FFB: Murder Yet To Come - Isabel Briggs Myers

The first thing that struck me as remarkable about Murder Yet to Come (1930) was the author's gutsy use of The Moonstone and several other Wilkie Collins novels as a framework for her plot. Can it be altogether coincidental that the crux of the story is about a jewel stolen from an ancient Indian idol and later stolen again years later in a different country? Is the shared similarity of a heroine suspected to be the victim of inherited madness (see The Woman in White) yet another coincidence? I think not. I think Isabel Briggs Myers knew her Collins and knew it well. Wisely she cribbed from the best. Murder Yet to Come was her first detective novel and it won her $7500 in a writing contest for new mystery writers. It was a well deserved award, too.

Malachi Trent, eccentric millionaire, is found dead in a locked room. It appears that he has fallen from a ladder while searching for some books on the highest shelf in his bookcase lined library/study. Playwright and amateur detective Peter Jerningham soon points out that Trent has been murdered by a blow to the back of his head and the entire scene is a hastily staged scene to give the illusion of an accident by falling. Out of date textbooks stored on the highest shelf are strewn about the body? Algebra, a foreign language ancient history. Why would Trent need all of them at once and why would he select such out of date books even if he were doing some sort of research? The wound to the head is so powerful it could not have come from an accidental fall. A statue in the room shows trace signs of the victims' hair and blood. Murder has been done. But if so, then how did the murderer escape? The room has two doorways, but the main entrance was bolted shut and was broken down to gain entry. The other door at the rear of the room was nailed shut. And what happened to "The Wrath of Kali" – the huge ruby Trent kept locked away in his safe? It carries with it a curse from the goddess Kali herself who will strike down anyone who dares to defile the idol from where it was taken. Could Malachi Trent have been killed by supernatural means?

The plot thickens when Linda Marshall, Trent's 17 year old ward, is found hiding in the room. Is she the killer? Was she an eyewitness? Or did she enter afterwards? She has absolutely no memory of how she got into the room or why she was there. As the story progresses it is learned that Linda has frequent blackouts and memory losses. She also displays erratic and melodramatic behavior. There is talk of insanity. Only recently has she returned from an asylum where she was under the care of a psychiatrist and Trent had threatened repeatedly to send her back for good.

1995 reprint from CAPT, a publisher
specializing in research on psychology type.

The household has two sinister servants – Mrs. Ketchum who makes cryptic references to black magic and witchcraft and has a habit of laughing wickedly at the most inappropriate times. There is also Ram Singh, a servant who came with Trent from India, who seems to have control over Linda. It is suggested that he is using hypnotic power to manipulate Linda as an instrument of Kali's vengeance. Or is it Mrs. Ketchum who has the mind controlling power? And if so, what is her motive?

The book has some excellent detective work all reminiscent of the Van Dine school. In addition to the quick work done to reveal the staged accident, there is the unraveling of the illusion of the locked room; some clues involving an inkwell, broken eyeglasses, and backward handwriting on a blotter; and an alphabetically coded safe's combination that is solved through deduction and inference. By the midpoint there is an increasing emphasis on psychology and subconscious suggestion. This leads Jerningham and his detective cohorts into a intense discussion of hypnosis focusing on the differences between cheap tricks seen in vaudeville theaters and hypnosis as a therapeutic tool. It is this psychological element in combination with the expert fair play detective work that make for an engrossing, lively and very smart mystery novel.

Isabel Briggs Myers' name may ring a bell. Especially if you are a student of psychology or are in the Human Resources field. Myers, along with her mother Katharine Briggs, developed one of the most widely used personality assessment tools now known as the MBTI, or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Elsewhere on the internet in essays about Murder Yet to Come you will find people claiming that the book outlines Myers' theories of personality types inspired by the work of Carl Jung and his archetypes. I found none of that in the book. It is a straightforward detective novel with a love story subplot, very much influenced by S.S. Van Dine and Wilkie Collins. It's an admirable debut novel, but to look for signs of the future MBTI within its pages is a fool's errand. Her real work in the field of personality type didn't emerge until well after the start of World War 2.

Myers wrote one more detective novel, Give Me Death (an extremely rare book in the collector's world) before she completely abandoned the genre. I am sorry she didn't continue with a few more books. Based on this effort alone I think she would've given Ellery Queen and Philo Vance a run for their money.

Singular Case of the Multiple Dead - Mark McShane

It's hard to believe that this utterly silly crime novel of the absurd came from the typewriter of Mark McShane. Better known for his deadly serious thrillers that mix the supernatural with the criminal McShane's early work bears little trace of the outlandish humor on display in The Singular Case of the Multiple Dead (1969). A melange of the surreal humor of Monty Python, Abbot & Costello's punny wordplay routines, classic slapstick and bedroom farce it seems that this book might appeal to everyone's idea of what's funny. Maybe I was hungry for nonsense because I happened to find its cast of lunatics and their kooky antics to be the perfect tonic for my late autumn blues.

Lady Madge Severn has collected a group of misfit wannabe artistes and formed a salon she dubs the Bloomsbury Group Junior. During their latest meeting they discuss a paltry tax of one shilling levied on theater seats. It is the latest in a series of insults upon the British public and serves as the proverbial camel's back breaking straw. Lady Severn is outraged and she hopes to incite her group into action. Something must be done. All nine members have a brainstorming session resulting in three possible schemes to oust the Chancellor of Exchequer, the man responsible for the tax. They will force him to resign through blackmail, create a scandal and get him fired, or -- as a last resort -- assassinate him.

The oddballs in the Bloomsbury Group are:

Tony Zero – a vain pretty boy who does absolutely nothing but pose and stare vacantly while imagining his latest discounted assignations in his failed attempts to be come a gigolo for hire.

Virginius Twyce - the Casper Milquetoast of the group. Twyce is so terrified of being caught when asked to perform a simple task like buying a lock and chain that he imagines exaggerated scenarios in which shopkeepers suspect him of plotting the overthrow of the nation. Understandably, this makes it difficult for him even to set foot in a store let alone make eye contact when handing over his money.

Minerva Droplet – watercolor artist who fantasizes with regularity how the gossip columnists will discuss her latest adventures.

Ace paperback gives the impression
this is a spooky chiller. Wrong!

Sid Fourpenny – a budding poet more interested in bedding down the women in the group than putting pen to paper. His impersonation of the C of E, however, is one of the highlights of the book.

Jean Quin – aspires to be the next Greta Garbo. Jean uses her consummate acting skills and her tempting body to ensnare staff members working in the C of E's office.

Relentable Cease - How's that for a name? A professional musician Cease creates anthems for the group and tends to sit back while everyone else does the dirty work.

Jem Gate – taciturn to the point of one word utterances, to get a full sentence out of Gate would be quite a feat. He's a gravestone carver whose specialty is getting the breasts just right on his inappropriately shapely angels. He is the one member intent on carrying out the assassination plan if only he can find a hitman willing to kill someone. Everyone he encounters will only injure, maim or dismember.

Have you noticed the uncanny similarity of each character's surname? The numeric similarities are a gimmick I thought would be a feature in the plot but it turns out to be yet another indication of McShane's penchant for silliness. I particularly liked when Fourpenny impersonates the C of E at a Swedish war toy convention and insults a food vendor by spitting out the tea cake he is sampling. Lady Severn was sure that this would cause an international incident of scandalous proportions making headlines and lead to the firing of the C of E. Needless to say it backfires monstrously.

This will give you an idea of the loopy fun McShane indulges in:

Amid all the nonsense members of the group are being systematically killed off, hence the strange title. Unbeknownst to the Bloomsbury Group Junior (but disclosed to the reader) is that each victim has been contemplating leaving the group prior to their sudden often bizarre demise. Apparently membership in Bloomsbury Group Junior is for life; resignations will not be tolerated.

The group seems to take the deaths all in stride, a mere side effect of the life of a political activist. Lady Severn sets aside a suitable mourning period of fifteen minutes for each shocking accident and asks that the surviving group members put their gifts and talents to use for the memorial services. Fourpenny provides solemn odes and Cease composes dirges, for example.

The police are conspicuously absent from the farcical proceedings leaving the detective work -- or more accurately the guessing game -- up to the reader alone. But figuring out who is behind the fatal accidents is not really the point in this comedy of errors. In its madcap pointlessness laughter may be all that McShane intended to produce. It worked for me, at least.