Science Invades the Crime Books

By SYLVA NORMAN

The One Sane Man. By Francis Beeding. (Hodder and Stough-

ton. 7s. 6d. )

'Alfa' knowledge grow from more to more.; but even Tennyson's Princess would have been alarined by the spectacle of a public devouring toads of technical scientific matter for its recreation. I remember—it must have been years ago—reading in some eminent essayist's pages that the man who could enjoy Plato with his feet in the fender was ararity.– At that time we were still expected to prefer Holnies with his feet on the chim- neypiecc. Today we have put away such childishness. We demand science hot and strong,. with a flavouring of detection to excuse our preference. -Hats` off, then, to Mr. Daly King, who has given us an Introduction to Psychology, complete with bibliography and footnotes. Here is an example of the latter : " Gestalt psychology : a school of psychology that emphasizes the whole pattern of an event or activity or func- tion as the determining factor therein," &c. Never mind ; let us try the text " The point I wish to make is that there exist- a repetition compulsion upon which we may rely in the treat ment. It exists in everyone, but it is plainly exemplified in the shock dreams of traumatic patients, in the play impulses of children, and in the phenomena of transference." " Trau- matic " and " transference " are annotated. It is time to reassure the reader that Mr. King's book contains a murder story. A banking magnate is found dead in the swimming pool of an express during its maiden trip across America. All the passengers are distinguished guests, and, thanks to Mr. King's real profession, doctors of psychology predominate. Each has his own theory—technical and theoretical—as to the solution, and each is wrong. The denouement itself, apart from one piece of " behaviourism," is uninteresting, but the learned by-play, if hard work, is delightful. One can only guess at the personal hits and gentle gibes the author must have enjoyed while writing it ; he has obviously put in more than the uninitiated can hope to extract. .

Our next course of instruction is in the technique of broad- casting. Messrs. Gielgud and Marvell, experts in their de- partments, give us a fair idea of the method of transmitting a radio play. E.g. : " By means of the mixing, the sound effects and the musical background are kept . at their proper strength when they arc used simultaneously with the output of the actors in their studios." And, one may add, in spite of the mixing of science and fiction, the latter is kept at its proper strength. A young dramatist has written a radio play in which a man is murdered. The actor of the part is mur- dered during its transmission. If the solution is perfunctory as to motive it is almost perfect as to method. The murder could have been planned and have .occurred in none but its particular setting, so that all the authors' references to echo rooms, Dramatic Control Panels and the like, are neatly justified. I am sorry to find one of the characters opining that Philo Vance would have made heavy going of this case. For here is Philo Vance, ploughing up deep furrows of occult and

rational inquiry over a question of dragons. A man disappears in a pool with a dragonish tradition, and nothing remains but the marks of a dragon's claws. TeChnology again starts up,

• this time for the study of sea monsters. (Examples : Lamp-. rotamus ilagellibarba ; Mylossoma duriventris, and some fifty

more.) Mr. Van Dine specializes in special subjects. He is

always laboriously clever, but rarely inevitable in his results. His atmospheres fail to electrify or terrorize. No one can

really suspect the innocent dragon for a moment, and Mr. Van Dine gets one good mark because the murderer never intended us to do so.

Fourth lesson : medical science, with particular reference

to poisoning. Lead acetate and alum chlorate are mutual antidotes, and thereby hangs Mr.- Anthony RolLs's comedy.

Such a tiresome old invalid as Mr. Kewdingham, who played about with chemicals, politics, engineering and the Pyramid Texts, quite naturally tempted both his wife and his doctor to poison him. They failed to consult each other, and the invalid's health improved. This is no ". give-away " ; the reader' is allowed daylight and a broad wink until near the end, when a strange thing happens to Mr. Kewdingham, and it appears that some combinations of poisons are not harm- less. Family Matters is written with cheerful humour and all-round intelligence ; anyone wanting a chuckle instead of a shiver is advised to try it before going on to : Lesson five : meteorology, But it is meteorology run mad, or made sane, which is equivalent, since we are partial to the mad antics of our weather, and climate controllers can work nasty tricks. Mr. Beeding's fantasy is well presented ; in parts it has the whimsical flaystrar of a Rene Clair film, and its opening extract from the press is delicious. The " One Sane Man " abducts several experts and politicians in an effort to control the world by enlightened methods (we met this notion a month or two back ; he was then Chinese). His chief . weapon is this very ability to freeze, burn or otherwise ruin his political enemies into agreement. Geneva swelters, and the League of Nations is about to adopt his scheme of world government, when the Professor whom the winds and the seas obey gives up obeying. And in these meteorological mists we end our science course.

Without it, the other books seem rather flat, or else labouring jauntily to re-issue some time-dishonoured theme in a new key.

Shortly Before Midnight is our familiar Trial of the Innocent Young Woman. It takes place in Annecy ; but as my own recollection of Annecy shortly before midnight is rowing on a moonlit lake, I retire from judgement of the more strenuous situation pictured here, except to sympathize in one respect : remembering the dark refusals of hotel waiters to serve coffee some while before midnight to strangers in boats, I can the

more easily credit the assurance of the French police concern- ing the Innocent's guilt. Week-End at Thrackley is the House-

Party again—the house party collected by an eccentric old man for his own purposes. Mr. Melville's host and the adven- tures of his wealthy guests are sketched on extravagant lines. Jewels, secret cellars, and (alas !) surprise identities are mixed with some light humour that deserves a better plot.

Death by Misadventure, written as a diary by one of the actors in it, favours the Cornish coast, where bodies can be pushed over the cliff. It also favours, after careful but not too convincing puzzlement, the well-worn tune of Bygone Business Firms in Africa. Luckily Miss Malirn's real little surprise is still to come, as an extra twist when we have given up hoping. It might easily have been guessed at, but pro- bably numbers of readers will lash themselves for not having 'examined the evidence at one point. ' After this book the guessing game is over. There is nothing to guess in Mr.

Oppenhchn's medleys—unless one is to pause on a scenic switchback to divine who set it going. Full measure of froth, not pressed down but running merrily over, may always be expected, even if The Gallows of Chance is not his headiest froth. In' it the Home Secretary is abducted. I had rather hoped Mr. Oppenheim would abduct Big Ben, since there is a time factor in the situation. And perhaps he will yet.

The author of The Fugitive aims at something different. An ex-officer of Napoleon's army kills a man in a mountain village and escapes into a labyrinth of caves. Here he lies with a broken leg, tended secretly by a kind-hearted doctor and his daughter. The story seems naive and featureless (the translation is partly responsible) until we see that M. Chamson is working towards a tragic and pitiless climax: the doctor dies of a stroke, surrounded by villagers but unable to articulate that his daughter and the officer are

prisoners—for ever now—in the cave. As a change from the restless ingenuities performed in most thrillers this fatal inertia (where have our scientific aids gone ?) is a blessed relief. Judged on its own merits, it is fair but not flaw- less.