The Crime-Book Society No. 5
I enjoyed this book by Bruce Graeme - one of the better ones of the nine Crime-Book Society thrillers I have recently read. Graeme (1900-1982) was a pseudonym for Graham Montague Jeffries. He was born in London in 1900 and served in the Westminster Rifles Regiment in the Great War. Throughout the 1920s, he worked as a reporter at the Middlesex County Times. He also worked as a film producer during the 1940s. Apparently, he was a persistent traveller, making frequent trips to Europe and the USA. He also wrote under the pseudonyms David Graeme (claiming he was Bruce's cousin), Peter Bourne, Jeffrey Montague, Fielding Hope and Roderic Hastings. He produced more than 100 books, including a few history and true crime works. He created six sleuths but probably the character he is best known for is Richard Verrell, alias "Blackshirt", a professional thief who becomes a successful crime novelist (I hope it wasn't autobiographical!). There were nine novels in the series, starting with Blackshirt in 1925 and finishing with Blackshirt Strikes Back in 1940. Black-Shirt Again (1929) was the third published.
The first chapter sets the flavour for the rest of the book. 'Sir John Wakefield' addresses a room full of dancers who have been invited to his house for a Ball. He says his wife's jewels have been stolen, but he will order all the lights to be switched off and thus give the thief a chance to return the necklace and watch to him. In the unrelieved blackness, the dancers collided, here, there and everywhere...nevertheless the dancing continued. The lights went back on. Sir John still stood in the middle of the room, a sad expression on his face. "I am sorry," he said brokenly, "now I shall have to call in the police." He leaves the room. Then, pandemonium breaks out; guest after guest realise their own valuables have been stolen while the lights were off. Meanwhile, the real Sir John Wakefield is trying to get out of a locked room upstairs. Blackshirt, dressed in immaculate evening clothes, strolled away, whistling cheerfully to himself... Another successful heist!
He was a criminal who always worked dressed in black - black shoes, socks and trousers, black shirt, black mask, black hat, black gloves; as dark as the shadows which he never left... By working alone, with a meticulous attention to detail, he had never yet been arrested. The irate Sir John, angry that Scotland Yard appear to have no answers, engages the services of one William Russell, a horsey little individual, who styled himself a confidential inquiry agent, and was as cunning as he was unscrupulous. Once himself a gaol-bird, he had become a police spy, known as a "dip". One of the themes of the story is the attempt of Russell to find out who exactly Blackshirt is and to catch him. The author sprinkles nice touches of humour throughout the taler, much appreciated by this reader.
Linked to this strand is another, involving one Betty Warrington (she of the exquisitely-chiselled chin...healthy curling lips...delicate bloom of her soft cheeks, long curling lashes...) who had been given her dead mother's jewels on her 21st birthday a year ago by her uncle. They were amongst the valuables stolen at Sir John Wakefield's party. Russell, by chance overhearing a conversation in Hyde Park where Betty is bemoaning her loss to her friend Norma, hatches a cunning plan. Knowing that Blackshirt was regarded as a 'sport' by Scotland Yard, he gets a journalist friend to put an ad. in his paper with a reward for anyone returning poor Betty's jewels. The scene now shifts back to Hyde Park, where the popular novelist, Richard Verrell, is sauntering homewards. Grabbing an evening paper, he reaches his flat and is drawn to a half-column - Domestic Tragedy of a Theft. It uses hyperbole to stress Betty's anguish at her loss. Verrell/Blackshirt is hooked! He decides to return the jewels - under his man-about-town garb he is dressed in his black outfit. He travels to No. 61Argyll Road, manipulates the locks and bolts to enter and is about to place the loot on the girl's dressing-table, when she wakes up. He noted that her eyes were still red from weeping, that her face was white and drawn..."I have come to return your jewels" What a goodish egg. Moreover, he notices that her wrists have red marks and quickly realises they have been made by her (nasty) uncle. Betty helps him to escape the trap Russell had laid, which meant police pounding on the door. Blackshirt calls the fire brigade to the house, knocks out the first fireman who comes up the ladder to Betty's bedroom and, carrying the girl in a fireman's 'lift', escapes down the ladder!
From then on, quite cleverly, Blackshirt not only evades the police but goes in search of Betty's jewels which have again disappeared from her room that same evening. The thief had to be either the fireman left in the room or the policeman who had eventually forced open the bedroom door. The following chapters, dealing with Blackshirt's tracking down, in turn, their home addresses and searching their premises are well-written, with several amusing flash-points. And all the while, Russell is attempting - and failing - to unmask him. Blackshirt not only discovers who the real villain of the story is, but returns to Sir John Wakefield's house in the last chapter tor a hand over all the stolen jewels from the Ball. But, in a delicious twist at the end, did he? A great tale.
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