasn't - there's a shot of her firing a machine gun (which is mirrored by her daughter doing the same later) while hugely pregnant 

that actually upset me because surely that much noise is not good for the fetus!  And then the baby is born, and Pat is overjoyed, because they're a family!  And they can quit the revolution stuff before it gets them killed.  Except Perfidia doesn't want to stop.  So Pat stays home while she goes out and revolution-izes.  And then comes the moment that Lockjaw can no longer ignore...

...a bank heist goes wrong and Perfidia shoots a guard.  Then he has to get her.  (The aftermath of the bank job is one of the more bravura set pieces - they split into two different car loads and squeal across traffic, getting in all kinds of scrapes, until the car Perfidia is in crashes irreparably, and she starts running.  We then get a bird's eye view of the cop cars cornering her. Now Lockjaw can't protect her, except if she names names.  Well... we watch as one after the other of the characters we have come to know get bumped off by Lockjaw.  (The Haim sister gets a particularly abrupt offing.)  I think it's left vague whether or not Avon gets out alive, as he's being gassed and shot at, but has a gas mask, but for sure we only know that the nerdy white guy (who gives Pat a special phone that plays a tune when it's near another one of the same kind, which only the French 75 have, as well as new identities, taken from newly dead people, of Bob and Willa Ferguson for him and the baby (real name Charlene), and Deandra, who is there to see him off as he leaves his mothers-in-law (who are surprisingly old, and also a previous generation of revolutionaries) and heads off to a place called Baktan Cross (which is supposed to be a "sanctuary city" in California, but looks like a rustbelt city in Pacific Northwest climate and foliage).

Meanwhile, Lockjaw has put Perfidia in witness protection... Until one day he shows up with flowers to find that she's fled the nest and we watch her making it across the border (ah, the good old days).

Cut to 16 years later and we meet her daughter practicing Karate with her sensei (Del Toro).  Willa (who is incredibly striking looking, played by a newcomer with a name to rival any of the French 75's - Chase Infiniti) has been raised by Bob (as we know him for the rest of the movie), and while she's turned out great (we see Bob meeting her teacher who conveys as much), he has, by his own admission, fried his brains on weed and alcohol, trying to put his past behind him.  (This becomes a problem, played for laughs, when he has to remember old passwords when he finally puts one of those phones into action and he just can't.  This is another Tarantino-esque moment.)  

But unfortunately for him, Lockjaw is trying to join some kind of covert society (like that one in Texas that George Bush Sr. was supposed to be part of, that launched Alex Jones's career) that has very strict laws against miscegenation, and as he believes that Willa is actually his daughter, she has to be removed from any possible discovery.  (Of course, him going after her pretty much blows his cover to the secret society, who have fingers in all pies, including the Chicken company in Baktan Cross that he raids.)  And if you thought the movie was pretty much non-stop action before, well, you ain't seen nothing yet.  Lockjaw arrives in Baktan with a helicopter and sends one group of soldiers to the high school, that is having its prom, and another to Bob's  house in the woods.  They know about Bob and Willa because they capture the guy who gave them those identities (who is running a "Hispanic underground railroad" (of which Sensei is a vital part) starting in El Paso, and while he is initially contemptuous of their questions, they threaten his sister.  (I never found Penn's Lockjaw scary, but there is one guy who terrified me, and its the guy who conducts all the interviews.  He's terrifyingly realistic, and scary while being low key, the very opposite of Penn's approach.  He very easily conveys the hopelessness of the situation of anyone being interviewed.)  Anyway, after nerdy white guy is dragged off by the (brown - he turns out to be Native American) tracker who has located him, two kids, obviously part of the network who are sitting outside run in and spread a message through the revolutionary radio system.  And it's because of this that Deandra shows up to the prom 

and triggers Willa's phone, that Bob insisted she take with her.  Well-trained, Willa goes with Deandra just as the soldiers arrive and round up anyone who knows her.  (They are a very believable bunch - they look and talk just like real highschoolers, at least, the ones I've seen in my teaching.)  One of them cracks and reveals that Willa has a phone, despite Bob being convinced she doesn't, because he's never allowed her one, and despite her telling Deandra that she doesn't.  So, while Deandra throws it out the window of their van when it rings, it alerts the soldiers to where they're headed (a radical weed-growing nunnery in the hills).  Meanwhile, Bob gets out of his house by a tunnel as Lockjaw comes in the door, and heads for Sensei's place.  And Sensei has to rescue him at least twice, 

all while sending the cops and soldiers the wrong way, and hiding all the migrants who are sheltering in his building.  As I said, I'd watch the spin off that stars him any day.

At this point there's probably a good 50 minutes left, but it just flies by.  Willa arrives at the nunnery where she learns that everyone besides Bob does not regard her as a hero, but rather a rat.  She stays for a little while (long enough to fire that machine gun) 

before Lockjaw finds her, and runs a DNA test on her.  She pretty quickly twigs why he's doing that).  Then he drives off, with Bob in hot pursuit, and hands her off to that tracker, with a request to bump her off.  The tracker refuses - he won't kill kids - at which Lockjaw (who doesn't know that there's been a meeting of that secret society 

revealing his racial indiscretions, and that a very preppy-looking assassin has been assigned to "clean everything up") just instructs him to drop her off at "the usual place".  This turns out to be run by white supremacists, who make the mistake of using anti-Indian slurs on the tracker one too many times, and he changes his mind about handing over Willow.  The resulting firefight leaves only Willa, with her hands ziptied.  However, she can still drive and off she sets.  Meanwhile, the assassin flies past the crappy car that Bob's stolen, catches up to Lockjaw, and blasts him in the face with a shotgun, causing his SUV to flip off the isolated desert highway.  Bob finds the wreck, and after casting around to see if Willa has been thrown clear, realizes that Lockjaw must have dropped her off and heads off.  Then (somehow) we get into a race with Willa in front, the assassin coming up fast behind her, and Bob in the rear.  Willa knows the person behind her means her harm, Bob suspects it.  Willa doesn't know it's Bob in the rear, however.  And they're all, one after the other, rising and falling over a series of undulating hills (really, if you saw this in IMAX you'd puke) in an incredibly tense chase.  That reaches a shocking conclusion.

Then we see Lockjaw, with his weird little rooster strut, walking towards us along the road, carrying a rifle in the regulation fashion, his head just a mass of gore.

And then we see the now hideously-scarred Lockjaw explaining to the interviewers at the secret society that he was "reverse raped" and his semen stolen, and that's how Willa came to be.  The interviewers seem to accept this, and welcome him into the society, and into his luxurious corner office.  If you can't guess what happens next, then you must have been looking at your phone and not watching the movie.

 Overall, if this was a novel it would definitely be a Dickens rather than a Dostoyevsky.  Certainly never boring.  And, I suppose, a bit subversive (for a big Hollywood movie) in that the heroes are so plainly the revolutionaries and the migrants, and the establishment are cartoonishly evil (but, well, that's hardly exaggeration, if it ever was).  If some kids see this movie and are motivated to blow up a data center, then I think PTA will be proud.  However, the movie Bob puts on to watch after Willa has gone off to the Prom is The Battle of Algiers, and this certainly does not compare to that.  For one thing, the main French officer in that is almost sympathetic, and still you know the enormity of the struggle, and you know that the revolutionaries are doing it not for kicks but because there is no other option.  They can't settle down and relax when one weirdo disappears from the picture.

 

Sauna - some assembly required

I won't write in public how we got this thing because AI is always listening but some months ago we were convinced a sauna would be good for us but particularly Frederick.  After giving up on the online order ever processing I got a text from a robot Thursday that told me a sauna would arrive Friday morning at 8 am.  I was skeptical but willing to cooperate in case it was true.  And it was-- in part--because at 10 am a huge truck pulled up in front of our house. But contrary to my expectations it wasn't a team of men delivering it but just one poor guy with a crappy pallet lift/fork thing machine.  And the box, which was held together by staples and prayers, weighed 1150 pounds.  His directions were to leave it in the street but when he said that I literally broke out in a flop sweat and squeaked, "How am I going to get that thing there?", pointing up our sloped and cracked driveway. Obviously feeling sorry for both me and himself he set to work, pushing and pulling for 20 minutes and getting only about 2' further.  Finally,  miraculously, an old black guy toddled out of the Dollar General and was heading past our house when he sussed up the situation. The two spoke in hushed Black Speak that I was not intended to hear.  (The driver was black if you hadn't picked up on that.) Then the old guy toddled off back to the store and came back with a small army of young black guys he had coralled out of the store and they all set to work getting that damned box up our driveway and right next to my car.  Then all but the driver drifted off without a word.  I've heard stories about the secret connections among black strangers who are never really strangers to each other but never witnessed it in action before.  I gave the driver the biggest tip I could manage with what I had on me and he left looking like he needed a nap.  I KNOW his inner dialog during the whole ordeal was "I do not get paid enough to do this shit!"

I managed to break off the wooden crate which was like busting up balsa wood and popped the top.  I was hit with a wall of cedar scent--really lovely.  I unloaded as much as I could by myself.

Here are the heat rocks which are surprisingly really heavy. In fact all of it is surprisingly heavy.

Simon unloaded the rest and stacked up the bits (which he compared to a giant Lincoln log set) in our back yard 

Here is the door with a glass insert.  And that was REALLY heavy.

You can smell the cedar from across the yard.

There are the crate bits which so far no one has taken. Not surprising, really, because it is shit wood and I say that as someone who is a bit of a hoarder when it comes to lumber.

It is rainy today and I am burdened with a big task that will take up all of this next week. But come June 1st I get to assemble a giant cedar house in our back yard.  It"ll be great, I am sure.

More About Rain Barrels

I can't even remember now why I decided that the rain barrels needed to be moved because it's a helluva lot of work.  But I'm committed now.  The first step was to get guttering attached to the garage to run the water into the primary barrel.  That took long enough because everything is harder than a random guy on YouTube makes it look:

We haven't had any serious rain since I put this up so I don't know how well the gutter is going to drain water into that first barrel but I will soon find out as we are expecting a MASSIVE rain storm tonight (in fact as I type this massive dark gray clouds are quickly rolling in) which is predicted to continue through tomorrow. (Or so weather.com claims, but they are about as reliable as a 1910 Farmer's Almanac since the US federal government stopped paying its annual dues to the weather satellite system.) I spray painted primer on Barrel 1 and it was a miserable task: the paint smells terrible and gives me headaches and it takes forever and the coverage is patchy.  And it's boring work, too.  I also primed Barrel #2 and tried out the yellow enamel paint on the top to see how it looks:

I don't like the yellow--too shrill and too shiny. And the enamel paint smells worse than the primer. So I'm going to have to go to Home Depot AGAIN (I feel like I live there these days) to get a can of primer and a can of yellow outdoor paint and do this all over again using roller brushes. It won't smell, the color will be better, and I don't care if the roller brush leaves orange peel dimpling in the paint as it's going to end up being covered with leaf and raspberry debris anyway.  Meanwhile, these barrels are waiting in the wings:

This morning I disconnected the hoses, removed the spigots and moved the cinder blocks over to their new home next to the garage. (And I twinged my back and worked through the pain and now feel fine--there's a lesson in that for those who can pay attention.) Once this latest climate change induced mega storm spends itself, I'll paint these damned barrels and set them up. THEN I can finally move my raised bed containers into position and THEN I can finally plant the things up. If I get a vine ripened tomato before winter sets in, I'll be amazed.