Murder and the Nice Man
By SYLVA NORMAN
North Sea Monster. By D. A. Spencer and W. Randerson.
(Houghton and Scott-Snell. 7s. 6d.)
The Talking Sparrow Murders. By Darwin L. Teilhet. (Gollancz. 78. (id.) AT some period during the development of crime-stories a knotty problem must have arisen. Working on the axiom that a murderer is a scoundrel, how was his wicked identity to be concealed until the final chapter ? An author who is playing the game must keep his villain constantly on the stage, and yet mask his villainy. Only two means of secrecy seemed possible : either to introduce so many rogues that we wouldn't choose to walk out late with any of them, or else to endow the villain with such powers of deception and self- control that his diabolism only breaks out when the game is up. Both methods ruin all chance of normal character- drawing. They were probably good enough in their time ; that is, until intellectuals began writing crime-books for intellectuals. Then the problem blazed out, and was quickly settled. The weighty question of " the Right to Kill " worked itself joyously into fiction, and at once abolished our first axiom. The murderer is no longer a monster. This may indicate a slacker morality or a broader tolerance than before ; it certainly makes for a freer detective story. Humour is able to replace indignation, or the ethical sense is preserved —inverted--when a benevolent criminal rids the world of some detestable old man.
For freedom and humour Mr. Berkeley's amusing Panic Party must be starred. In marooning his yachting party on a desert island he has used a situation familiar to comedy and satire. The owner of the yacht is pushed over the cliff, and we take it as casually as an incident out of High Wind in Jamaica. The question for us is not who killed him but how a bunch of overcultured celebrities will react to the knowledge that one of them is a murderer. They react most dangerously ; an alarming crisis is relieved, as expected, by the arrival of a boat. And the cause of it all reveals himself sheepishly in a quiet postscript, uncertain whether the title of murderer is his by right. Ought he to make a statement ? The answer is "No." A similar decision graces Father Knox's new puzzle. Why not, since the victim disgraces a Scottish family ? The heir is undervitalized, insignificant, a poor sportsman and a dram-drinker. He is due for death and he gets it. But the matter is so unim- perative that his creator is driven to constructing obstacles all over the landscape lest we should be bored. They are curious obstacles and lead to curious acts ; they implicate everyone, and more than half the clues are frauds. As the obstacle-removers groan and labour on their way, blundering heavily through pages of explanation, Father Knox's witty asides become increasingly necessary to the wearied brain. I wish he would multiply the asides and subtract the puzzle next time.
Comedy is again the key in Whispering Tongues. The setting is one of those English beauty-villages, rejoicing in attractive houses, tyrannical families, voracious gossips, and a genuine case of poisoning. Mr. Kirk undoubtedly knows his village. He might with advantage have been more merciless to it. Less bold then Mr. Berkeley, he has declined to ridicule his entire cast of characters. The accused husband, whose mental tortures in the dock break off while he instinct- ively ogles the ladies, is a cruel and clever portrait. So are the gossips. Alas, that a pair of youthful lovers steer the story into conventional sugar-tracks,an escape from poisoned sherry, and a honeymoon kiss. It is perhaps harder to be gay than serious in a mystery novel ; to be gay and senti- mental is an almost infallible recipe for producing a promising jelly that will not set. One may add- that the murderer in this instance, if not liquefied in the jelly, should have been a monster. The opposite is true of Mr. Rhode's avenger. If
ever a benevolent criminal existed, here 'he" is. Sir Gerald Uppingham--corpse—had been a devil with the women, and whoever saved the Honourable Muriel from his clutches must be a gentleman. In fact the unanimity of possible motive is monotonous. Nothing remains to be disclosed except the who and the how. Mr. Rhode proceeds deftly and conven- tionally ; the clues are neatly marshalled, the suspicion shifted round the circle like a ball thrown from player to player.
So much competence and dexterity ought to be praised ; but if we are looking for originality, let us rather try North Sea Monster, written by two daring amateurs who break every rule. A little more wit, resource and literary style would have given us a Wellsian scientific thriller brought up to date. But the authors are professional scientists and the thrill takes second place. They are also propagandists and, I suspect, more serious in their intentions than the delicious fantasy of the opening scene and the weaker attempts at love- passages would hint. Briefly, they propose to abolish war by producing violent nausea among the fighting forces. The agent is a gas discharged by aeroplanes ; a secret society is at the bottom of it. And here, in the light of the conventional novel, comes the crash of rules. First, these secret societies for world control should be run by Chinamen or criminals ; secondly, the hero ought to smash them ; thirdly, this smash- ing should be done in a grand climax when, between our book's bright covers, the whole massed forces of Beelzebub are gloriously routed on the verge of victory. Dr. Spencer and Mr. Randerson obey none of these dicta. Setting their novel in the future instead of in fancy they arrange a war between two nations and gas it into ridicule. The sleuth whom we try to call hero joins the secret forces, and at last, in the authors' words, the world is " made safe for mediocrity " by wholesale disarmament. It is no use hoping that the pro- ject holds water, but it certainly holds refreshment of some kind.
With Mr. Teilhet we leave the international future for the German present and plunge into animated politics during the Hitler regime. Anyone wishing to know what Germany is like under Hitler may fmd out from this book that it is a breathless succession of murders, abductions and accusations, a haunt of callous Fri uleins and shifty business men, of shady night-clubs and stinking sewers, of slow- witted police and fascinating Jewish girls who drive through showers of bullets into -the hero's heart.- By this I mean only that Nazi Germany contains as many of the old ingredients as we have met before in Monte Carlo, Ruritania or New York. Yet Mr. Teilhet writes unmistakably of Germany ; all his smaller details carry conviction. Also he writes well, in the modern cinema fashion, when the pace of his incidents allows him time. And his opening is so distinctive that it proves the book's worst enemy, since all that follows it remains far behind.
Mr. Punshon has supplied a murderer and a finale (for the simple word " ending " is not grand enough) which merit discussion. They cannot have it if the secret is to be kept, so I will say only that both murderer and finale "aim at greatness and almost achieve it, although the greatness of each is patently out of place. The whole story, even when a too-facetious style invades it, has continuous interest and suspense, but it hardly leads up to its finale harmonies. Mrs. Agatha Christie, on the other hand, can be relied on to play the right tune every time. In this collection of short stories she shows her complete mastery of all that she attempts. We may dislike the product in some instances because the keynote jars, yet the technique is flawless. Some of the stories are too pretty, and one or two cannot easily keep ahead of the readers' guesses; but usually the last chords come down in triumphant slickness. And here, in " Philomel Cottage ", we are brought back to the traditional monster-murderer who makes a jotting in his diary of the precise hour he means to kffi his wife. This story is as grim a piece of grand guignol as we could wish for. Perhaps after all the modern admission of the murderer to
polite society raises as many difficulties as it solves.
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