Death Greets a Guest - Charles Ashton

THE STORY: At a meeting of an archeological society a sudden torrential downpour sends all of the members, who were outside smoking and chatting, ducking for cover. Most made it back indoors some only to the porch of the Eastwood Hall. One guest -- Chandler, a sketch artist who was outside drawing trees -- heads for the summerhouse directly opposite the main meeting area of Eastwood Hall. Four of the members watch the storm increase in strength from a large window inside the Hall and see the guest wave to them from the only window in the summerhouse which also has only one entrance. When the rain subsides some of the members see Chandler slumped in the window frame. They head to the summerhouse and discover that the man has been shot in the back giving the book its ironic title Death Greets a Guest (1936). Yet no one entered the summerhouse at all during the storm. The man was in there all alone.  Basically, he was murdered in front of witnesses by an invisible assailant. Major Jack Atherley assists Colonel Bretherton (the local Chief Constable) and Inspector Williams to find out who killed the guest, how it was accomplished, and why a relative stranger was murdered at all.

THE CHARACTERS: Because the story deals with a group of men who are members of a private club (the archeological society gathers to discuss old buildings, mostly churches) the cast list is rather large. Many of the society's members appear only in the first scene and after the murder takes place and initial Q&A is over many are never heard from again.  Even with the absence of about five to seven men the cast remains varied and large. Among the notable characters who make up the primary and supporting cast are:

Stamford Eastwood - head of the society and host of this meeting. Quite a stiff upper lip sort of gentlemen who suffers no fools quietly.  He is married to 

Sylvia Eastwood - at first a charming woman who befriends Atherley, but quickly turns sharp-tongued and sarcastic when Atherley and the police begin to focus attention and suspicions on her friend...

Jimmy Bagstaffe - an insufferable artistic aesthete who adopts a theatrical manner, wears ridiculously theatrical wardrobe, hosts hedonistic parties for his artistic friends (mostly performing arts types) and belittles everyone and anything he disagrees with. He comes across as a satiric character meant to be a parody of the Bright Young Things of the 1920s who still cling to the hedonism of a decade ago, and also I got a very strong ridiculing of gay or effeminate artistes. A very popular bigoted stereotype that turn up a lot in vintage popular fiction.

Kesgrave - a new neighbor of Stamford and Sylvia's. Jack and Sylvia are invited in for an impromptu meeting one afternoon and we learn Kesgrave is in the process of renovating his Tudor era home, that he is a writer of fiction who uses a pseudonym that he will not divulge, and that he is married to a vivacious woman ten years younger than him.

Musprat - the bore of the archeological society, another comic character. If given a chance he will lecture on endlessly about building trivia, mostly made up of "fascinating features" of the houses and churches in the area. Jack makes the mistake of indulging Musprat one too many times.  I had a feeling that much of his droning on would contain some vital clue that everyone would overlook.

Joe Dudman - the owner/barkeep of the local pub. He is instrumental in identifying...

Mysterious Bar Patron #1, a bearded man who went off to Eastwood Hall looking for someone there regardless of the fact that he was told a private lecture meeting was taking place. 

Mysterious Bar Patron #2 - Immediately after the bearded man shows up another stranger stops in the bar asking about the bearded gent. He claims they are friends and wants to know where he was headed. Dudman tells him the bearded guy was off to Eastwood Hall and #2 mystery man heads there as well.

 One of the society members has a speech impediment that is played for laughs. I thought it a cheap form of humor (even for 1936), something that seemed utterly out of place for Ashton who likes to sprinkle his books with wit and wise cracks, but tends to avoid low farcical humor. Oh well. Making fun of a speech impediment would never fly these days.

INNOVATIONS: The impossible crime surprisingly is not the focus of the investigation; the motive really is more puzzling. The search for the "why" of the murder sends the plot into some intrigues in the past, many of which are found in an odd scrapbook of newspaper clippings that Chandler created. Also, Chandler's sketchbook and the drawings he made during his tour of the outside grounds at Eastwood Hall will provide a possible motive for one of the main suspects. I enjoyed all of the investigations and digging up of the past which involved a variety of crimes, solved and unsolved. When the solution to Chandler's impossible murder (the "how" aspect) is finally made known it's downplayed and delivered almost matter-of-fact. Early on I had a suspicion that Ashton was inspired by the detective novels of Anthony Wynne who employed a similar gimmick in many of his books.

Ashton adds a few unusual plot twists in a clever way. Normally a tired cliche, anonymous letters turn up in the final third adding an element of hysterical paranoia. The letters inspire Atherley to set up an elaborate final scene in which he is determined to unmask the killer.  It's a highly theatrical sequence and the killer comes as an utter surprise. I laughed and thought, "But of course! How did I fall for such a detective novel trick? It's one of those unwritten rules like "Never believe a character who is a bedridden invalid can't walk." Yet I fell for one of the oldest tricks in mystery writing. Kudos to Ashton!

EASY TO FIND? Death Greets A Guest is a very rare book. After looking for over ten years I finally found a copy of the cheap "Cherry Tree" paperback edition but a copy in any edition is near impossible to find. Miraculously, Neer who blogs at "A cup of hot pleasure" found a copy at a library and did not enjoy the book as much as I did.  I like Atherley's irreverence and his egocentrism. His personality, I think, is lively and lighthearted, never as annoying as similar traits in a vain supericilious character like Philo Vance.  To each his own.

FIRST BOOKS: Murder in Make-Up - Charles Ashton

THE STORY:  During the filming of Tempest, a crime movie about a gentleman thief, the actor playing the thief is found stabbed behind a bit of scenery. The movie crew insists that the police remove the actor's make-up prior to carting away the corpse to spare him the indignity of the false beard and greasepaint.  The police remove the make-up and reveal the man is a completely different actor -- Lancelot Weston, the young romantic lead in the movie. Why did Weston pretend to be William Harvey for that one scene? Was Harvey actually the intended victim? Inspector Bob Saunders investigates assisted by his police consultant Major Jack Atherley.

THE CHARACTERS: Murder in Make-Up (1934) is the first detective novel by former silent film actor Charles Ashton.  The novel introduces his series characters Jack Atherley and Inspector Saunders.  Atherley is the true sleuth in Ashton's series of detective novels and he's a breath of fresh air. Saunders is a by-the-book copper while Atherley is his witty, carefree aide with a talent for seeing things "out of the box".  He reminds me of Philip "Spike" Tracy, the playboy amateur detective created by Harriette Ashbrook. Saunders and Atherley are perfect foils for one another and I enjoyed how Atherley routinely exasperated Saunders, often for the sheer joy of annoying his policeman colleague.

The rest of the cast is made up of Saunders' homicide squad headed by Sgt. Davis, another serious policeman who is more tolerant of Atherley's lightheartedness and often anticipates when the Major is about to pull one over on Saunders.  And of course because the murder takes place in the world of cinema we have a  supporting cast of suspects in the movie biz.  They are:

William Harvey - the character actor who plays the gentleman thief and was supposed to be in the scene being filmed when Weston was killed.  As the story progresses several more attempts are made on Harvey's life.  The police do their best to protect him, but the killer always manages to penetrate the police protecting Harvey

Lettise Moore - the ingenue lead in Tempest. She has a secret related to Harvey that the police soon uncover. This makes her a prime suspect but she is protected by...

Mrs. Moxon - a dresser on the set for Miss Moore, and a servant/confidante in Moore's private life.  Maternal, overprotective and somewhat of a termagant. Moxon is a thorn in Saunders' side.  Atherley is the only who can tame this shrew. She is actually on his list of suspects because after stabbing Weston the killer needed to be able to silently lower his athletic body behind the flats while the scene was being filmed. Atherley is certain the killer is one of a similar build and with enough upper body strength to carry out the silent disposal of the corpse. Besides three of the male suspects, Mrs. Moxon is the only woman who could also to do everything as he thought it out.

Ralph Lastor - the producer (in the US we'd call him the director) of the movie. His mind is only on the movie, its delays and the possible scrapping of the production due to the criminal investigation and the loss of his leading man. Why would he kill one of his actors and sabotage his own production?  Does he have a secret too?

Dick Howard - assistant director, man of all work. Suspicious, shifty, mistrustful. He draws the attention of Saunders when his police team while following Howard as directed see him sneaking around off the set making visits to Miss Moore's home and conversing confidentially with... 

Miss Laurie - the script girl (continuity in modern movie talk) who is always on set. We learn fairly quickly that she talks in a fake American accent, flirts with nearly all the men, and had the hots for handsome Weston. But she was rejected by him. If Weston was the true intended target then Miss Laurie is definitely suspect #1 thinks Atherley. But was she strong enough to commit the murder as he envisioned it. Or was Weston somehow stabbed in some other manner?

INNOVATIONS: For a novice effort at detective novel Ashton does some admirable work here.  It is almost a purely fair play novel. Unfortunately, he does hold back a bit and does more suggesting what happened which forces the reader to fill in some unexplained events.  For instance, late in the book Atherley finds some supplies left behind by workmen who were doing plumbing repairs in his flat.  Atherley is described as picking up a bucket of paint and stepping onto the fire escape.  He then exclaims with a smile, "What a fine night!" and the chapter ends.  But why was he out there with a bucket of paint?  It's all explained in the final chapter. The reader has to figure it out on his own prior to being told what Atherley did.  This kind of "sneaky" clueing is perhaps forgivable in a novice mystery writer.  But! I know that Ashton continued to do this sort of thing in his later books. Here Comes Murder was written nearly ten years later and includes similar scenes only partially explained when first presented to the reader.

Really the best part of the book is the insider information on how an early “talkie” is produced.  Ashton, a former silent film actor, offers up not only the glamorous part of movie making but the complicated work of the non-actors consisting of the lighting crew, cameramen, make-up and wardrobe staff, as well as the hassles of keeping track of all the changes from shot to shot carried out by the continuity person -- in the early days of moviemaking usually called "the script girl" and almost always (as in the novel) a woman. The script girl is really nothing more than a secretary who spends all day taking copious notes, later typing them up in a daily report, on what everyone is wearing, which props are held in which hand, and all the rest of the minutiae of a movie scene.

Charles Ashton as Dick Alward
in Pillars of Society (1920)

THINGS I LEARNED:  One of the first scenes explains exactly why a clapper board was necessary in making early sound movies.  The sound of the clap was used to synchronize all sound in the scene that followed.  A clapper was used to end the scene as well.  I'm unsure if this is why they still use a clapper.  Maybe with all the digital technology used in moviemaking it's used more to label all the scenes for the editing team.

Atherley uses an odd abbreviation in a single line of dialogue: "And it's got the archives of the famous Yard l.b.w." He says this after looking up one of the suspects in Who's Who on the Screen. I spent nearly an hour using various search terms in trying to find what those three letters meant. Turns out it's the cricket term "Leg Before Wicket" which I think means a foul that can get a batter dismissed. If it had been made clear early in the novel that Atherley was also a cricket player and often uses cricket terms I'd been able to figure this out faster. By the midpoint long after the use of that abbreviation we learn that Atherley is an avid cricket player and has played in tournaments. Apparently on a professional team because a taxi driver recognizes him from a past game. Why he uses "l.b.w." in reference to the Who's Who listing still eludes me.  

EASY TO FIND?  You can have my copy (it's the "Cherry Tree Book" copy pictured at the top) if you're lucky enough to place the highest bid. (SOLD!) Good luck finding a copy anywhere else. Like all of Ashton's detective novels it's as rare as finding a silver nitrate copy of one of Charles Ashton's movies from the silent era.