A few weeks ago I restarted reading the so-called "cozy murder mysteries" as a break from so-called "literature," and started Airing in a Closed Carriage--an absolute whopper of a book (which is not typical for books in this genre) and it got WAY too upsetting to continue. I have about 160 pages left of it and just could not go on, as the characters were just far too real and the tragedy was just too upsetting.
So I turned to this book and it is absolutely the right type: the murders are bloodless, the bad characters are seriously flawed and the heroes are (somewhat but not overly) likable. If the name looks familiar, it should as E C R Lorac wrote all those Lake District novels featuring Chief Inspector McDonald I've discussed before. (The guy who wants to escape London and buy cows out in Lancashire where everyone is always saying "Champion!") The basic idea of this book (which does NOT feature McDonald) is that it is post-WWII (1956 when published) and the primary female character has returned home from living in Canada (where she taught at university and avoided being blitzed) to her father's home to help take care of him. He's old, senile and bed-ridden. He's also been taken care of by a formidable woman who is called "Trimming" (she doesn't seem to have a first name) who is his nurse, cook, housekeeper and a self-flaggelating religious nut. She's also miserly and won't spend money on gas for lights or house repairs. So the enormous estate now looks like a crumbling haunted house that you'd have to spend the night in to get your inheritance. Trimming only begrudgingly lets Virgilia (yes, that really is the is the daughter's name) into the house to see her father, whom she hasn't seen in decades. His mind swims in and out of focus and he acts as if he recognizes her. Meanwhile she doesn't actually want to be with him and really wants to be left alone to work on a book she wants to publish. She spends her days writing and drinking tea out in his old studio (once upon a time he was a well respected artist who painted massive things (think 25' by 25' in size) that only museums could house. They are entirely out of fashion now (nymphs and other romantic images inspired by mythology) and so they are heaped up in "her" studio. She does not like her father but tells everyone who will listen that she has a duty to care for him--yet she doesn't care for him (Trimming does that) and neither he nor Trimming even want her there. Their only concession to Virgilia is in permitting a local doctor to visit her father once a week to make sure he's eating enough and taken care of.
After getting to know this household we drop by a much happier house next door: a retired lawyer lives there with his niece (who is a real Jolly Hockeysticks sort) and she is often visited by her boyfriend who is (fortunately for her) wealthy as she intends to be a modern painter and doesn't have two pence to rub together. She is also committed to such communist ideas that property is theft and houses should not be locked and household objects should be considered communal among friends, families and strangers in need. But, she is fascinated to learn that her uncle's neighbor is a (formerly) famous painter and so she is desperate to see his works in person. So they trot over and view the crumbling estate and massive paintings and, despite her ideological convictions, she is smitten with the magnitude of the property and all evidence of former wealth. Her uncle is thoroughly cynical and is convinced there is ill will bubbling beneath the surface of that odd household.
And he is right: the next day the doctor shows up as scheduled and the house is locked up and no one answers the doorbell. He heads to the studio to let Virgilia know and she and he circle the massive house, looking for an open window or door, finding none. She hasn't been in the house since the night before (she claims) and they both are immediately worried. He breaks a window and lets them both in, only to find Trimming dead at the bottom of the massive stairwell with a broken neck and Old Man collapsed at the top of the stairs, alive, but unable to move as he's had a massive stroke. He's taken to the hospital with no one believing he'll recover. It's so obvious Trimming tripped: the carpet on the stairs is old and worn and she is old and frail and the tray of food she was carrying was heavy. So no mystery, right? Yet the doctor has a bad feeling and calls the police and then THEY all have bad feelings. Everyone is convinced that Trimnming was pushed. But how? And why?
Trimming doesn't have a penny to her name--she never even accepted payment from the Old Man. And if he had money, why not kill him? Or both? And anyway, no one was in the house and it was locked from the inside. A real head scratcher. But before CID man Rivers is done, he's going to discover a suspicious geriatric plasterer named "Walter" (but really Willy Potts) who did horrible work on the ceilings and that Old Man was in fact a millionaire because he won an Argentinian lottery thirty years earlier and kept his money in Paris so the English government couldn't tax it (there was a lot of griping about regulations and taxes by all characters that were not police throughout the book). And into all this weirdness appears a "nephew" of Virgilia who is way too interested in everything (he pokes about touching things he shouldn't, smearing fingerprints on everything) and has strong opinions about what happened. But mainly he wants the police to hit the road so he can put the massive tapestries up for auction so he and "Aunt" Virgilia can get at some serious cash.
So what happened? And who did it? It's completely bewildering until the second from the last page when (a) a third dead body appears and (b) the criminal suddenly confesses for no reason.
I would say that this is a B- story. Not great writing or very satisfying. But certainly not upsetting either. Now, back to Airing in a Closed Carriage...
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