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.
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