The Gilded Man - Carter Dickson

Sheer chance led me to choose The Gilded Man as my final read for 2025. And waddya know? The book takes place on Dec 29-31, 1938 (even though it was published in 1942). In another neat coincidence as I was finishing up the book last night it began to snow.  We have about a half of inch covering the lawns and sidewalks (mostly still unshovelled) mirroring the final day in Carr's novel in which a heavy snowfall affects the plot in multiple incidents.

Like most of John Dickson Carr's murder mysteries this book has been covered by several vintage mystery bloggers and I won't go into great detail about the story. In essence it's primarily about a burglary that takes place during a house party, a tiresome cliche in detective fiction during the Golden Age, but in the hands of Carr and with the presence of Henry Merirvale you know you're going to get a lot of frothy farce and amusing incidents. This book is hardly tiresome.  It moves along at a clip, the action begins almost immediately with witty banter and a crucial scene involving two characters eavesdropping while completely unseen on two other characters.  That dialogue sequence pays a very important part in the plot.

The setting as well is pure Carr -- an immense four story mansion previously owned by a hedonistic, vain actress named Flavia Venner. She had a theater built on the top floor beneath the ornate cupola that tops the outside of the house. The architecture of the theater owes a lot to late 18th century theaters including two secret curtained booths called baignores (but spelled beignoir in the book). Nick Wood and Betty Stanhope are hidden in one of these curtained booths when they accidentally overhear the conversation between her father Dwight and his business partner Buller Naseby.

For a while it seems as if there will be no murder in this book. The burglar is stabbed but does not die.  He is dressed like a thief from a French silent movie - all in black with a mask covering his entire head. When the mask is removed they see the face of Dwight Stanhope. No one can believe that the man was burglarizing his own home and in the process of removing an El Greco painting from its ornate frame. We learn that his wife Cristabel wanted to have a masquerade party for New Year's Eve but her husband cannot abide dressing up of any kind and forbade her from staging such a party. Why then did he dress up as stereotypical cat burglar, break into his home, and attempt to remove the painting?

While Dwight Stanhope is recuperating Nick Wood makes sure that his bedroom is guarded so that when Stanhope is better and able to talk he can be questioned about who attacked him. Let's say that plan will not work out to Wood's advantage. When death occurs it is unnecessarily theatrical. Merrivale is astounded that the person who attempted to kill Stanhope would try again. Anyone would realize, Merrivale says, that an attempted murder would result in a punishment of only a few years while an actual murder is a capital offense and leads to the gallows. He is sure they are dealing with a vain individual.

Among the various puzzling elements of the burglary are footprints in the icy stone outside the French windows that forced to gain entry, some strange wounds on Stanhope's body and face that seem to indicate a person of small stature and lightweight physique stomped on him, scratches on some silver plates and bowls that were scattered around Stanhope's body, and a roll of adhesive tape with bloodstains on it. Other unusual clues include an oily saucer washed in a sink, a mini lesson in art history, and an offhand remark from the chauffeur who wants to see Merrivale perform the Indian rope trick. All of these clues and more are cleverly introduced into the story. Remarkably, all of them can be logically explained if one has been an assiduous reader. This is one of the Carr's most intricately laid out fair play detective novels with nearly all of the clues being front-loaded in the first three chapters. One remark in a casual conversation between Eleanor Stanhope (Betty's frivolous and sarcastic older sister), Christabel Stanhope, and Vincent James (a playboy athlete who Eleanor seems to be in love with) may be easily dismissed as fluffy chitchat. But no! It is in fact something that should be filed away because it comes back to play an important part in the final reveal.

The Merrivale books tend to show off Carr's love of slapstick and low comedy. Apart from The Punch and Judy Murders, an all out farce and probably Carr's most ridiculous detective novel, The Gilded Man is probably his second most successful mystery as a comic farce. It has several and laugh out loud funny moments from some slapstick with snowballs to Merrivale's blustery outbursts. We learn that Merrivale is adept at sleight of hand tricks as well as stage illusions. When the planned entertainment for NewYear's Eve - magician Ram Das Singh, aka the Great Kafoozalum - sends a telegram that he cannot make it due to the snowstorm Merrivale volunteers to be his substitute.  The resulting rehearsal and final performance make for some hilarious scenes. The magic show itself is a huge hit with the invited schoolchildren who make up most of the audience especially when one audience member who loudly spoils nearly every trick by loudly explaining the secrets receives a well-deserved comeuppance. I confess I roared with laughter.

Finally, I thought this was one of Carr's most cinematically written novels.  It would make a terrific movie and wouldn't need much adaptation because it reads as if it were a screenplay. There is one chapter in particular written as if it were a long parallel edited sequence showing five different characters in their bedrooms mulling over the preceding events all at the same time.  It was an excellent sequence which of course included five subtle clues to the solution to the various mysteries. The setting also cries out to be viewed, especially the theater where two crucial scenes take place and where the unveiling of the murderer takes place during which all riddles and puzzles are explained in full.

The Gilded Man is easily obtained in a variety of paperback and hardcovers from both US and UK publishers. I found close to 125 copies offered for sale from several online sellers and most of them are very cheap. While the book has not been reprinted since the US IPL paperback in 1988 I suspect it will turn up soon from one of the reprint houses. It certainly ought to be reprinted! It's one of the most fun reads in the Henry Merrivale series. A breezy read and thoroughly entertaining mystery novel. And it may be the only one that most readers will be able to figure out on their own.

FFB: My Late Wives - Carter Dickson

"If there's any flumdiddling of the police to be done, I'm the one to do it."

--Sir Henry Merrivale in My Late Wives

There is a lot of flumdiddling and farcical doings amid the criminal mischief and baffling murders in My Late Wives (1946), Carter Dickson's follow-up to the infamous The Curse of the Bronze Lamp.  I say infamous because in that book Dickson included a kind of twist that I consider something of a cheat in a murder mystery.  The rear panel on the DJ for My Late Wives hints that Dickson has surpassed the impossibilities of his previous book.  Did he really write a better mystery?

The story is pure fancy, one that could only take place in the pages of a detective novel. We learn that someone has written a play based on the life of a murderer and sent the script to a well known actor. His friend and colleague, Beryl West, would love to direct the play even though it may be libelous but it has a weak ending. The play is based on the life of Roger Bewlay, a known multiple murderer who killed and disposed of the bodies of his four wives. The requisite Dicksonian impossibility appears in the last murder. Bewlay managed to murder his wife in a house watched by two policemen and witnessed by another woman outside. But when the police broke into the house there was no sign of a murder and no body. What happened to the murder victim? And what happened to all the other bodies of his dead wives?

Bruce Ransom, the actor who receives the play, is challenged by Beryl to act out in real life the part and test the weak ending of the play. He is to pretend to be Roger Bewlay, court a young woman and all the while let slip that he is a wife killer and let that spread throughout the town. Then just as the girl is ready for Bruce to ask her to marry him he reveals that everything is a sham. He's really an actor and he's not a murderer at all, that it's all research for an upcoming play.  Crazily enough, Ransom accepts the challenge and the story takes off like gangbusters.

Enter Sir Henry Merrivale explosively. Literally. He makes his appearance in this novel accompanied by his Scottish golf instructor in an amusement arcade which he manages to destroy in one of Dickson's usual over-the-top low comedy sequences. As extreme as it was I burst out laughing. I guess I needed a dose of Three Stooges style nonsense that day. The book is filled with these usual blustery Merrivale escapades. A silly fight on a golf course and the following argument initially seem like filler, but will have greater significance in the final pages. However, it's one of the least clever bits of misdirection in the book, one that led me to the solution of how Roger Bewlay's victims were disposed of.

Merrivale is not really onstage all that much and that is part of the problem with the book. Though he gives a lot of advice to Dennis, Beryl's lawyer friend, and drops hints that he knows the real Roger Bewlay has shown up in the town where Bruce is doing his play-acting/research he does not really solve the case. Dickson allows the actor to have a melodramatic confrontation with the killer that might as well have taken place in a theater while Merrivale, Dennis and Beryl watch in an adjoining room. Bruce nearly is done in by the maniac and Merrivale steps in at the eleventh hour to stop one last murder.

The plot is difficult to summarize since the playscript, the story of Roger Bewlay's life of crime, and Bruce Ransom's "research" all intersect and overlap as the novel progresses. There are multiple mysteries to solve and it got a little dizzying for me as Merrivale tried to explain to Dennis and Beryl how he knew Bewlay committed all his wife murders, knew where the bodies were hidden and hinted at one more murder that might take place. Of course it does occur and both Denis and Beryl are devastated that they could have prevented it if only Merrivale hadn't been so damned ambiguous.

Such is the world of John Dickson Carr and Carter Dickson. His plots are all fancy and contrivance.  Who would ever write a play based on a murderer's real crimes, divulging previously undisclosed evidence, and then send it to an actor? Wouldn't someone just call the police and tell them what they knew? Asking questions like this when reading a book by Carter Dickson or John Dickson Carr is futile. You must surrender to his fantastical plots and absurdities or the book can never be enjoyed for the baffling puzzle it ought to be.

*  *  *

This counts as another book on my Golden Age Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge bingo card.  I've counted it as space G6 ("A Book Set in the Entertainment World").  I seem to be doing this haphazardly with no intention of trying to get a Bingo line, right?  But there is indeed a method to my reading selections. Solve that mystery if you can!

Department of Queer Complaints - Carter Dickson

This is the only short story collection featuring "Carter Dickson's" (aka John Dickson Carr) lesser known detective Colonel March. I read the revised and updated version of this book which includes two stories previously unpublished in book form that were not in the original 1940 book. According to Douglas Greene's introduction to this updated book Colonel March was modeled after Carr's good friend and fellow mystery writer Cecil Street, aka "John Rhode" and "Miles Burton." If so, then Street must have had a great sense of humor in real life. Something that astonishes me because most of his books are rather lacking in a rollicking sense of humor. The stories in this volume were originally written in 1937 and published between 1938 and 1940 in The Strand Magazine. The final one appeared in February 1941. Two of the stories "The Empty Flat" and "William Wilson's Racket" did not appear in book form until 1963 in The Men Who Explained Miracles.

There are nine stories total and all of them deal with an impossible crime or an impossible problem. Not all the stories are about locked room murders though. There are stories about a room that disappears, footprints on a snow covered hedge that couldn't support the weight of any human, an invisible piece of "furniture," as well as the usual baffling murders with weapons that disappear or methods that seem impossible. In one case, there is even a story that was pilfered from and recycled in two well known Carr novels.

March who heads up the D-3, a special branch of the Metropolitan Police that only investigates unusual cases hence the slang name given the branch that give s the book its title. He is described by Carr as an amiable and large man (his weight of 17 stone is constantly mentioned), "with a speckled face, an interested blue eye and … a cropped mustache that might be sandy or grey." He also displays a jovial sense of humor. His gift is for noting the obvious in what appear to be puzzling problems and "he hits it right every time."

Of the original seven stories I particular liked these:

"The New Invisible Man" – This called to mind of The Curse of the Bronze Lamp in that the crime turns out not to be a crime at all. Also another instance of theatrical shenanigans as in The Problem of the Green Capsule.

"Error at Daybreak" - a man is stabbed while standing on a remote rocky area of beach with no one anywhere near him and the disappearance of his body thereafter. It may not have been brilliant in its solution, but the telling had excellent use of misdirection and so the ending came as a surprise to me.

"Death in the Dressing Room" – another case of misdirection well done. So much time is spent on a pickpocketing ring that the murder victim found in a locked room seems almost forgotten. When the murderer is literally unmasked I was impressed.

"The Silver Curtain" has an Anthony Wynne-like stabbing in a dead end alleyway. The method and means are also reminiscent of several of Wynne's books. I almost figured this one out.

The other four were only so-so in my estimation. "Hot Money" is the one about an invisible piece of furniture used a hiding place for stolen money. But I have never considered the hiding place to be a piece of furniture in any room I've ever been in – even the many vintage apartments I've lived in. I'd call it a part of the room's construction but not a piece of furniture. That different use of the word was unintentionally unfair, but that's what comes of reading a story 70 plus years after it was written. Terminology and home construction have changed drastically. There is a silly story called "Footprint in the Sky" that takes place in the winter and has a lot to do with prints in the snow. It begins like something written by Mary Roberts Rinehart with a very "Had I But Known" air about it. The problem seems entirely contrived for the sake of creating an impossibility. It reminded me of the murderer's trick in Christianna Brand's Suddenly at His Residence (aka The Crooked Wreath) and is practically a cliché in this subgenre. "The Crime in Nobody's Room" is the story of a disappearing room and a body that seems to move after death. This includes a trick employed by Ellery Queen more effectively in a book I dare not mention. Here the culprit has a similar affliction and his behavior gives him away, but the two things he does seem once again contrived, not to mention stupid.

Then there is "The Empty House." The story opens with Douglas Chase, a history professor, bothered by a noisy radio blasting irritatingly loud music while he is trying complete his thesis that if accepted will provide him with a professorship at an American university. He is in competition with another history professor named K. G. Mills whom he has never met. He heads off to find the source of the bothersome radio and discovers that it seems to be coming from behind the door of an apartment with the name plate that says "K. G. Mills." He knocks on the door, a woman opens the door and he asks for Mr. Mills. She replies: "I am Mr. Mills. That is to speak with academic accuracy…my name is Kathleen Gerrard Mills, and I am the only Mills at the present moment." She, of course, is the very same K. G. Mills who is his competitor for the professorship. They exchange a few insults about each others' work before they get down to hunting for the irksome radio. Does this sound familiar? An initialed history professor who turns out to be a woman and the rival for another history professor? It should. A similar scene between two Dr. Campbells, both professors, takes place in the opening pages of The Case of the Constant Suicides a novel written in 1941 about four years after this story was written. And the woman professor in that novel was named Kathryn. Not much different from Kathleen.

And that's not all! When the source of the radio is discovered a dead body is also found. The story reveals that the corpse is a lawyer who was investigating a haunted room (The Red Widow Murders, Night of the Mocking Widow, ) and apparently died of fright (He Who Whispers). But when the solution is revealed it turns out the murderer employed a method exactly the same as one of the deaths in The Reader Is Warned (1939). So we have a story that was cannibalized to make up at least two other books and shares plot elements with at least three other books. All of them coming after the time when the story was originally written, around 1937 as Greene tells us. This is assuredly the reason why the story was excluded from the original Department of Queer Complaints. The Reader is Warned was published only the year before and Carr probably didn’t want to be seen as a lazy writer who borrowed from himself.

For locked room and impossible crime fans this collection contains a few stories well worth investigating. Your tastes may differ from mine, but there is enough of the odd and bizarre to interest a variety of readers. It's not exactly a winner of a book all around. But I enjoyed it and especially was taken aback by the similarities in "The Empty House" with so many other Carr/Dickson works.

Death in Five Boxes - Carter Dickson

Here's another greatly under appreciated book in the Sir Henry Merrivale series.  This has -- flat out -- the best opening of any of the books in the series. The first three chapters whiz by and are as action-filled as one of the dizzying comic book hero movies that are flooding the cinemas these days.  A young girl runs out of the rainy darkness into the arms of a passing doctor, pleading with him to go inside the building across the street and rescue her father only to discover a roomful of drugged people and one stabbed corpse. Oh, and I shouldn't forget the bloodstained umbrella-cum-swordstick that comes bouncing down the staircase as the two race up before they even set foot in the room. You just can't stop reading there, can you?  Of course not.

And there are impossible situations in abundance here.  Who drugged the guests in Felix Hayes home?  How was the poison administered when the cocktail shaker that contained most of the drinks had not a trace of poison in it?  How did the murderer escape the building when the rear entrance was locked?  What is the meaning of the five boxes sent to a lawyer's office that were then stolen only a day later?  There are these and many other puzzles that will baffle even the most astute reader.

In the process of unraveling all the baffling elements of the crime and the discoveries at the scene of the crime it is learned that the four drugged guests found in Felix Hayes' apartment all have one thing in common - they apparently have all committed a crime that escaped detection and prosecution. Was Hayes blackmailing them all and did one of them do him in to prevent the secret form being publicized?  It's a bit more complicated than simple blackmail.

I would count this book as one of Top 10 of the Carter Dickson books.  I'm surprised not much is written about it.  I found it to be a perfect example of what Carr/Dickson did so well. Create an impossible situation, complicate it with lots of odd behavior, throw in numerous red herring bizarreness and deliver a walloping surprise. Yes, I gasped.  I was reminded of my stunned reaction to Ellery Queen's The Greek Coffin Mystery. It's a corker for sure.

And just for the heck of it below this paragraph is the cover of the Belmont Tower reissue paperback version of Death in Five Boxes.  The illustrations have absolutely NOTHING to do with the story.  I'm positive this publisher lifted their artwork from other books and slapped it on their books without regard to the story's content. There is no bearded men with a German Luger. There is no Gothic looking castle. What are those five ghostly figures loating beneath the castle? Are they children? Mannequins? Dead bodies?  If you own this copy and have yet to read it rest assured the cover is one huge illustrated non sequitar.

The Reader Is Warned - Carter Dickson

Sir Henry Merrivale has no patience for frauds. But he's up against a singularly delusional fraud in The Reader is Warned. Herman Pennik is a self-professed mind reader who believes that he has harnessed a new power he calls Teleforce. He claims that he can kill by thought alone. At the home of Mina and Sam Constable Pennik promises he will put to test his powers with a fatal experiment. At around eight o'clock that night his host Sam drops dead. No other cause than literally dropping dead can be found. It seems that Pennik managed to pull off his experiment with the expected deadly result. Merrivale and the reader know better. There is a fiendish murderer loose in the house taking advantage of the supposed power of the charlatan.

The power of a mind reader really lies in a face to face confrontation. Reading about someone who claims to read another character's mind is not as impressive as an utter stranger telling you in person what you happen to be thinking. The pronouncement of one's private thoughts is not only invasive but I imagine can be a personal shock. But does the telling alone of an exchange between mind reader and his mark have as great an effect as one in real life? I was dubious how Dickson could pull it off.  Little did I expect how Dickson would exploit the mind reading claim and turn Pennik into the most fascinating character in the book. I was waiting for him to trip himself up and for Merrivale, Dr. Sanders and the irascible Inspector Masters to expose him, but Dickson took the story into another realm. As the story progresses Pennik goes through a metamorphosis of sorts from a mildly amusing charlatan to creepy cocktail party entertainer and finally megalomaniacal avenger. Pennik even takes his story to the radio airwaves and newspapers. The story takes place in 1939.  Hitler is also in the news. The idea of killing by thought alone captures the imaginations of a populace already feeling the threat of imminent war. Soon the entire country seems to be caught up in a paranoia of the terror of Teleforce.

Here is yet another of the ingenious impossible crime novels in which howdunit seems to be far more important than whodunit. In the case of the two deaths in The Reader Is Warned there is the added mystery of whydunit. Both deaths appear utterly motiveless. I began to think that Dickson was using the most unusual of motives also employed by Agatha Christie in her brilliant theatrical detective novel Murder in Three Acts. But I was to be proved wrong. Of course.

Clues are abundant in this book, but I challenge any reader to spot the correct ones. As an example, there is an instance in which Dr Sanders knocks a glass off of a space heater in a room. This is mentioned about five times in the course of the narrative and I knew it was significant. But I spent too much time focused on the broken glass and completely missed the real significance of the repeated mention of the accident. It's a prime example of the mastery of misdirection that is prevalent not only in this baffling novel, but nearly all of the Merrivale books from his best period.