The Layton Court Mystery by Anthony Berkeley

 

Strictly speaking this isn't one of the British Mystery Club books because they don't have a version of this book, but I bought it because of the other Berkeley books I blogged about and so am including it here.  It's the first Roger Sheringham mystery and was published in 1925.  It's a typical Stately Home murder mystery and, also typical for 1925, is very bloodless. The murder victim dies quickly and painlessly, there is no gore and we are only told about a body being found by characters who are too quickly overcome to provide details. As with so many stately home murder mysteries, we have assembled a truly oddball collection of people, each of whom could be the murderer. And, also typical for stately home murders, none of these people know each other well--and all those being honest admit that they didn't even like the (now dead) host. So why are they there?  And why do obscenely wealthy people pepper their ridiculously oversized homes with people who do not know or like each other?  And why do they hire far too few staff to serve a proper meal?

Victor Stanworth, host turned corpse within very few pages of the book, seemed to be an ebulliant person that everyone loved and admired--until he died and his REAL personality is uncovered and then we find that everyone hates him with a passion: he's a ruthless blackmailer who likes to assemble his victims so he can, one at a time, call them to his study, open his safe, show them "the goods" he has on them, and then tell them his price. Sometimes, just to be extra sinister, he adds certain juicy tasks to his demands, as when he requires good looking women to hook up with certain "friends" of his and "do what it takes" to raise the necessary funds. Unsurprisingly, once this fact emerges, we find that everyone in the house has a strong motive to kill him.  But how?  He was killed in the middle of the night when all professed to be asleep (all except Roger who was working on his latest novel as he does all his best creative thinking in the wee hours--in fact, now that I think of it, I don't think he slept for the entire novel, which took place across at least five days).  Also, of course, the study door was locked on the inside with the key in the lock, all the windows were bolted shut, there were no secret hiding places, no priest's holes and no secret chambers behind any book cases.  AND there was a perfunctory suicide note.  But the note was typed and the signature scribbled so no one really believes it is genuine--except the police detective in charge of the case who couldn't declare the location a non-crime scene fast enough.

So who are our suspects?

(1) Major Jefferson: Jefferson is Stanworth's personal assistant/secretary.  He's former military and so efficient, but the work is beneath him and it's clear he hates it.  He's secretive but is not clear if that is a result of an overdeveloped sense duty or because he has real secrets that need to stay hidden.

(2) Lady Stanworth: Victor's sister-in-law, she was married to Victor's now deceased brother. Since Victor inherited the family home, she moved into the household after her husband's death. She isn't remotely bothered by her brother-in-law's death and spends her time up in her room "lying down" or sighing peevishly when asked questions about anything. She clearly did not like her brother-in-law, but did she hate him enough to kill him?

(3) Mrs. Plant: She's the ubiquitous cryer and fainter, always bursting into tears, unable to go on or answer any questions, always nervously twisting up her hanky and insisting that, really, she has nothing more to say so why doesn't everyone just leave her alone?  But her perfume is noteworthy (jasmine) and one arm of the couch in the study where Victor was killed smells strongly of her scent.

(4) The Butler: He is a massive, brutish ex-boxer who clearly knows nothing about being a butler.  He also never talks and really doesn't seem to do all that much except hover in the background, looking menacingly at everyone. Is he protection for his blackmailing boss or is he, too, a victim of Victor's threats?

(5) Barbara: A pretty young woman who features in chapter 1 only to disappear entirely a few pages later. She strides up to Alec, Roger's pal (more about him below), only to announce that she is calling off their engagement.  She does this on a bright beautiful morning just before breakfast is going to be served as Mr. Stanworth lay dead in his study but before his body has been discovered.  Alec is unsurprisingly stunned and very disappointed and asks for a reason. Barbara won't say, she just insists that "it has to be that way" and begs him to not asks questions. Alec, as well-bred as any 20 something Englishman in the 1920s, says he understands and mentions it never again. The last we hear of Barbara is a few pages later when Alec returns from the train station after helping her with her luggage. So what was THAT about?  Does Victor have something on Barbara, too, and was it so bad that she killed him and did a runner? But if that's the case, then why isn't she happier since her blackmailer is now dead?  

(6) Alec Grierson: Roger's pal from somewhere, presumably a private school they attended together some time in the past.  Alec is, according to Roger, very smart and sensible--more level-headed than Roger is, as Roger has a tendency to get bees in his bonnets and race off in ten directions at once. But Alec seems increasingly obtuse: Roger sends him on simple errands yet Alec bungles every one; Roger asked him to check for footprints in the mud and he clomps all over them, effectively erasing them entirely. Soon Roger suspects that his friend is actually sabatoging Roger's investigation. But why?  Was HE being blackmailed and so killed Victor?  Or does Alec think Barbara was being blackmailed and so killed Victor for her?  

Roger Sheringham--not a suspect:  We've met Roger in Jumping Jenny and The Poisoned Chocolates.  This book is obviously Roger's first rodeo: he is clumsy, foolish and always annoying the people he is trying to sweet talk into giving him important evidence. The story-telling is adequate, but not amazing.  There really is no tension and the characters are too two-dimensional to really get invested in. BUT, as usual, the mystery really is mysterious and even in this early effort, there is the classic double-twist that Berkeley becomes famous for. So how does Berkeley's writing develop between this novel and his later one?  First, the characters in his later novels are unforgettably weird and horrible: the murder victim in Jumping Jenny is extremely vividly protrayed to the point that reading scenes with her in it caused me to feel physically uncomfortable--she's a little bit "too real" to be bearable. It was a genuine relief when she finally died. Second, Roger shifts from a clunky investigator always underneath everyone's feet to a brooding outsider who stealthily enters rooms and observes the messy human interactions of others unobserved.  He notices everything but says nothing until he presents his solution to the police at the end.  Third, the social commentary in later books is many levels above what we see in this novel.  Here, social criticism stops at Roger making it clear that he is far more interested in solving the murder mystery than he is in bringing the murderer to justice--indeed, as far as he is concerned, the murderer did "bring about justice" when they shot Victor smack in the middle of his noggin. While refusing to turn over the guilty party to the police is slightly off center in the 1920s, it's hardly shocking to think that someone who kills a blackmailer who arranges for pretty young ladies to prostitute themselves out to rich men is a morally better person than the murder victim.  But in later novels, Roger sees everyone's foibles: every couple is one fight shy of divorce, every suspect has many deeply seedy secrets, and money truly is the root of all evil. The question is: did Berkely grow up or did he, as he wrote edgier and edgier novels, push his public to grow up?  

PROPER snow

 This is the heavy, wet kind.  And not just a sprinkling.

 

Thanksgiving

Instead of pumpkin pie from a can I thought I'd try sweet potato pie (the Southern/African American holiday variant) and we're converts!  Delicious and easy.

Look, it's a SMEG, Ma!

 Ideally we would be somewhere where there's a repair shop for the Dualit that was supposed to last forever, but as we aren't, and the cheapo one that was filling in for the non-functioning Dualit has already packed in, I bought what I hope is the most reliable alternative, that is also aesthetically pleasing.  (I always think of the fridge that Wallace, of "and Gromit" fame, has, called "Smug".)  However, Jami has reminded me that we had a Smeg kettle once and it didn't last very long, so fingers crossed.

 

The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley

 

Here's another head scratcher by Anthony Berkeley, aka Francis Illes, AKA Anthony Berkeley Cox, aka A Monmouth Platts. This book, published in 1929, is just about the coziest murder mystery a cozy murder mystery can be.  We have met the hero, Roger Sheringham, before in Jumping Jenny.  That book was published in 1933 and by that time Roger Sheringham is a well-established murder mystery solver, perhaps not as well regarded as a Sherlock Holmes, but nearing that level of celebrity.  Unfortunately for Roger, he isn't nearly as amazingly intelligent as Sherlock Holmes is and, though he always comes up with an impressively complicated solution, he's not always right and his frenemy, Chief Inspector Moresby of Scotland Yard, as often as not outwits Roger. Most annoyingly, Moresby's solutions are often very boring and don't require twists, double twists or even the triple-double twist we saw in Jumping Jenny. But here, Berkeley pulls out all the stops and crafts a story that is famous for turning the murder mystery novel on its head and pulling it insdie out by presenting a murder mystery to end all murder mysteries.

The story begins with Sheringham and Moseby sitting around, smoking cigars, and discussing a recent headline grabbing murder: the death of Joan Bendix, an obscenely wealthy heiress who died by eating fisfuls of poisonous chocolates gifted by her husband, Graham.  But, lest we assume Graham is the guilty party, Graham was given the box of chocolates by Sir Eustace (a notorious womanizer) while they were lunching at their club earlier on the day of Joan's death. BUT, lest you think Sir Eustace poisoned the chocolates, they were a gift to him from the chocolatier, Mason's, because Eustace is one of their best customers (he buys his dozens of female conquests lots of chocolate) and Mason's wants him to test out a new line of chocolates they are considering launching.  But Sir Eustace doesn't care for chocolates (more of a cigars and fattening meats sort of guy), and so offers them to Graham--who also doesn't care for chocolates but takes them because, he says, his wife "is mad about them."  Well, that seals Joan's fate.  So who put the poison in the chocolates and who was their intended target?  According to Moseby, it's simple: a crazed lunatic who will be impossible to catch unless he kills dozens more and gets lazy about covering his tracks. But Sheringham isn't buying that--he's convinced that "poison is a woman's murder weapon" and crazed lunatics are always men. But aside from that dubious conviction, he really has nothing else to offer. So he makes a proposal to Moseby: Sheringham has just launched a "Crimes Circle" club that is going to meet once a week or so for drinks and discussions of unsolved notorious murders. If Moseby would be good enough to attend the next meeting, lay out all the cards Scotland Yard has on the Bendix death, these mystery solvers can put their minds to work solving the mystery.  Moseby is dubious, but he's got no better plan so he agrees. 

And who are these amazing people? First we have Sir Charles Wildman, a famous barrister.  Then, we have Alicia Dammers, a notorious feminist "dramatist". Mrs. Fielder-Flemming is a best-selling mystery writer. Plus there is Mr. Ambrose Chitterwick, a small, nervous man who isn't famous at all and seems to have been invited by mistake. And rounding out the group is, of course, Roger himself, who regards himself as a "famous detective novelist."  After hearing all Moseby has to say and asking him questions to clarify details, all our club members are given their instructions: they get one week to run around and drum up evidence of any sort to help them solve the case.  Then, starting next week, each club member will have one evening to present their theory and proposed solution to the rest of the club.  If the others are persuaded, they will head off to Moseby with their solution.  If not, they move on to the next person.  Each is confident that they will solve the mystery and revel in the headlines announcing their ability to outwit Scotland Yard (all but Chitterwick, that is, who just squeaks in nervousness at the prospect of talking in front of the rest).  

The week quickly slips by and we are back in our Crimes Circle club room.  I won't go through each member's solution, as those are actually beside the point. The real point is that, given the same basic facts, we get five radically different solutions: different motives, different murderers, different intended victims, and different interpretations as to what clues are central and which are beside the point.  And each is absolutely convinced that they have an airtight explanation of the events and that no other explanation could possible exist.  Yet, when we get done, (Mr. Chitterwick is the last to go and almost faints from the stress of it), it turns out that none of them have solved the mystery: instead, the real solution comes from gleaning bits from each of their version.  So, all are equally correct and yet all are equally wrong.  And by the time we get through all this, Joan Bendix and the poisoned chocolates seem utterly beside the point.  

So what is the point?  According to Berkeley, he couldn't stand fictional detectives (like Sherlock Holmes) that locked onto "a fact" and from there were able to deduce solutions infallibly.  Berkeley was convinced that there was no "truth," no "facts," and no "reality"--yes, people died, but who "did it"?  Well, everyone and no one.  It's the Rashamon of cozy British Murder Mysteries and it's no wonder that it rocked that world, creating a standard that (apparently) every publishing author in the 1930s felt they had to measure up to be have the right to call themselves a murder mystery writer.  

Snow!?

Weren't we just swimming?  I forget that every year, just when you think the leaves are never going to fall off the trees, there's a sudden really cold snap and they fall off allatonce.  

 

Burning Bushes

 Every autumn innocuous green bushes around our neighborhood turn the most amazing red.

These include a row that runs along the side of the theatre building at school towards the entrance that have been growing steadily in the 26 years we've been here:
 

Whenever they start to turn they remind me of when Thomas was very little and we gave him his own camera (or probably let him use an old one) - this is pre-digital - and he took pictures of these when they were considerably smaller.  For some reason I had a memory of the picture looking like the one above, but that would be far too prosaic for Thomas The Artist, as you can see (I tracked them down in one of our photo albums):

 What an eye!

Further Fall Fotos

 

Fall Fotos

 

No Kings Rally in Flint

As there were rallies all over the country, I didn't expect many people at the one in Flint, particularly as it wasn't in a particularly nice part of town, but the reason for that might be that, next to an increasingly abandoned mall, there were vacant parking lots to use.  And actually, they filled up.  Jami didn't want me posting any photos because they could conceivably be used against the people in them.  But I imagine everybody else will be posting photos, but anyway I scribbled over faces and only used photos where there weren't many, so here we are.

 

Days like this are why October is my fave month

 Low 60s but bright sunshine - bliss.

 

YMCA

Flint got a brand spanking new YMCA last year, so the old one is slowly being demolished.  I drive by it every morning.

 

 

Still shorts weather