NEGLECTED DETECTIVES: Prof. Peter Ponsonby - Academic, Mystery Novelist, Amateur Sleuth

When last I wrote of Jean Leslie's professor detective, Peter Ponsonby, several years ago (One Cried Murder) he was faced with the apparent suicide of a psychology professor that turned out to be nasty murder.  He also met his soon-to-be wife Mara Mallory who became his Watson of sorts in two other novels, both of which I have now read.  The second outing, Two Faced Murder (1946), with Peter & Mara is a silly story that seems completely influenced by the madcap murder movies that the "Thin Man" series made such easy targets for imitation.  It began sort of okay with the disappearance of an academic's wife who was straying from her husband into the arms and bed of a dashing British literature professor, a  colleague of Peter's. When the two go on a nighttime search for missing wife Jane, tracing her last known locations, Mara literally stumbles over Jane's dead body in a heavily wooded area near a beach. Then, sadly, the nonsense kicks in. Mara insists they bury the body, Peter complies. Then she insists they mark the burial site. Then she says No! They have to uncover the body. Then they go to the police. I threw in the towel when I got to this exchange of dialogue between Sheriff Amos Schroeder and Peter.

"...how was Jane killed?"

"She's been strangled. Her neck is broken."

"So?" Schroeder gave the information his professional attention. "Not the technique I would have expected, but then," he added modestly, "I'm no great shakes at this crime business."

Not exactly a policemen exuding confidence in his own profession. And then he tells Peter and Mara that they are allowed to conduct their own investigation. Encourages them even! He confesses: "I wouldn't get to first base with the college people. I guess my methods are too crude for them." Too bad, Amos!  That's why you're a cop. How ridiculous for a senior police officer to ask a literature teacher and an academic secretary to conduct a murder investigation simply because they know the college milieu better than he does.  I couldn't read anymore. I shut it and moved onto the third volume hoping for something that approached the noirish mood and plot of her last book (The Intimate Journal of Warren Winslow) which does not feature Peter and Mara.

 

Turns out that the third and final adventure with Professor Ponsonby is the best.  And it mixes all of Jean Leslie's strengths in a story that is for once mature and hard-edged.  Most surprisingly, Three Cornered Murder (194) is thoroughly relevant and resonant for 21st century readers with its exploration of corrupt government, corporate greed and self-interest as the guiding principle of regional government officials more interested in lining their own pockets than listening to the concerns of their citizenry.  I was very glad to read a crime novel that smacked of realism instead of screwball illogic.

 

Peter steps into the central role of detective three days prior to his wedding. Mara -- more worried about the impending rehearsal, the guest list, the catering and other wedding plans -- helps only peripherally. And it is largely due to Pete's solo action as amateur sleuth and expert in fistfights that Three Cornered Murder succeeds so well. Leslie still has fun with witty banter, a seemingly innate talent as it highlights all of her crime fiction, but the focus on a group of thoroughly corrupt council members in a unnamed California town that resembles Santa Cruz gives the book a necessary gravitas given the level of crime dominating the somewhat complicated plot.

 

Peter is witness to the shooting murder of city council member "Doc" Lawson, a G.P. whose patient list consists solely of his fellow council members. Lawson was shot while crossing a street and there are multiple witnesses besides Peter. When police arrive someone claims that Peter had a gun and he ought to be searched. Police do so and find a recently fired revolved in his coat pocket. Someone is trying to frame Peter for the murder.  

 

Lawson was involved in a shady gambling operation that is a cover for local government graft. He is also named as the pay-off man for the operation making large cash payments to several of the city council members. Joan Toplitz, wife of a former student of Peter's is an investigative journalist who has written a book on city corruption and knows the whole scheme. She educates Peter and Mara about what's been going on. As Peter delves into this deeply ingrained graft he learns of a series of accidental deaths of the last seven (!) pay-off men.  Joan, her husband "Babe" Scott, Mara and Peter begin to formulate a theory that someone they call Mr. X is behind all these accidents. That for some reason the pay-off man must be eliminated to prevent talking about the gambling operation and the bribery payouts. The book turns into the search for what amounts to a professional criminal who has masterminded the corruption and payoffs as well orchestrating serial murder disguised as accidental deaths.

 

I thought the story was very well done compared to the other two books. Less lighthearted and truly gritty this third entry often lets loose with merciless violence. One murder elicited a gasp from me for its random cruelty -- an intentional hit-and-run accident, brutal ruthless, sadistic.  That the victim is one of the most lively and likeable characters among the supporting cast, Looney Wills a newsboy barely out of his teen years, adds an unexpected level of poignancy amid all the cruelty. This story seemed utterly modern and unsettling in how it echoes our troubled times plagued with rampant mistrust of government officials and the disease of unrestrained avarice.

 

THINGS I LEARNED:  Instead of referring to Tom, Dick and Harry to refer to anonymous people a character refers to John Doe, Joe Average, and Addison Simms.  That third name was new to me. Off I went a-Googling. Addison Sims (with one M, by the way) turned up all over the internet. Of course! The best info came from an Wikipedia article on Ruthrauff & Ryan, an obscure advertising company that flourished in America from 1912 through 1964.  Sims was a fictional character created in an ad campaign for a memory learning service.  I'll quote directly form the article: " Ruthrauff wrote a prominent ad campaign for the Roth Memory Course. The ads featured a businessman greeting another with, "Of course--I remember you: Mr. Addison Sims of Seattle". The ads convinced American business people that a memory for names was an essential business skill, and "Mr. Addison Sims" entered the vernacular."

 

Mara and Peter make frequent visits to a luxuriously designed drugstore with a soda fountain.  That drugstore and its staff become crucial to the solution of the professional killings. While cleverly getting, Bert, the owner and pharmacist at the drugstore, to talk about what he knows about Lawson and the shooting Mara decides to buy some cosmetics. Bert says, "That'll be $5.75 plus the 20% luxury tax and sales tax."  What on earth?  A 20% luxury tax on make-up?  I had to check on that.  Whaddya know! According to a 1951 U.S. Treasurer's Report on Excise Taxes citing the taxes collected as a result of the Revenue Act of 1940 "...fur,  jewelry, toilet preparations, and later luggage, were subjected to taxes at the retail level, eventually reaching a 20% rate." Toilet preparations, which includes make-up and cosmetics of all types, were taxed from 10-20% between the years 1939-1943. I spent way too much time reading about how the USA gathered additional revenue (apart from higher income tax) during the pre- and post-WW2 years through numerous excise taxes that were colloquially known by shoppers as the luxury tax.  I thrive on these minute details in vintage popular fiction. I learn so much about the past.

 

EASY TO FIND? It's a shame that this last and by far the best of the Prof. Ponsonby detective novels is such a rarity. There were three copies I found for sale and I bought the cheapest several months ago.  And now there are zero copies of the book for sale.  A true shame.  This one is the one to read if you're interested in the wok of Jean Leslie.  It's not only relevant and resonant for our time, it's often rather witty and unexpectedly poignant. Of all the books I've read so far (I still have yet to read a non-Ponsonby mystery:  Shoes for My Love (1949) AKA Blood on My Shoe) the last Ponsonby book is the best written, most tightly plotted, the most fascinating story, and the most grounded in real believable crime. Perhaps it may see the light of day in a reprint edition.  If only one book by Jean Leslie could be reprinted I would like it to be Three Cornered Murder.