IN BRIEF: Murder Masks Miami - Rufus King

Lt. Valcour solves his last case in Murder Masks Miami (1939), Rufus King's contribution to the subgenre of mysteries known as the policeman's holiday. While on vacation Valcour is asked for help from the decidedly lazy and self-confessed incompetent Floridian Chief Detective Lawrence Goodfriend, a former salesman who "drifted into police work when [his family's] hardware store had gone for bad debts." Goodfriend is one of the most remarkably obtuse and vapid policemen in all of crime fiction. He confesses that the Miami police still have dozens of open homicide cases because "the training was lacking to build up evidence that would stand in court."  Even the rudiments of collecting evidence are lost on him and his associates. It's dumbfounding how lackadaisical he is about his job and his responsibility to the entire department.

So Valcour steps in. What at first begins as lessons and guidance to the Miami Police soon gives way to Valcour's leading the entire investigation. Two women have been found dead from apparent poisoning injected by hypodermic needles. One is the typical elderly imperious and domineering Grand Dame so often found in King's books. The other, found naked in an enclosed sunbathing booth on the roof of a nearby resort, is a much younger, sexually free, and equally unpopular woman. How the deaths are connected makes for part of the mystery. Valcour will uncover multiple adulterous affairs, a murderer with a taste for bizarre disguise, some unusual hazing rituals among sailors, and a very insidious method of murder. The clues are ample, the detective work is fascinating and the characters are some of the most varied and unusual for King who usually limits his suspects and victims to urbane sophisticates.

What is even more noticeable in this novel than any other of King's I have read is the writer's personal interest in male beauty and virility. Repeatedly the male characters' physiques and predilections are discussed in great detail. Mike Grost has mentioned on his website tracing the history of the detective novel that Murder Masks Miami is a homoerotic mystery novel, but I think that's going overboard. None of the men are attracted to each other. Though there are sailors featured in minor roles in the story there is not even the barest hint of male-on-male action in this story. It is clear that King was enamored with male beauty and liked to create characters who were both buff and gruff. Descriptions of masculine beauty don't automatically make a book homoerotic, a term I think that is frequently misused if not abused.

As early as the second chapter the reader knows he's in for more than a fair share of King's celebration of men. A middle-aged man wakes from his bed naked and walks to his hotel window to admire the seaview and doesn't a give damn who might see him below on the beach. It's an very odd scene and one you'd rarely come across in contemporary fiction even in our supposedly enlightened times. There is also Don, the handsome twenty-something lifeguard, whose body is described as rapturously as the older man's. Don attracts the attention of many women (not one man, mind you) and will serve as Valcour's key player in unmasking the killer in the climactic scene aboard a millionaire financier's yacht.

This is one of Rufus King's best detective novels. The story gets to the point quickly, its moves at a fast pace, never lagging in interest or local color. Valcour is less philosophical with his suspects than in the books from the 1920s, but spares no criticism for Chief Goodfriend, his unenthusiastic, somewhat thickheaded student in crime investigation techniques. The supporting characters are a lively bunch and every now and then King indulges in his arch sense of humor. In Murder Masks Miami you get the best of King on land and King at sea. But never confusingly at sea, for the story winds up with a satisfying and surprising conclusion.

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Reading Challenge update:  N6 on the Golden Age Bingo Card - "Book Set in the U.S."

STAGE BLOOD: Invitation to a Murder - Rufus King

Invitation to a Murder became the lurid thriller
The Hidden Hand nearly ten years after it closed

There have been a few recent posts on crime fiction blogs about crime in the theater and now I'm jumping on that bandwagon. As you might infer from the post title I'm also planning on making this "Stage Blood" talk a regular feature here at Pretty Sinister Books. Whether I actually attend a performance or only read the play I hope to add to the growing diversity on this blog which originally was begun to honor books and gradually included movies, TV and now theater.

For my first exploration into crime on the stage I chose Invitation to a Murder (1934), a little known melodrama by Rufus King, the mystery writer recently celebrated in grand style over at Curt Evan's blog The Passing Tramp (all the posts can be read in succession by clicking here) and on this blog by yours truly here.  King had a minor success in theater with Murder at the Vanities, a musical murder mystery for which he wrote the book in collaboration with producer/director Earl Carroll, which ran for 207 performances and was later turned into a movie. A musical murder mystery was very unusual for the 1930s theater. One of the tunes in the show is called "Who Committed the Murder?" that gives the impression of a genuine detective story told through music but other songs, like "Virgins in Cellophane" and "Fans" both performed by the large number of women in the cast, make me think that the show was really about leggy dancers than solving the mystery of a dead chorus girl. In any case the success of Murder at the Vanities allowed King the chance to dabble in more theater and his next play, Invitation to a Murder, opened only two months after ...Vanities closed.

The play is a combination of melodrama, suspense thriller and mystery. Wisely King chose to veer away from the traditional whodunit in favor of a thriller with a plot which lets the audience in on various events other characters are unaware of. These kinds of crime dramas play much better on stage as they engage the audience, give the work immediacy, and have more at stake than the average whodunit which usually has its only real punch in the revelation of the killer just before the final curtain. There's a lot going on in Invitation to a Murder in its three acts, each one ending with a cliffhanging scene. Its clever multilayered structure can easily be seen as a forerunner to classic crime dramas like Wait Until Dark, Dial M for Murder and Deathtrap.

Gale Sondergaard (the original Lorinda) won an
Oscar for Anthony Adverse two years later

Lorinda Channing is the imperious leading lady of the piece. She has converted the family fortune back into gold and hidden it on the estate. Someone in the family, she thinks, has been searching for it. By the end of the first scene we see how ruthless she can be when she accuses her gardener of blackmail and theft and sends him to a watery grave via a hidden trapdoor in the living room floor. No one will stop her from her plans to reveal who among her relatives is after her money. She joins forces with the easily tempted Dr. Linton and together they hatch an incredible plot.

Inspired by the final scene in Romeo and Juliet she asks Dr. Linton to use a special drug he has acquired that will simulate her death. After explaining the bizarre family ritual having to do with a Channing ancestor's superstition of being buried alive she will be placed in an unsealed coffin for 24 hours in the family crypt. She is then to be released from her temporary resting site and the coffin sealed and buried empty. The family will think she is dead allowing her to spy on the survivors to see who among them is the greedy would-be thief. Linton has a secret in his past that Lorinda knows of and she uses this to pressure him into being her co-conspirator. The plan, however, backfires.

Walter Abel (Dr. Linton) in
The Lady Consents (1936)

Linton at the last minute decides to seal the coffin and send Lorinda to a horrid death by suffocation when she regains consciousness in the crypt. He wants the money for himself. Several plot complications involving other spies and hidden witnesses implicate Linton though he does his best to escape detection. Chief among these spies is Walter, Lorinda's weak cousin always in need of money, and he attempts to blackmail Linton. To the surprise of the audience Lorinda appears again on stage and she goes about preparing yet another trap to get even with the double crossing doctor. She confronts Linton who is astonished by her escape from the coffin. Martin, the butler, then appears and reveals himself to be Lorinda's secret guard who witnessed Linton screwing down the coffin and the one who revived her and set her free. This scene is key to establishing Lorinda's plans to get even with her betrayer. When Walter enters the scene Lorinda shoots him knowing that Linton had previously handled the gun and then disappears leaving him to explain to the others what they will never believe -- that a dead woman murdered Walter.

Bogart's publicity still for The Great O'Malley (1936)

It's all a little too much, I know. But it works remarkably well. King has worked out everything so tightly. Once you accept the Channing superstitious fear of being buried alive and the odd ritual of leaving a dead Channing in an unsealed coffin to allay any fears of the dreaded premature burial then the rest of the play works. The scenes with Linton fervently denying his guilt and desperately trying to get anyone to believe him that Lorinda is still alive are tense and exciting. There is even a great bit when Estelle Channing, the ingenue, turns amateur sleuth to reveal Lorinda's fatal mistake proving she was alive at the time of Walter's murder. Typical of King he gives one of the best scenes in the play to his two strongest female characters. His detective novels are populated with women who are much more interesting and complex than the men.

Lorinda is a killer part for any diva actress. As sleek and wicked as any femme fatale in a film noir piece. She's given the best dialogue, an opportunity to wear stunning gowns as described in the script, and two magnificent stage bits that would make for chilling scenes in live theater. I would have given anything to have been alive in 1934 to see Gale Sondergaard do the part. She must have been fabulously wicked in the role. Dr. Linton was played by versatile character actor Walter Abel who was the first talking D'Artagnan in the 1935 version of The Three Musketeers. Also in the cast was young Humphrey Bogart, already making a name for himself in supporting roles in the movies, playing the trenchant sophisticate Horatio Channing, a part that hints at the sinister tough guy movie roles that will be his trademark in the 1940s and 1950s.

Milton Parsons is Lorinda's murderous accomplice
in the 1942 film adaptation The Hidden Hand

Invitation to a Murder was adapted for the movies in 1942 several years after it had closed its run of only 53 performances on Broadway. The story was considerably rewritten and retitled The Hidden Hand. In its movie incarnation the story resembles more The Greene Murder Case with the Channing family being knocked off one by one by a homicidal maniac. The bit about the faked death and burial remained though this time it was a new character -- escaped lunatic John Channing -- whose death was faked and not Lorinda's. Strangely this theme was also lifted from the play and inserted in the film adaptation of King's novel Murder by the Clock which introduced Lt. Valcour to the 1930s mystery reading audience. Craig Stevens, famous as TV's Peter Gunn, played Peter Thorne who acts as the amateur sleuth rather than Estelle. Thorne does appear in the stage version but only as a very minor character. The rest of the cast is made up of minor actors who are unfamiliar to me. The Hidden Hand was shown in 2011 on TCM. The convoluted plot synopsis can be read here for those curious to know the differences between stage and screen versions.

FIRST BOOKS: Murder by the Clock - Rufus King

My latest addition to the Perilous Policemen part of the Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge takes me back to 1929 and the very first Lieutenant Valcour novel written by the unjustly dismissed Rufus King. It's been a long time since I've read a book from the late 1920s that seems more like something from the mid 20th century. By the time I finished the book I found more comparisons in the brooding psychological private eye novels of Ross MacDonald, the sexual temptresses of nearly every hard-boiled writer during the 1950s, and the paranoid urban households in so many paperback originals of the 1960s. King even flirts with elements of the surreal in this book classified as a detective novel from Doubleday's Crime Club, a publisher better known for traditional whodunits than this kind of literate novel that uses crime not as a means to entertain but as the springboard for delving in the darker recesses of human behavior.

Herbert Endicott, a philandering husband, is found dead in a walk in closet in his bedroom. There are some suspicious signs that lead Valcour to think foul play yet there is no sign of a weapon and no visible wound on the corpse to verify murder. But when the body refuses to stay dead and the suspects begin to voice their utter hatred for the victim I knew the book was going to stray far away from the typical "find the cigarette ash and footprints" stories that flooded the market in the 1920s. King's writing, too, is a big clue that this book is meant to be more than just a time passing entertainment. He has a way of capturing your attention with neat turns of phrase, lyrical styling, and an eccentric sense of humor.

How pleasant it would be he reflected, to come across the perfect imprint of a shoe [...] -- or what was it that was so popular at the moment? -- of course: the footprint of a gorilla. The case would then be technically known as an open-and-shut one. He'd simply take the train for California and arrest Lon Chaney, and-- But enough.

When the body is found there is no sign of any weapon. The police physician at first thinks Endicott has suffered a stroke or heart attack and his death is a natural one. Valcour finds evidence of another person being in the closet, and signs that Endicott's body has been searched. He suspects foul play and orders an autopsy of the body while it is still in the house. That's when the physician discovers that Endicott is still alive. Valcour then sets up a plan to keep Endicott guarded by both a nurse and two policemen to prevent another more fatal attack on Endicott. Perhaps he may even catch the culprit in the act of a second murder attempt.

A notable feature of the story is that it takes place in less than 12 hours, from 8:37 PM to 7:11 AM the following day, with the action almost entirely confined to the Endicott household. Valcour makes a few side trips to interview suspects not in the home and does so in the wee hours of the morning adding a very surreal element to the story. None of the characters seems to be too upset about someone knocking on their door at two or three in the morning – even if it is a policeman. In one case Valcour doesn't even get to identify himself since the woman who answers the door thinks he is Endicott. Valcour even allows her to badger him with questions for a few pages before he bothers to correct her assumption.

King experiments with the narrative. We mostly follow Valcour's point of view but on occasion he allows us into the thoughts of other characters. For example, we learn that Nurse Morrow who is put in charge of watching over Endicott, is a dreamy romantic woman who hopes her life will finally blossom into the kind of adventurous one she always imagined it would be:

The present case looked as a heaven sent oasis. Who knew what might not develop out of it? It awakened all the atrophied hunger of her starved sentimentalism. And even if nothing did result form it -- nothing practical, like marriage, or a good bonus -- it would at least leave her something to think about during those endless, tiresome, tiring hours of the future.

At the halfway mark of the one night's investigation Valcour finds Tom Hollander, a former war buddy of Endicott and who some members of the household think is the only man who Endicott can call a friend. Valcour sends for Hollander hoping that when Endicott recovers from his semi-comatose state he will confide in Hollander and reveal who attacked him. Events do not go as planned, however. Hollander is not the friend he presents himself as. Valcour inadvertently has placed Endicott's life in further danger.

1931 film poster. The movie blended the plots of two
plays, one of which was an adaptation of King's novel.

There is an air of dread that settles over the Endicott household. Like a Gothic novel death settles upon everyone and everything. The characters become brooding, turn inward, and allow their imaginations to run wild. Nurse Morrow comments to the two policeman sharing her watch over Endicott that "there is something sinister" about it all. She notes a eerie quiet that "settled gently on the house. The stillness of a grave." Mrs. Endicott's lugubrious servant Roberts, meanwhile, dwells on her haunted past. She reveals that she cannot abide her employer, pesters Valcour with odd questions like if he believes that "the dead [can] remain in emotional touch with the living." She drops several hints that Mrs. Endicott and Hollander were probably having an affair of their own. But is there proof or is it merely the product of Roberts' jealous and confused mind? Later Valcour describes Roberts as "the shortest step this side of some fervour bred in the swamp of lunacy." Menace, madness, and death are everywhere Valcour turns.

Despite all his efforts to protect Endicott the murderer does make a second and successful attempt on his life. But it seems nearly impossible. With two policeman in the room and a nurse on duty could someone really have fired a gun from the balcony through the small opening where the window was raised and struck Endicott fatally wounding him? In the remaining three hours of the book's plot Valcour manages to unearth more secrets, prevent a suicide attempt, and find the hiding place of the murderer who has remained in the house the entire night.

Murder by the Clock is unlike any other American mystery I have read from this era. True, there is detection and the policeman hero is doggedly determined to bring in the villain of the piece, but the emphasis here seems to be less on the mechanics of the criminal investigation and more on the after effects of the crime as it alters the lives of the Endicott household. In this respect King's novel is far more modern than one would expect for his era. He may have been one of the earliest writers to explore the real drama inherent in crime and its aftermath rather than exploiting a fictional murder as a mere puzzle entertainment.