Jarrolds Publishers - both 1940
The fourth of Herman Landon's crime stories in this Series is a strange book, almost as strange as the house called Bronson's Spite, situated on an elevation overlooking East River in New York. It was an eyesore, a blemish even on this unlovely section of Manhattan. It was out of all symmetry, all out of proportion, and its mismated features looked as if the architects had conspired to do their very worst. It was the brainchild of the late Peter Clayton Bronson, erected as a grim practical joke against former colleagues who had swindled him out of a fortune. Ironically, he had eventually been forced to live in it due to his poverty. Now he was dead; as was his son Junius. Or was the latter actually deceased? He turns up, very much alive, after years spent abroad, and the tale unfolds around his attempt to give the main cause of his father's misfortune a good thumping! The villain is one Wallace Munger, who turns out to fit the part. He is a squat, hunchback who has seemingly fled from the law, but is hiding in a secret room in Bronson's Spite.
Junius finds this out, rents a lodging opposite, and spies on Munger who plays the violin at night - it was Munger's malign soul, rather than the composer's, that lived and breathed in the music. Landon assembles a cast of characters who are extraordinary even by his pulp fiction standards. Cashel Courtleigh - his eyes had a subtly penetrating quality. They were brownish yellow, or a yellowish brown...thick snow-white hair...weak mouth and wore a shirt with an uncommonly high collar, and it scraped his cheeks whenever he moved his head. Miss Agatha Munger, Wallace's sister - a great mass of unkempt grey hair framed a gaunt, sallow face in which a pair of sunken eyes gleamed with unnatural brilliance. Junius's landlord, Henry Jonas, had long rabbit ears and a thin face that had a perpetually frozen look. He was a man of meagre proportions...Walter P. Oakhult, Junius's lawyer, whose features were fine and intellectual: even the white-bald skull that surmounted his tall and wiry figure was imposing. Mr Leffingwell, with a keen, dark face and eyes that were steely and grey...with russet slippers, who was a father-figure to Laurel Courtleigh. Napoleon Brown, a long, narrow-chested man, slightly stoop-shouldered, with sluggish, brooding eyes, who despises women and whom Junius refers to as the detective. And, above all, the real detective, Sergeant Dan Cramshaw, member of the homicide squad, a huge bulk of a man...his carrot-head towering a generous six foot four above his substantial feet...he had a reddish moustache, but it was not a success. He seemingly blunders about the murder scenes at Bronson's Spite, regularly pencilling things in a grubby notebook with bright covers and a yellow tassel, and also regularly complaining that the suspects were gumming up the works.
No wonder Junius, two-thirds into the tale, is totally at sea: His thoughts were all at loose ends. There was no light anywhere, only unanswerable riddles, wicked conspiracies, a house full of whispering shadows (hence the title), the strains of a violin, and fresh flowers blooming in a chamber of death.
Only the girl appeared 'normal'. Laurel Courtleigh, step-daughter of Cashel, whom she hated, with nice eyes (Junius calls her Fawn Eyes) and a nice mouth, who refers to Junius as Mr. Lunatic...idiot...detestable cub and, for much of the book, a bland young man. Naturally, Junius and Laurel end up together at the end.
Three small brass elephants hold the key to this claustrophobic and convoluted tale. Landon certainly had imagination but there are too many unlikelihoods to make his story believable.
Walter S. Masterman's The Border Line is well worth the read. At first, I worried that it might be a tale of the supernatural - I am not keen on such works as, similar to Science Fiction stories, I regard most of them as merely silly. However, there were enough clues early on to establish the murders were clearly the work of a real human being. Masterman sets much of the tale on the border between England and Wales (hence the title), in that still rather eerie and mysterious Forest of Dean. The various characters are clearly defined and realistic, even if the murderer's behaviour and eventual unmasking is a little far-fetched. The involvement of the nascent BBC is interesting and the author pitches the right note in the relationship between Scotland Yard and the local police force.
The possible supernatural aspects are also well crafted - sinister and frightening for several of the characters. The awful and bumptious (common?) Lady Harman and her frightful son are believable and the young (only 16) damsel in distress, Sybil, has enough about her not to appear insipid. What a BBC engineer is doing making love (in the general sense) to her is another matter! No character repelled (I even understood the murderer's motives) and some were positively likeable! So much so, that I have ordered another of Masterman's novels - this time in Hutchinson's Crime Book Society series - The Blood-Hounds Bay. I must beware that it is not the start of another collections-mania.
No comments:
Post a Comment