Frederic A. Kummer's 'Design for Murder' 1936 and Andrew Soutar's ' Sinister River' 1936

 

The Crime-Book Society paperback edition No.49 - 1938

This appears to be the only novel of Frederic Kummer's to be included in the 85 Crime-Book Society paperback series. Kummer (1873-1943) was an American writer, who produced novels, plays and material for the silver screen. Several of his works were, in fact, made into movies. He was born in Catonsville, Maryland and educated in public schools and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He became a life member of the American Society of Engineers and assistant editor of the Railroad Gazette. He married the playwright Clare Rodman Beecher in 1895 and they had two daughters. His son, who was given the same names as his father, with Jr. attached, was from a second marriage. Kummer died, at his home in Baltimore, in November 1943. Wikipedia lists 21 of his writings (some are novels, but Design for Murder is not included), four short stories and seven works under the heading 'Filmography'. Of some interest is that a Liberty Ship was named after him during the Second World War.

The novel is a mixture of a murder and the ensuing detection, and a slow-burning love story.  Mrs. Kirby is hosting a private luncheon party at her home, Halfway House. She is seemingly addicted to 'bling'. She laughed nervously, shaking her head; it made her jewellery rattle. Too much jewellery... priceless ear-rings, a pearl necklace, bracelets...Senator Tom Kirby, her husband is there, a tall, bony man who looks like a westerner. One of those invited is Stephen Ransom, a budding young playwright. The reader is introduced to others at the party: Count de Zara, a dark, immensely broad man; Judge Tyson, plump and smiling as a well-fed bishop...who looks like Santa Claus; Dr. Badouine, a slender, distinguished looking man, who is a psychoanalyst; Luke Reid, a lobbyist. Smart as a fox. Looks like one too. He is the legal man of all work to the Senator; Jean, the Senator and Mrs Kirby's daughter, who is a smouldering-eyed girl in black, who wants to marry de Zara, but her mother objects; finally, Lawrence Dane a tall good-looking actor presently starring in a local play.  So, as all good detective stories have it, there is an Agatha Christie type starter, with an array of potential murderers - all, as the story develops, revealing motives. 

Ransom links up with Ann Vickery, a slim, well-shaped girl with dark, shining hair and very direct grey-blue eyes...her knitted silk suit fitted her supple body like the skin of an apple. Well, we don't need to wait until page 252 to know what's going to happen. But, before that, there is the little problem of the murder. Mrs. Kirby is found later that night, stone dead slumped across her office desk. Unfortunately for Ransom and Vickery, they were overheard by a waiter at the party discussing a murder scenario which involved Mrs. Kirby and her jewels. Worse, they are first on the scene. Ann had been staying overnight, and came downstairs as a result of hearing a scream and a shout of two words: That nail. Although it takes over 200 pages, this outburst unmasks the murderer.

We now meet Inspector John Duveen, Assistant Superintendent in command of the Detective Bureau, Washington police. Initially, he focuses, quite naturally, on Ransom and Vickery as the likely culprits. Gradually, it becomes apparent to him that it must be someone else, partly because Ransom decides to pursue clues as well (it's his playwright nose). I found the manoeuvrings and red-herrings skilfully done by the author, as, one-by-one, the characters who had attended the luncheon were focused on, then discarded as suspects. I guessed the culprit about twenty pages before he/she was unmasked. The false clues the latter fed Ransom and the Inspector were quite believable. Of course, the novel ends with a kiss. And the nail proved to be the clincher.

The Crime-Book Society paperback edition No.50 - 1938

This is the fifth Andrew Soutar tale I have read in the Crime-Book Society's paperback series. I have another to read - Justice is Done (no. 58). Sinister River is typical of Soutar's style. Fast-flowing narrative, a few red-herrings, Scotland Yard (this time it is more the Thames River police) and, meandering through, a love story.  As the Catholic Herald of the time stated: The Thames shrouded in mystery, interspersed with bodies and smuggling, is the thread running through this tale by Andrew Soutar, written with his characteristic speed and relish, and with all the qualities of good drama and certain excitement.

The very first paragraph sets the scene and tone: In all the world there is no more alluring or beautiful river than the Thames, tracing from its source on the crest of the oolite escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, and holding in restraint the flow of admiring thoughts when the outlying suburbs of London are reached. From that point down-stream all that is sinister and mysterious blends with the flood. All that is dramatic lurks on the Embankment: all that is tragic lies hidden in the mud of the channel. It reminded me of Charles Kingsley's poem in The Water-Babies (1862), which we learned in those long-ago days at prep school:

Clear and cool, clear and cool,                                                                                                                 By laughing shallow and dreaming pool...                                                                                                  Undefiled, for the undefiled...                                                                                                                Dank and foul, dank and foul,                                                                                                                  By the smoky town in its murky cowl...                                                                                             Darker and darker the farther I go.   

When, the apparently successful businessman, James Grant, found himself face to face with disaster and chose suicide as the way out, he left four young adults behind, their mother having died some years previously. Janet, the eldest in her twenties, was small, delightfully vigorous, appreciative of life and all it had to offer...prudent without being a prude; broad-minded without encouraging liberties. Sounds like my kind of gal. Agnes, was the laughter-loving, care-free modern...she had her sports car, her hack, her friends; she went where she pleased; Muriel was the more demure one; lastly, Robert, was still at college, who could spend as carelessly as any of his friends; he could shake a good cocktail and he knew the difference between a racehorse "platter" and something with "blood" in it. The reader gets the picture: self-made wealth from the father, now all gone bar a splendid house Black Pines on the Thames bank, and four youngsters used to the good life, carefree but not entirely idle. Grant doesn't die until page 93 but, by then, we know there's more to it than a few mistakes by the old man. Janet is affianced to Hubert Braddock, a young man with no poetry in his soul, the son of Sir Claude Braddock, another seemingly wealthy financier in the city and, equally 'seemingly' a friend of James Grant. 

Out of the river by Black Pines come a series of strange events and persons. A half-drowned beautiful, foreign young woman (just like a Madonna), who disappears after being given a bed for the night and later turns up near Piccadilly Circus, apparently street-walking; a strange, uncanny little man, with a huge bald head (he was hatless), and a twisted nose.; and, most importantly, a strong-shouldered, virile, determined, and...poor man, but whom Janet could see in the darkness was clearly gentleman of yesterday. The four orphans band together to change their revered home into a good riverside house...a house run on the best of lines, perfect supervision, perfect entertainment, perfect everything, helped by the little bald-headed man, who turns out to be Gaspard, a historian writing a book about the Thames; and the strong-shouldered Adonis, one Travis, who quickly becomes a mainspring in the Grants' plan to market Black Pines as a top-class entertainment venue - Black Pine Casino! Finest site on the banks of the Thames. Thirty acres of lawn and woodland. Magnificent house. However, capital of around £10,000 is needed. Somewhat mysteriously, this is found (I didn't guess who was behind this largesse until the end).

All goes swimmingly on the surface; however, at the same time, a ruthless group are using the river to ferry barges full of drugs (under coal) and are also engaged in people-trafficking from abroad. We soon realise Travis is far from the respectful major domo he seems. He is clearly involved in finding out who are the rotters leading the drug/people trade. Quite early on, it is revealed that Sir Claude and Hubert are up to their necks in it. Towards the end of the tale, Travers cuts to the quick, addressing Sir Charles: It may be a little difficult for the simple-minded and honest who use the Thames as a pleasure resort and a waterway for traffic to believe that such fouling and polluting exists, but that is part of the subterfuge of scoundrels. And the scoundrels all meet sticky (in some cases, watery) ends. Meanwhile, Travers rows Janet up the Thames. She seductively says - "slide into that heavenly backwater, and we'll tie up and forget the musty part. The future is good enough for me" (even if, she has just found out his Christian name is Raymond). He replies? "And for me. Swing over the rudder, darling". Skulduggery and romance; what more does the 1930s reader want?