The Crime-Book Society No. 4
Baroness Emma Magdalena Rozálla Mária Josefa Borbála Orczy de Orci (18965-1947) was a Hungarian-born British novelist and playwright, best known for her series of novels featuring The Scarlet Pimpernel, aka Sir Percy Blakeney, a wealthy English fop. She was also well-known as a regular writer of detective thrillers, often publishing the short stories in magazines. Unravelled Knots originally appeared in the London Magazine (1923-4) and in Hutchinson's Magazine (1924-5).
The Man in the Corner - the weird, spook-like creature with the baggy trousers, the huge horn-rimmed spectacles, and the thin, claw-like hands that went on fidgeting, fidgeting, fidgeting, with a piece of string must be one of the most unprepossessing characters in detective (if not literary) history. The character first appeared in The Royal Magazine in 1901, in a series of six 'Mysteries of Great Cities'. The stories are told by an unnamed lady journalist who sits at the same table and reports their conversations; later collected in book form, the lady journalist was then named Polly Burton. A second group of stories, The Case of Miss Elliott came out in 1905. Un-Ravelled Knot, therefore, was the third in the series. The man and woman journalist meet up in the ABC teashop on the corner of Norfolk Street and the Strand. Polly brings him details of obscure crimes baffling the police, which he helps her to solve. The Old Man is this balding watery-eyed figure in violently checked tweed who is, however immeasurably vain about his detecting talents. Polly can be (regularly) sarcastic about him, but she realises she is very much the learner during their meetings.
The meetings in Unravelled Knots take place after an absence of twenty years and sees a development in the Old Man's character from the two earlier collections of stories. I must admit to not being a particular fan of short stories. They need a rather different skill-set to write, compared with full-length novels, and a different approach from the reader. I like a full-blown and much longer narrative and find, inevitably, characters cannot be fleshed out in the detail I would like. However, some of these short 'cases' were quite well done. The first story, The Mystery of the Khaki Tunic, revolves around a piece of the material being found clutched in a dead spinster's hand. Add to this, a clever use of a wet coat, a dripping hat and soaked boots, and the real murderer is unmasked by the Man in the Corner. I liked The Mystery of the Ingres Masterpiece - the substitution of a real Old Master for a fake, but not by the person the reader thought had done it. I also found The Mystery of the Dog's Tooth Cliff and The Mystery of the White Carnation cleverly done. In fact, the thirteen stories, which end with the atmospheric A Moorland Tragedy, are not too bad at all! A pity that the Man in the Corner himself is such an unattractive proponent.
Polly, rightly as it happens as Orczy wrote no more of the Man in the Corner, ends the stories this way:
I wonder if I shall ever see my eccentric friend again. If I do I shall see him sitting in his accustomed corner, with his spectacles on his nose, and his long thin fingers working away at a bit of string - fashioning knots - many knots - complicated knots - like those in the cord by the aid of which an entrance was effected into that shop in Hatton Garden and diamonds worth £80,000 were stolen. A nice twist!
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