FFB: If Wishes Were Hearses - Guy Cullingford

US edition (Lippincott, (1953)

THE STORY: Sometimes you can get much more than what you wish for as George Martin, a pharmacist in East Anglia, discovers when nearly every person he dislikes suffers harmful accidents or die simply because he speaks ill of them. His family think he's becoming foolishly superstitious and not allowing for random coincidence. Then he thinks of taking his "super power" to the next level by actually doing someone in. When Major Vincent James visits George's chemist shop for his refill of sleeping pills George cannot stand the pompous man's attitude and belittling comments any longer. George adds a single arsenic tablet to the sleeping pills and just before he hands it over to Major his nervousness gets the better of him and he drops the pills all over the floor. He summons his wife to help him clear it all up then sends the Major on his way. That night the major dies apparently of a heart attack, but George believes that his murder scheme happened all too quickly. Overcome with guilt he plains to confess to the police until he discovers that poison apparently had nothing to do with the Major's death. Several cover-ups and murder schemes are revealed over the course of the novel and George even though cleared by the police who have no proof of foul play is convinced the Major was murdered. He turns detective in a strange role reversal in order to prove himself guilty or otherwise find out who killed the odious man.

THE CHARACTERS: Mostly told from George and his family's viewpoint eventually the book opens to up to include the viewpoints of the entire cast. We learn of everyone's involvement in the Major's death including the extramarital affair between his wife, Leonora James, and his physician, Dr. Down, who prescribed the sleeping pills for the Major. There are hints that one or the other might have also been tempted to do in Major James. George's intrusive detective work and meddling persistent questions lead to his insistence that Mrs. James hand over all the Major's medicines to him to destroy. His demands only serve to instill fear and paranoia in the widow and sets the doctor thinking George has descended into a strangely obsessive and dangerous behavior pattern. Superintendent Glubb (a not so bright policeman so perfectly named) also thinks George has "gone barmy" and warns him to stop interfering in a case that has absolutely no sign of criminality.

But we as readers know better. Something fishy is going on in Bloxton. Many people had reason to wish the Major dead. And someone most definitely sent him off to an early grave. The majority of the cast is made up of fascinating women characters with two old biddies topping the list as the most memorable. Agnes De'Ath, who goes by the nickname Auntie, is the owner of the William and Mary pub, a local hang out for the working class. In its heyday the "Willyum" was the choice of the elite citizenry of Bloxton, but times have changed. The 88 year-old pub owner, like many a bartender in both real life and fiction, is the surrogate confessor for her many customers. She knows how to ply her guests with alcohol in order to loosen their spirits and their tongues.

When she joins George in his sleuthing she finds her most easily manipulated target in Mother Brose, a filthy hag who lives in a ramshackle hovel at the edge of town. The old woman distributes herbal concoctions to those seeking out folk remedies when George's pharmaceuticals are too expensive to afford. Mother Brose has a dirty little secret, filthier than her home and her clothes and Miss Death (another perfect name!) is determined to uncover it with the help of a bottle of gin, a few kind words and a begrudging tolerance for Mother Brose's unwelcome aroma.

Other stand-outs in the cast are the two White children, Una and Jack, who are fine examples of the modern 50s child who know better than their parents. Also noteworthy are the two Mrs. Whites -- George's put upon wife Mabel, and his bedridden harpy of a mother Nelly White. The final chapter between Mabel and Nelly provides us with the ultimate twist in a story filled with truly unexpected incidents and thrilling turn of events.

UK edition (Hammond, 1952)

INNOVATIONS: Constance Taylor, the real person behind the "Guy Cullingford" pseudonym, was an early practitioner of the kind of genre blending novel that we all know as the modern crime novel highlighted by suspenseful plotting, complex characters, and relevant social criticism as in this novel's case -- an attack on the prejudices in dealing with mentally ill people. Following in the footsteps of the two great Anthony's of the Golden Age -- Berkeley and Gilbert -- Taylor fashioned her own brand of savagely observant stories of murder among common folk.

If Wishes Were Hearses (1952) defies pigeonholing. Here is a crime novel employing detective novel plotting and fair play techniques all the while serving up a story that is not entirely a "whodunit". There are indeed cleverly planted clues about the sleeping pills and even an odd reference to a half eaten pear that lay the groundwork in revealing the murder plot. In one of the more subversive moments it seems that everyone had their hand in killing the Major. But Taylor has a much more devious intent in writing this book than in providing a mere puzzle. Whether seen as a comedy of manners, a satire of small minded village life, or a trenchant study of the criminal fantasies that lie within the dark corners of the soul If Wishes Were Hearses succeeds on multiple levels. Of the Cullingford books I've read so far this has become my favorite of the lot. The book shows off her strengths -- wit, deft characterization, pithy observations and unique storytelling. She never ceases to surprise in her refusal to follow the rigid formula of detective novel plotting.

QUOTES: ... George took care that his duties in the vestry kept him until the gossipers had filtered through the church porch and out of the churchyard gate, a process which took ten minutes at least, as nobody was in a hurry. [...] There was also a state of rectitude to be enjoyed, an afterglow of satisfaction and righteousness

And the truth was, perhaps, that he had worn his filial chains for so long that when they were removed, like many another emancipated slave, he scarcely knew what to do with his liberty.

Mother Brose spat into the hedge, thus with true economy expressing herself on the subject of Council houses.

'Insanity or insanitary', muttered Mother Brose sulkily, 'That's all the same to me.' Issues of life and death have often hung on a yea or a nay. It is only in East Anglia that one could have been suspended on an 'ar'.

Mrs. Nelly White lecturing Mabel: "Nonsense, guilt doesn't always make you run. If you're guilty you are far more likely to be hardened. It's the soft and innocent who take to their heels more often than not."

The cat was out of the bag with a vengeance. And now that it was, no one could have been more genuinely horrified than she who had been instrumental in undoing the string.

There are times when even detectives are susceptible to humiliation.

Miss Death on her preference to suburban life: "London is all right for a visit now and again, to go to the theatres and do a bit of window-gazing. But as for living in it, I'd as soon take up residence in a sewer. But everyone to their taste."

Lloyd Loom chair, circa 1930s

THINGS I LEARNED: In talking about the future of her pub Miss Death denigrates the popular trend in furniture "Put in a lot of little tables with glass tops, I daresay and those chairs, what do they call them? Welshman's looms. Look like a lot of painted baskets to me." She is referring to a specific chair design invented by the Lloyd Loom furniture company. Lloyd may be a Welsh name but everywhere I looked it was referred to as a Lloyd loom chair, never a Welshman's loom. Oddly enough the chair was invented in 1917 in America so it has no right being called Welsh despite the inventor's surname. Here's exactly how the loom chair came to be invented according to the Vincent Sheppard furniture company website:

"Entrepreneur Marshall Burns Lloyd, who was producing baby carriages and strollers [in 1917], found himself confronted with a severe drop in the supply of rattan as a result of the war. As an alternative, he invents a technique in which paper is twisted around a metal wire and subsequently machine woven into large sheets of woven paper thread. When putting the material to use in his production of baby carriages, he discovers that this new material is not only much stronger, but also a lot more softer and thus more comfortable than rattan. He calls his invention the 'Lloyd Loom' technique."

THE AUTHOR: For info on the author see my post on Conjurer's Coffin. I've never been successful in tracking down a photo of Constance L. Taylor. Frustrating.

EASY TO FIND? If you want the real thing you'll be hard pressed to find a first edition. I was unable to verify that it was reprinted in paperback like several of her other books reprinted by Penguin. Finding one with a DJ is next to impossible. Remarkably, the only US edition currently for sale online does come with one. It'll cost you $80 plus shipping. Like all my Cullingford books I bought my copy of If Wishes Were Hearses on eBay years ago for under $10 long before digital books were invented. Speaking of which, all of Guy Cullingford's crime novels (along with a handful of her short stories) are available to those readers who prefer their books digitized. The Murder Room, the vintage crime imprint of Orion Books, offers not only Cullingford's books but several other writer's books and all their reprints come exclusively in digital format.

FFB: Conjurer's Coffin - Guy Cullingford

THE STORY: Jess Milk is the newly hired front desk clerk at Hotel Bellevue which caters to second rate entertainers touring the music halls of England. Queen Elizabeth II's coronation is fast approaching and the hotel owner Madame Lefevre is eagerly looking forward to the tourist trade and their money. Then Lulu, Madame's spoiled Pomeranian, escapes. Miss Milk feels largely responsible and she is determined to locate the missing dog. Disappearances are not just confined to pets. A magician's lovely assistant also vanishes from the hotel and suddenly the talk of the impending coronation turns to whispered conversations about jealous wives, philandering husbands and murder.

THE CHARACTERS: Miss Milk first comes off as too prim and proper, a bit too honest and I wasn't sure I would warm up to her.  This characterization, however, is all part of Cullingford's design. As the story slowly progresses and the plot begins to take shape Jess does indeed become a likeable woman, albeit a victim of her own goodness and integrity. She is sharply contrasted with the Lefevre family who run the hotel and the assortment of eccentrics and shifty entertainers who make up the hotel residents all of whom seem to be exploiting Miss Milk's honesty and innate kindness.

This is also a very funny book, but it's that quiet wry British style of humor.  An acquired taste for some. Miss Milk is befriended by elderly Miss Watkins and they make a date to visit the Chinese restaurant down the street from the Hotel Bellevue, a treat for both of them who have never eaten Chinese food.  The sequence really has nothing to do with the plot but it's hysterical all the same,  perhaps somewhat spoiled by the usual patronizing humor aimed at ingratiating Chinese waiters who speak pidgin English. Cullingford also uses the book to satirize the British obsession with the Royals in the depiction of Coronation mania.  Self-absorbed writer Mr. Crabbe who is having difficulty finding a marketable subject matter for his next book finally settles on a sea adventure and his amusing dilemma over creating a title leads to his musing about the Shakespeare quote "There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune." He thinks There Is a Tide ought to be good then considers shortening it to simply Tide until Miss Milk reminds him "That's a soapless powder for washing things."  Crabbe counters with "What about Taken at the Flood?" but Miss Milk spoils that one, too. She says, "You can't have that one either. It's an Agatha Christie." "Drat you girl," Mr Crabbe fires back. "You're an artist's nightmare!"

INNOVATIONS:  I liked that Miss Milk's dear friend Captain Homes talks about the art of misdirection that is a magician's stock in trade early in the book and how that will color the entire story. The hotel itself is both literally and figuratively the Conjurer's Coffin (1954) with an unusually shaped corridor that resembles a traditional casket shape and rooms that seem to swallow up women who vanish without a trace. By the midpoint of the novel a clear criminal plot has been revealed and by the end that plot is complicated by an unexpected additional conspiracy to cover up all the crimes. It's almost as if everyone in the story is guilty of something which makes this book something of a crime fiction tour de force. Certainly, Cullingford is turning the genre on its head and breaking a few rules.

QUOTES: Crabbe about his ongoing writer's block: "I'm so whacked for ideas that I reckon I shall have to do Coronation festivities in the village.  Do you think the public will stand for that?"
Miss Milk: "I should think that people will be so fed up with the Coronation by the time it's over that they won't want to hear another word about it as long as they live."

"They don't turn mattresses in places like this," explained the sergeant sourly. "Not if it's up to one of those hussies I saw slouching round the corridors this morning. Never turned a mattress in her life."

What the [policewoman] had to tell him had struck him as an outlandish story, though no queerer than some which had come his way before.  He had long realized that truth is stranger than fiction, nature more fantastic than art, and he thought the imaginations of detective-story writers impoverished indeed.

But the last days before [the Coronation] which had been part of the fabric of English life for at least half a year, which had been thrust before the eyes of the people by Press and television, which had been dinned into their ears by the BBC, and been pushed into their hands by manufacturers in the shape of pots, trays, waste-paper baskets and whatever article would take an impress of it, until they were delirious, bored or exasperated, according to their temperaments: these days hurried by in a frenzy of last minute arrangements.

THE AUTHOR: Guy Cullingford is the male pseudonym created by Constance Lindsey Taylor when she decided to write crime fiction full time. Her first detective novel, Murder with Relish, is modeled on the traditional country house murder mystery and was published under her own name. However, the book was lost in the sea of similar stories perhaps in large part due to the nostalgic flavor of the action being set in "the concluding years of King George V" though it was published in 1948. Her first novel using her new male alter ego -- Post Mortem (reviewed on this blog here) -- was a minor sensation, gaining rave reviews from both sides of the Atlantic, and got her the recognition she was longing for. Taylor wrote a total of nine novels and several short stories many of which appeared in EQMM well into the early 1970s. She also wrote original scripts for British television.

EASY TO FIND?  The Penguin paperback seems to be fairly easy to find for all you who live on the other side of the Atlantic. I guess it's fairly affordable for US readers -- if you're willing to pay up to $26 to some greedy bookseller to ship you a lightweight paperback overseas. But the US or UK hardback editions are unfortunately next to impossible to find for sale these days.  I bought my US edition with the apparently very scare DJ for something like $7.50 about five years ago when I first became interested in Taylor's books under her Cullingford guise. Some enterprising reprint publisher ought to reissue all of her books.  I think they're something very special among crime novels of the mid twentieth century. But of course you'd have to be drawn to intelligent literate writing, imaginative characters, and subtle twists in crime fiction conventions. She was decades ahead of the game, in my opinion.

FFB: Post Mortem - Guy Cullingford

Gilbert Worth, adulterous husband and acerbic novelist, is found dead in his study with a bullet in his temple and the smoking gun clenched in his hand. Much to Gilbert's surprise he seems to have survived the murder -- or rather his ghost has survived to look upon his own corpse. While the members of his family believe he has committed suicide Gilbert knows better. Someone killed him. Someone who tried unsuccessfully twice before - once with a carefully placed glass marble on the staircase, the second when his nighttime warmed milk was tainted with something bitter and palatable. He fed it to the cat and it was dead in the morning. Gilbert's spirit seems doomed to walk the Earth until he is satisfied with just who in his household hated him so much to send him off to an early reward. Though it's not so rewarding to Gilbert even if he can pass through walls and enter locked rooms without being seen.

At first I thought this was intended to be a satire of the detective novel. The victim comes back from the dead to solve his own murder?  Surely this has to be done with some sense of humor.  And it is. But Gilbert Worth is hardly a likable character and his children devoutly loathe him. Yet even though Worth tells the story of his mysterious death with a wicked sense of humor and spends much of the book spying on his relatives and the servants in some keen satiric scenes there is a pervasive somber air about the piece with hints of tragedy about the innate dysfunctionality in this loveless family.

In the early part of the book the best scenes were those in which Worth seems to make fun of his plight as a ghost. He attends his own funeral and hears a musical selection that embarrasses his family as it turns out to be an upbeat folk tune that is a particular favorite of Rosina Peck, his mistress and sex-crazed secretary. Later, he finds himself oddly moved by the sermon the minister gives and falls to his knees in guilt ridden prayer. Even Worth's own father appears to him and attempts to guide him into the afterlife but Worth will have none of that until he solves the mystery that faces him. There is also an entire chapter devoted to the servants in which we learn that the timid housemaid Ada Jenkins has a passionate hobby in stamp collecting and is belittled by her co-workers for such a frivolous, money wasting pastime. The cook Mrs Mace, another maid Jessie, and the nasty gardener Mr. Williams are all sharply drawn portraits with carefully rendered individual voices. When even the minor characters receive this kind of attention from an author you know you have a work of fiction worth some notice. Before the book becomes deadly serious and shifts into a neo-Victorian mode this was one of the highlights for me.

The humor dissipates further with Gilbert's "investigation" which he is also writing down in manuscript form. It all becomes excessively melodramatic past the midpoint and by the final scenes I felt like I was reading something by Wilkie Collins or Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Overwrought emotions are on constant display. Multiple confessions of family secrets and murderous impulses force friends and confidantes entrusted with these confessions into dilemmas of moral conscience. Several characters resort to blackmail, there are witnesses to the murder, and witnesses to the witnesses!

This is not meant to disparage the book. On the contrary, Post Mortem (1953) is a remarkable achievement -- begin like a satiric detective novel, add the element of a modern ghost story, then slowly transform the whole work into a Neo-sensation novel. The high emotion is mirrored in the heightened prose sending the story to soaring heights both metaphorically and literally when ghostly husband and haunted wife face each other on the rooftop of Turret House. A neat epilogue written by the son of Worth's publisher brings all the fantasy crashing down to Earth not in anticlimax but in a truly satisfying manner with a final twist that explains both the mystery of Gilbert's death and the riddle of a how a ghost can have written his own autobiography.