Alan Thomas : The Death of Laurence Vining, 1928

That The Death of Laurence Vining Alan Thomas is a masterpiece of the genre "Locked Room", it is an indubitable fact. However, it is structured in a unique way, and for this I want to analyze it in its entirety.
First, we look at how the various novels written by Thomas (born in 1896 and died in 1970), this, his first feature, is considered the best among all: Thomas began with a bang, but then, as often happens, it could not be repeated with his other works. Among these fifteen others, as stated in the notes in the flap of the novel, "only eight can be considered real mysteries, while the others have a mystery implication only marginal." The account seems to me very important because I will use this statement to explain my point of view about it. In fact, in my opinion, absurd as it may seem, this novel could be part of those in which the mystery implication has a marginal importance: in fact it seems to me that Alan Thomas, when he wrote the story, interested more writing a fictional story than a true crime novel. In this there is no doubt that there is a profound difference between a novel by Agatha Christie, and John Dickson Carr and one, in this case, of Alan Thomas. While in the early the mystery texture takes the whole book and the rest of the coins, in Thomas is the opposite seems to me: basically the plot of mystery in itself, its presentation and solution, occupies the two extreme parts, while in the middle space is the part of the fictional text, in which Thomas is to get carried away from wanting to tell, from the show that he  knows narrate. Oh, not that he does not concern the plot, but however the substance is not treated with the same force and tension of the opposing sides and extreme!
Then we let's better understand what it's about.

 

WARNING: SPOILERS !!!

 

Lawrence Vining is an amateur detective who has helped on various occasions Scotland Yard to extricate themselves in cases of special mangy, and therefore has a prominent reputation. However, outside of his superior instincts turned to pure deduction and problem solving more complex, Lawrence Vinig is a ruthless man, ambitious, without moralizing, which operates as a function not of the common good but of self-interest: as well as he deliveries to executioner John Plunket, accused of killing a businessman during a robbery, crushing him in a series of accusations and suspicions, which will be followed in manufactured artfully, but not true in an absolute sense. What matters is having identified a possible culprit, not that it was the only effective. He will leave to mourn the sons who will hate from that moment the first father’s executioner.

Lawrence, however, is not alone, but was helped in the investigation by his assistant, Dr. Benjamin Willing; indeed these, collected clues that allowed the "great man" to analyze them and come through them to incrimination of the suspect. Willing is the shoulder of Vining, it can be said, in a sensible comparison, which for him is like the Watson of Sherlock Holmes.

Vining has an adopted son, Jack Ransome, and wants he becomes a surgeon; but that instead is more inclined to horses and women, rather than books, and so between the two is not good blood flow, until Vining, knew the intention of the adopted son to marry his secretary, Pamela, claims to want to disinherit. At this point enters a friend of Vining, Colonel Robinson, who takes the side of the adopted son of Vining, however, unable to change his mind friend. You will see later in the story is the same as both Jack Robinson had good reason to hate Vining, and not necessarily the same.

In short, Vining, is not that it is loved by all. And so it happens that someone wishes to eliminate him. And he does it with a very spectacular crime: Vining takes the elevator Metro Hyde Park, to reach the train, but if when he enters into the elevator, he is live, where he is completely alone, when it gets to destination and opens, Vining collapses face down dead with a dagger driven into the shoulder in the cab, there is no one besides him. Who could ever have been and how particularly did he manage?

Of the spectacular crime has instructed the Inspector Widgeon, who begins to investigate. It is helped, in fact  is he who accepts to be supported by Dr. Willing, however, that, together with the conductor, is the only witness who saw the victim get off the elevator (he was at the scene of the crime by accident) and was he who witnessed the death. For him, Willing will operate the same as he had in many cases alongside Vining: it is the best way for him to help his friend dead, assist the inspector in his investigations.
Widgeon investigates, but from the survey nebula, do not emerge at first sight facts that could explain the death of Vining, as an endless series of clues and anecdote that appear to have no connection with the case. So he learns that Vining probably was lured into a trap by a "Red Hat". Who is? He will find that a red cap was wore by the maid of Vining, Grace, who has a love affair with the conductor of the metro station Hyde Park (despite this is already married), one of the two witnesses of the murder of Vining. And then you will come to know that Captain Jack Ransom, who works as a medical practitioner in Georges Hospital has disappeared, and with him the Vining’s domestic Malaysian, also; coincidentally the room where Ransom was resting in the hospital, is located very close to the site of the murder; the dagger nailed in the shoulder of Vining, up to the handle, is a Malay kris, stained, with ivory handle, which has a history that refers to the Far East: it was stolen, apparently from Vining to a sultan, so that he added it to a number of valuables eastern whom Vining collected: an another possible motive, in addition to the interest, and vengeance, he adds the honor. And another possible killer: the domestic Malaysian. Which in turn disappears. His fingerprints are found on cabinet at Vining house, at which was guarded the Malay dagger. But was really he who he who killed Vining? And how?

If before some seem guilty and instead will be found innocent and others seem innocent but they will be convicted, even if only of complicity, he will come to the identification of the real culprit. However he will escape to justice because the inspector, although he realized who may be, will not be able to collect evidence of his guilt. The perfect crime, will be revealed in the last part of the novel, in the pages of the diary of the murderer, he remained unpunished but later died from other causes, once his executor will have provided the last will.
 

THE END OF THE SPOILERS

 

 

The solution is highly spectacular, truly one of the best locked rooms read in the last years: once again we are dealing with a hoax, which from the beginning wants to upset the plans of the police: it is not a crime that by accident it becomes a Locked Room, but a crime that wants to be recognized from the outset as a Locked Room. Because the order has to be that it remains unresolved.
Why?

I would say that once again it is connected to Lawrence Vining: the killer wants to insult the memory of the detective who solved all cases impossible, making sure that his own death is not resolved.
Interesting the structure of the novel. Three are the protagonists, and three the sections of the novel in which they play a predominant role: in the first, in which are narrated the events of Vining is he the protagonist; in the second, in which they speak about his death and about the investigation, the protagonist is the inspector; in the third, where there is the confession in retrospect, the protagonist is the murderer of a perfect crime.
Who is the murderer? It is a person who has learned to hate Vining and hated him more and more up to devise a plan so perfect and so free from nicks, the inspector will recognize him but could not accuse him about the murder. He is not a murderer rained from the sky, but a person who is present throughout the novel, which is presented under other garments and only finally confesses, though to himself (his diary) to be the culprit. This manifests his true purpose: that is not revenge, not honor betrayed, not monetary interest, but advertising, becoming famous in turn, emerge from anonymity, and even in death to steal to Vining the limelight.

The only flaws of a perfect plan are two trivial details: the raincoat whom Vining had on the shoulder before he entered into the elevator; and the train ticket, whose absence in the cabin, convinces the inspector that the facts are otherwise. But these details, for the perfection of the central construct of the plan, will not be of any help.
The novel is also interesting for some irreverent and sarcastic vein present in it.
When Widgeon visits Robinson and comes to his home and waiting makes considerations about his interests, in particular about his novels by literary crime, he muses that since there so many crimes on real life he does not understand how some writer should joke above; he most of all hates them because they usually when talk about the police at Scotland Yard they hatched usually the policemans  "like a bunch of idiots." The irony is obvious: Alan Thomas quotes himself, and his novel, and his last end. In fact at the end Widgeon will appear, in front of the killer (and the reader), a complete imbecile. Although it will not be at all easy flush out the killer. The vein desecrating it seems to me, however, that it is even finer: in his novel Thomas celebrates the death of Sherlock Holmes, dressed as his ideal successor (Vining); and even he reverses the same dichotomy Sherlock Holmes-Dr Watson, in that Dr. Willing-Widgeon. In fact the only sensible hypothesis throughout the novel will come from Willing, namely that the crime can be explained with the launch from a distance, of a dagger. It’s as if Dr. Watson / Willing, for a time stole the show to Sherlock Holmes / Widgeon, revealing how another Sherlock Holmes / Lawrence Vining was dead. But this will not be the exact solution.

The novel is even more a comedy of errors and false leads, and it responds to that kind of novel typical of the twenties, in which the murderer will never be a woman, because a woman is a being who knows only mild fall in love with villains and suffer for the death of an innocent father, but she will never be the one that vibrates the fatal blow; where there are echoes eastern; where there is a story that has its origins in the past (how can we forget just a particular novel with Sherlock Holmes?); where there is a false adoptive father, a colonel false friend, and a true father who is not recognized as such; and a romance of the past ended tragically; where they are detectives in bright light (the two Sherlock Holmes: Widgeon and Vining) and detectives in the shade (Watson and Willing) but no less important; where there are two dead, a real and a virtual, but of the same character: dies Vining andit  is as if died Widgeon, not solving the case. In short, the novel is like the death of the detective novel in its apotheosis: the murderer becomes more important than the detective, as he wins in single combat. It’s a novel in which the murderer wins the detective who is recognized from himself, loser.

But in the anthology of the clues and herrings, it lies a will to tell, that reveals the true purpose by the author: tell a story, or rather many stories linked together into a story, and at the same time connect them to a crime, locked room, which unsolvable as such, claims to have the scene only at the beginning and at the end, that is to be the alpha and omega of the novel. For the rest, a novel too wordy, stretching the broth with exotic narratives and descriptions, however, far from wanting to be a part similar to those of the crime and its solution, it has the task of adding smoke and away with the hypothesis least imaginative the reader from the real culprit, whom the careful if not mischievous reader would have found if not immediately, at least almost.

So if there is not in my view a incredible murderer, and then ultimately the "Whodunnit" is not completely satisfied because the careful and cunning reader could identify the murderer for his behavior and for a screening, the novel instead is characterized as a sample of the kind called "Howdunnit" since the predominant part has explained the "how" the murderer has killed, by implementing an illusion of higher species, because "the killer" before the part final starts, it has been revealed, and who had thought the killer was that person, he finally said, "I knew ..". Illusionism which not only participates the murderer and the victim, but some supporting actors and accomplices, who have key parts of the plan, and that they too disappear and can not be traced by the police. In a sense, this novel by Thomas is the opposite of Tour de Force by Christianna Brand: while here the staging takes place before the crime, and who personifies the victim is before the death of the victim, there who impersonates the victim impersonates him after the murder took place.

In short, another milestone of the "Locked Room" and a novel that is impossible the lover of the genre do not read, at which a lot of things happen (of which I didn’t speak about) and at which, though the tension is palpable at beginning and end, and less in the middle of the novel, however, the narrative relaxes and is easier to read. If anything can turn up their noses to certain readers, the fact that out of the blue, after the impossible crime was presented at the beginning and then in the course of the narrative, nothing has emerged nor has said, in final  it is revealed in great detail. Certain readers bothered Thoman was not completely honest with them, accustomed to the fair play by Carr. But do not correct improper comparisons especially among the weakest:  if Thomas had spoken about the details mentioned by the epilogue, first, surely many more readers than those who are surprised by the final revelation, would arrive long before the identification of the culprit. Essentially then Thomas resorts to the old expedient of lengthening the broth and add a bit of smoke and mirrors, justifying it with the desire, by the inspector Widgeon, reaching the indictment of the culprit away from starting and following a roundabout way, with the continuous interrogation of the other actors in the drama, hoping the real murderer betrays himself. Which it does not happen, and justifies the final revelation of the killer post mortem. Especially the thing that makes perplexing is the fact that Thomas is silent at the beginning and at the end proves to be only a very important detail: that the trains at that station not only pass to the upper level but also the lower one. And so the scale is not only useful to those who have to go to the toilet, but especially useful to those who, not wanting to take the elevator, should take a train passing on the tracks on the floor below.

The rest is to be virtuous of the detective novel, hold the attention of readers and voltage, focusing on a single criminal act; that's because many great authors, when repackage books of a number of pages, to keep fixed the perception of tension, insert multiple crimes in the same novel.
One last note: the Inspector Widgeon, having appeared at this novel, will reappear in another novel by Alan Thomas, Death of the Home Secretary (1933).

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Martin Porlock (Philip MacDonald): Mystery at Friar's Pardon (1931)

Philip MacDonald, as well as his real name, used various pseudonyms to publish his novels: Anthony Lawless, Oliver Fleming and Martin Porlock. With the latter sewed only three novels: Mystery at Friar's Pardon (1931), Mystery at Kensington Gore (1932) and X Vs. Rex (1933). The first and third are justly considered masterpieces and were both translated in Italy, while the second isn’t.
Of those published in Italy, today we talk about the first.
Mystery at Friar's Pardon, published in 1931, is one of the cornerstones of production Philip MacDonald, one of the greatest innovators of Crime Fiction.
It introduces the character of Charles Fox-Brown, and to do that MacDonald takes even a chapter to outline the smallest details: the son of a wealthy couple, remains orphan at the age of thirteen and he is entrusted to an uncle who does not want to deal with it. Soon he enlisted to participate at the First World War as a simple soldier and scale all grades becoming the first sergeant, then entering the official rank and ending the war as a major, highly decorated.
The next civilian life is a series of successes and failures: a series of successful entrepreneur and insights make him potentially wealthy, until a distant relative does not seek help (in cash) and so ten thousand pounds are given to her. However the woman, who does not use the money just to live, but to live well, dies in a hunting accident and ten thousand pounds (that was the heritage that Fox Brown had gained with his work) fade forever, so he has to start working again, becoming director of property. In this capacity he is employed by "Lioness," Lester-Enid Greene, a successful writer, become very wealthy woman by virtue of her romance novels, to administer her property.

Together with her, he meets Norman Sandys, her secretary, and soon he is informed about what will be his duties. Charles, however, will have to live at the mansion that Enid has bought long before, spending a lot of money, to restructure it completely, and reopening the east wing, whom the previous owners had made inaccessible, muring the entry. In fact, Friar's Pardon, this is the name of the mansion, was built in the late seventeenth century, and despite being a building of fine harmonies, soon had gained a sinister reputation that had maintained in the remaining two centuries: the owners were dead in the same room, drowned, though it had not been found even a drop of water in it, or they had worn wet clothes. It was so widespread belief that there were evil entities in the villa, and it was haunted. But Lester-Enid Greene does not believe in spirits and decides to go in disregard of beliefs to live there; indeed, she decides to restructure the damn room preceded by  a sort of vestibule, combining two rooms into a huge studio, where she sleeps and writes her masterpieces.

Soon at the house, there are rumors of paranormal phenomena: voices, footsteps, hands that appear out of the windows, doors that suddenly close by themselves, vessels that break without which no one has touched them, as if they were the subject of Poltergeist. Many in that house have something to say: in addition to Norman, also Lady Maud Vassar student of occultism and noble, Claude Lester brother of Enid, Baron Trevor Ignatius Pursell, the niece Lesley Destrier, and much of the easement, reports to have seen some of these phenomena: only Enid and Charles Fox-Brown are skeptical about it.

Yet one evening, after a sumptuous dinner, after the same owner has retired at her study to work, by a phone call come from the studio she cries out for help, but after trying unsuccessfully to enter inside because the door is locked from the inside, Fox-Brown demonstrating contempt of danger, walking on the ledge outside, is unable to break the glass of the closed window and to enter the environment, finding Enid dead, with no signs of any kind indicating a struggle.
The policemen are called to the scene, and soon even the coroner, which recognizes unusually Fox-Brown: Dr. Riley, inform the Inspector Willis and the Chief of Police, Amblethorpe, how Fox-Brown, when he was Chief of a section of Counterintelligence during the war, had solved a case rather mangy. So, they rely on his detective skills.

Fox-Brown will be able to understand how the murderer has been able to get out of the room leaving it closed behind him, and how he did it to kill Enid and escape in a few minutes, without being seen. And in addition to this to show that it was not a supernatural event (as did think the deaths have occurred during the past centuries and all that taken place with the same causality), showing how it was possible that Enid died drowned in a room where there was not the minimum drop of water. And how was it possible that a person used the internal phone line, without others knowing it.
He will reveal the name of the killer, during a fake seance that he will organize, making use of the special participation of the coroner (former actor) in the role of a famous spiritualist.

Extraordinary novel, a true masterpiece, Mystery at Friar's Pardon, has a unique atmosphere. Moreover MacDonald structures the plot in distinct sections, creating the basis for a genre that Carr will develop in large part: the first he sets the scene for the amateur detective can go live at a particular villa, then reserves an entire chapter to the figure of the same, then describes the mansion and the mysteries related to it, and finally goes on to describe the characters who move, giving long space phenomena that happen, thereby increasing the thrill until the catharsis comes with the impossible crime, a crime more impossible than it is not :a woman dies drowned, with all the signs of drowning, without her or her clothes are wet, and without even a drop of water is found in the room where she died, although there it should be a sea at the room. I say crime more than impossible, because in addition to this there is also a locked room, and even more a voice that is recognized as that by Enid, but that should not be her, asking for help when, as will establish Charles, she was already dead.

Both the locked room that the trick of the call fall into that series of tricks of Locked Room Mystery, already introduced from Carr in his famous Locked Room-Lecture and then called in the Locked Room-Lecture in Nine Times Nine by Anthony Boucher, when the locked rooms are restricted to a scheme according to whether they occurred before, during or after: in this case the death occurred before, and then it was a trick. Which? The same occurred at Carr’s Hag's Nook, that is of 1933, while this novel is of 1931.
Charles still provides a clue to the careful reader, long before solve the mystery, when he looks at the watch and compares time.

The Locked Room even here - I repeat once again - is spectacular, perhaps one of the best and most fascinating ever invented, because it involves two people: one is in charge of impersonating Enid, the other to kill her and simulate with a spectacular staging, the intervention of supernatural powers. In some ways, the very impossibility of a similar crime, reminds me another novel to the memory, the first by Talbot, The Hangman's Handyman: even there an evident  impossibility occurs (a curse for which a corpse at few hours looks like it's been dead for several days and presented a very strong putrefaction).

But in addition to the created impossibility, the novel is remarkable because, by virtue of a tension expertly administered, creates conditions so that the  reader could almost believe to the poltergeist phenomena and at the same time asking how ever has managed to simulate a drowning without water. And also adds, to a story of mystery also a love story, more classical than ever, which somehow reminds us a previous, Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers (1930). Even there, the protagonist, Lord Peter Wimsey, in love with the detective writer Harriet Vane, must prevent she be  accused about murder by poisoning and trying to save her finding the true killer, as is the case here, since Charles Fox-Brown, in love with Lesley Destrier, must avoid she is accused of murdering her aunt, after that inside the mantel of her fireplace were found a number of incriminating evidence, apparently put there from the killer to divert suspicion from himself; the rest here, as in the novel by Sayers appears a poison, only that in our case it is not used to kill but to stun.

If with the novel by Dorothy Sayers I note a community, and so the previous novel could have provided MacDonald idea for his novel, I must also observe that in my opinion, Mystery at Friar's Pardon may have influenced Carr not only for the solution behind the impossible murder into The Hag's Nook, but also for the series of novels by Henry Merrivale: there as here we have a detective who has been dealing with the Military Counterintelligence as an official (Merrivale is Head of Military Counterintelligence, Fox-Brown was Head of a section), and we are here as there phenomena evoking the paranormal, that would justify one or more crimes impossible, if the detective, skeptical and rational, does not oppose the truth of the facts, where paranormal gives way to a carefully premeditated murder, committed by men, not by spirits; in addition the same system to lock the door from outside, simulating a supernatural event because the suicide is impossible to have occurred, is located in the compiling by Fell, during his conference in The Hollow Man.

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