FIRST BOOKS: The Eames-Erskine Case - A. Fielding

THE STORY:  Augustus Beale is relatively calm when he reports that he has found a dead body in his wardrobe in Room 11 of the Enterprise Hotel.  In Chief Inspector Pointer turns up on the scene to rule out what the management believes to be a bizarre suicide. It's a poisoning case but it's most definitely not a suicide.  And this murder is only the start of a intensely complex case with the unraveling of multiple criminal conspiracies, unmasking false identities, explicating confusing wills, uncovering embezzlement and international fraud.

THE CHARACTERS:  The Eames-Erskine Case (1925) is the debut of Chief Inspector Pointer. We learn that he lives in Bayswater in a three room flat with an Irish bookbinder, James O'Connor, who he met in the war (World War 1, that is) when O'Connor was a Secret Service agent.  Pointer comes home to mull over his cases with O'Connor who often has insightful observations about the crimes. He's a sort of armchair Watson and offers up questions and answers that help Pointer move along in the proper direction.

The corpse is initially identified via the hotel registry as Reginald Eames, but that soon proves to be a false name.  In fact, many of the characters use multiple identities throughout the novel. Any reader would be suspicious of the book's title as it has a hyphenated name. Sure enough Eames turns out to be Erskine.  The discovery of this is done through an ingenious bit of detection involving the shape of an object in the pocket of a waistcoat.  Pointer retrieves Eames' pocket watch and finds it is too small for the impression left in the pocket. What happened to the original watch that lived in that pocket?  This leads him to various jewelry and watch repairs shops until he turns up the missing watch. In true mystery novel convenience the watch has an unusual engraving on it - a heraldry symbol indicating the family of Erskine.

Pointer also has a small army of policemen at his beck and call.  Several of these minor characters have nice moments to shine as they contribute to finding evidence, offering up ideas which Pointer considers or dismisses. The novel seems to be making its way to a humdrum police procedural until the entrance of Christine West, the fiancee of the primary suspect of the poisoning murder.  After hearing Christine's story and her adamant refusal to believe her fiance guilty of the murder Pointer enlists her as an undercover agent of sorts.  He sends her to the Erskine home posing as a friend of the family lawyer.  There she is to ferret out as much information as she can from Mrs. Erskine who Pointer believes has several secrets she is holding back.

Christine enlivens the book. Her scenes with Mrs Erksine and the three guests, Mr & Mrs Clark and Major Vaughn, are a lot more invigorating than most of Pointer's police work. And Christine is a dynamic woman who, though initially troubled by the ethics of her being inserted into the Erskine household under false pretenses, is nevertheless adept at getting Mrs. Erskine to open up and reveal herself.

INNOVATIONS:  The novel is inspired by Sherlockian style detection, both evidentiary and inductive, which is on grand display in the first five or six chapters.  There is a lot of attention paid to two types of tobacco ash found in the murder room, footprints and fingerprints and --most interestingly-- sounds. A clever "ear-witness" sequence takes place when Pointer is interviewing a hotel maid who was doing sewing work in the room adjacent to the crime scene. Pointer asks her to go into the room, sit where she was sewing, and listen through the wall to the sounds he makes. Basically, he re-enacts her testimony. Through various tricks and tests he discovers her story is 100% true and by process of elimination figures out how the body was put into the wardrobe.

Part of the story involves the unusual architectural feature of the Enterprise hotel sharing balcony space with the Marvel, a hotel next door owned by the same real estate conglomerate. Various characters slip in and out of the Enterprise hotel rooms by traveling out onto the balcony and then retreating into a room in the Marvel. I wish there had been diagrams and floor plans to show this intriguing building feature. Alas, nothing. I had to rely on my not very well-trained spatial imagination to envision how these characters managed to accomplish the "escape trick" without being noticed by anyone in the street.

The twist in the plot when Christine West becomes Pointer's spy is the highlight of the book.  Eventually her placement in the household will endanger her more than Pointer anticipated.  The climax of the book includes a boat pursuit and the rescue of Christine from a coterie of villains. It all ends rather melodramatically back at the Erskine home where one of the villains confesses only so that three other people will be implicated.  It's very high drama, operatic even, and reminded me of the finales of several Anthony Wynne detective novels which I like to call "detective operas."  Many of Wynne's mystery books all seem to end with high-strung murderers confessing to all their evil-doing and then committing suicide.

FFB: The Upfold Farm Mystery - A Fielding

THE STORY: A group of artists staying at Upfold Farm are forced to abandon their creative pursuits and deal with the harsh realities of the life when one of them is found horrible murdered. Playwright Eugene Matlass assists the local detective with the investigation mostly because the policeman is an admirer of Matlass's detective hero Michael Hare who appears in a series of radio plays. Adding intrigue is a strange brass box with a "St. Mark's lion" that seems to be at the heart of a series of mysteries surrounding the death of painter Herbert Walsh. Inspector Pointer makes a last minute appearance and tidies up a complicated and fascinating murder case.

THE CHARACTERS: As usual with A. Fielding the opening chapters of The Upfold Farm Mystery (1931) are crammed full of exposition, character introductions and relationships, and all sorts of minutiae, some of it extraneous but some extremely important to the solution. The story is all the more interesting because all of the suspects are creative types. There are three painters, a pianist and a playwright as well as two friends staying at the local rectory who make up the motley group. Hillock, is the farmer landlord for four of the men and his daughters Lily and Verbena round out this large cast. Remarkably, every single person figures into the complex plot and there are more than a couple of miscreants among them in addition to a clever killer who manages to complicate the case with machinations and exploitation.

I usually talk about the story along with the characters but this is one that practically defies any type of summary. Just as with my experience with Tragedy at Beechcroft I kept reading at a rapid pace eager to know what else would happen, who else would mess about with evidence, and how much the killer would get away with. In lieu of the usual character sketches and highlighting key scenes I'll give you one of those Dell Mapback summaries and tell you this mystery is about: a brass box with a winged lion atop, a missing clothesline, several well done landscape paintings, a cord with two stones attached at either end, a dying message, a blind eyewitness, and a llama ranch in Peru. The detection here is top notch and the surprises in the final wrapping up are the kind that make me smile with admiration and have me shaking my head at the outrageous manipulation in the storytelling.

INNOVATIONS: Fielding is one of the unsung masters of misdirection in the early part of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. His plots can, as in the case of this excellent novel, be labyrinthine in their intricate construction and teeming with clever red herrings and clues that lead you down the garden path. Among the clues and red herrings in The Upfold Farm Mystery there is one feature in this story that is absolutely mindblowing. Reminiscent of a convention that Christie used repeatedly and expertly I wish I wouldn't fall for this one nearly every time I encounter it. Largely my gullibility is due to giving myself over to an expert teller of tales who, like a good magician, knows where to draw your attention when in fact you should be looking at something else altogether.

Verbena Hillock, the younger daughter, is blind and Fielding inventively uses her as a highly unusual witness. Like many blind characters (especially blind detectives) Verbena is equipped with nearly superhuman senses to make up for her loss of sight. Her hearing is so acute she can tell who is approaching by the sound of footsteps. Changes in the usual rhythm of someone's gait give her hints about their state of mind. If the steps are more rapid, the person is in a rush and preoccupied, for example. She also has refined sense of smell that tells her who is near -- smoke trapped in a woolen coat, perfume and even the dampness of rain on clothing all play a part in the story. This is clueing that most readers will overlook as colorful detail, just part of her personality. Not so in a Fielding detective novel. One of my favorite parts reminded me of The Moonstone when Verbena pulls off a Rachel Verinder style bit of evidence tinkering that took me by surprise and made me smile a bit too knowingly.

Early in the book the characters bring up rural superstitions that I thought were going to play a big part in the story, but this talk only serves as atmosphere setting up a tone of ominous menace and hinting at Nature working its uncontrollable way on characters' lives. Someone burns elderwood and sends Hillock into a nervous fit as he knows it's unlucky and brings bad luck. A brown owl hoots several times in the daytime also causing uneasiness and worry as an omen of future ill events.

THINGS I LEARNED:  The winged lion on the brass box is referred to as a St Mark's Lion. The lion's raised paw (see DJ illustration above) is supposed to be holding a small book symbolic of Mark's gospel. In the novel the small book has broken off and is lost. The lion seems to be raising its paw as if it were a dog commended to "Shake!" I went looking for images of a St Mark's lion and found a zillion of them! St Mark is, of course, the patron saint of Venice. Why did I not remember that? He and his famous lion can be seen everywhere throughout that Italian city. Several of the most often photographed winged lions, like the one pictured here, are found in and around the Doge's Palace in Venice.

FFB: Tragedy at Beechcroft - A. Fielding

THE STORY: Oliver Santley, portrait painter, is asked to travel to Beechcroft to make observations on Major Moncrieff who may be intent on harming his wife, Lavinia. He arrives a few days before a charity event involving tableaux vivant, the living recreations of famous paintings. Moncrieff has also been asked to perform some illusions as his hobby is stage magic. During a dress rehearsal for one of the more elaborate magic routines a fatal accident occurs and Moncrieff is later discovered in a costume and property storage room dead from a shot to the head. Accident and suicide or horrible murders? Inspector Pointer gets to the bottom of a very involved and perplexing case.

THE CHARACTERS:The first third of Tragedy at Beechcroft (1935) introduces us to Santley; Mrs. Phillimore, mother of Lavinia and the one worried about Major Moncrieff's seemingly volatile behavior; two twin girls Dolly and Dilly, who are the latest subjects of Santley's brush; Ann Bladeshaw, the girl's governess; a couple of missionaries named Dexter-Smith, known affectionately by the girls as the Mishes; and Victor Goodenough, friend to Santley and the Moncrieffs. When Santley arrives at Beechcroft there are even more characters introduced including several servants, some business partners of the Major, the mysterious Flavelle Bruton who specializes in mosaics and her paramour Don Plutarco Ramon, a matador who brings his espada with him for the weekend! (Yes, that's a huge red flag as to what kind of murder will take place.) There's even a little dachshund that will feature prominently and fall victim to all the villainy at Beechcroft. Tragedies aplenty, both human and canine! It seems to be getting as crowded as a Victorian sensation novel, but it's all handled expertly and is not too rushed as is often a complaint about Fielding's novels so often crowded with people and plot.

Inspector Pointer, Fielding's series detective, does not make his appearance until well past the 100 page mark when the two horrible deaths take place, followed swiftly by a suicide attempt. Prior to that the novel is loaded with back story, character relationships, and a not too extraneous tale of a kidnapping of one of Moncrieff's cousins which ended in the victim's death and the kidnapper's escape. Also, a series of jewelry robberies is plaguing the countryside surrounding Beechcroft. To cap off this deluge of crime Santley is sent on an odd errand to Brussels to deliver what he thinks is a birthday gift of a box of chocolates to the daughter of one of Moncrieff's business associates. When the box goes missing, Santley replaces it out of good faith, but is met with suspicion when he delivers the substitute gift. Sounds like a bit from an espionage thriller, doesn't it? Like every seemingly innocuous event in this densely packed book the missing box of chocolates will have later significance.

Fielding does a good job of delineating this large cast, but I'm bothered by Pointer's obsession with the pseudo science of facial features as signifiers of personality. You know what I mean -- the "weak chin", "prognathous jaw", "shifty eyes" kind of writing that telegraphs we are in the presence of a bad person. I was reminded of Carolyn Wells at her worst when Pointer starts to eliminate suspects because they just look far too kind in the face to ever be considered murderers. This shows either extreme naiveté about the world or a G rated mentality about composing books according to the stringent rules Wells created back in 1917 or so.

This is a shame because if anything Fielding is masterful at labyrinthine, perplexing plots. This was a real doozey, frankly. Juggling multiple criminal subplots and presenting so many permutations of possible murderers and motives ascribed to those past and present crimes shows genuine talent as a detective story writer. The last two-thirds of the novel are rife with surprises, twists, and mostly good detection.

INNOVATIONS: The detective novel aspects are not exactly of the fair play mode. The reader will discover the evidence and clues as Pointer finds them, but he almost immediately applies this evidence to his intuitive theories previously discussed. Unlike the majority of detective novels where the clues are laid out (sometimes cleverly hidden) and then recalled in the finale, Fielding prefers a sort of police procedural method in telling the story. It's highly methodical but it does rob the reader of the enjoyment of trying to outsmart the detective at his own game. Only in the final third of the book is the detection presented as fair play because so many theories have been discussed and evidence found when the final pieces to the confounding mysteries are uncovered the reader does have a chance to put them all together and finger the true villain of the novel.

THINGS I LEARNED: Major Moncrieff had been suffering from a feverish high temperature. Pointer finds some concentrated quinine in his room. He tells his police team: "There's the explanation of the high temperature. Soak enough cigarettes in quinine, let them dry, smoke them and you'll get a temperature promptly. It's a Foreign Legion dodge."

Don Ramon is repeatedly referred to as an espada and not a matador. I knew of the term mozo de espada, but this is basically a matador's valet who dresses him prior to the fight and hands equipment from outside of the ring to the matador in the ring. This servant never enters the ring. I thought for a time that Fielding had completely misunderstood the role of this servant and conflated the two. But then some assiduous searching turned up this fact: Espada is also sometimes used as a synonym for matador. I don't know why he didn't use matador and simplify it all. Odd. But as always it was fun to learn another bit of trivia.

THE AUTHOR: "A. Fielding" was thought to be a pseudonym for Lady Dorothy Moore (nee Feilding), but it has been disproven by a living relative, her grandson. Note the odd transposition of the vowels in her name and the pen name. There have been multiple online articles written about the true identity of A. Fielding but apparently because of lack of data and provable facts it cannot be said just who is or was the real person behind the pseudonym. According to Fielding's American publisher H.C. Kinsey they claimed in some publicity dated circa 1942 that the author was Dorothy Feilding and lived in England. If this is true is must be a completely different Dorothy than originally thought. For those interested, I suggest reading the many articles and queries by John Herrington, the tireless research librarian, whose work has been posted on Mystery*File. The most detailed is here and includes the comments from Richard Hyde, Lady Moore's grandson, who denies she was ever a mystery novelist.

EASY TO FIND? Glory Hallulejah! you're all in luck. No need to look for the scarce original US or UK hardcovers this time. Tragedy at Beechcroft has been reissued as a digital book from Resurrected Press. In fact, most if not all of the Inspector Pointer books are available from this outfit. Though I warn you that this "publisher" is actually a one man outfit armed with an OCR scanner who has confessed that he goes to libraries scanning the pages of out of print mystery novels. According to several online reviews the Resurrected Press books are littered with typos and are badly designed. Caveat emptor! Alternatively and another good sign is that Project Gutenberg Australia has the book online for free. So knock yourselves out, gang.

I enjoyed this one flaws and all. This was my first reading of A. Fielding's many mystery novels and I'll probably be tracking down a few of Fielding's other better mysteries. Next time, however, I'll be prepared for the long exposition in anticipation of the truly knockout plotting and storytelling.