The Tell-Tale Trunk

by Mary

According to a song popular with children, Nellie the elephant packed her trunk before running off to join a circus, a very poor career decision if I may say so. By contrast, when the time arrived to pack my scarlet trunk for carriage to these shores, difficult decisions had to be made. Ultimately rather than practical items such as clothing, which could be purchased on arrival if necessary, its eclectic contents meant I had managed to squeeze part of my old home into its confines. Take that, Dr Who!

On reflection, just as bookcase shelves demonstrate their owner's interests, the tell-tale trunk clearly indicated what was important to me.

For example, among the number of items packed into a space seemingly too small to contain them, consider the brown pottery vase with a slight list and the silhouette of a cat applied to its front. Made by my younger sister, it became known as the Jean-Paul Memorial Vase. Jean-Paul was a half Siamese tabby supposed to accompany me to these shores but sadly due to a careless driver he departed permanently a week or two before I set off for the New World. *

There was also a large green jug painted with orange flowers pretending to be chrysanthemums, paired with two similarly decorated flat back wall vases so popular at one time. Apparently the jug held pride of place on the hall windowsill of the cottage to which my family was evacuated during the war but where the vases were hung remains a mystery. My trunk also held examples of cabbageware comprised of two bowls masquerading as half-cabbages and a snack or relish server formed of three cabbage leaves meeting in a wishbone shape with a tomato knob at its centre. If such a category exists I would nominate these items as prime examples of the jolie laide school of china.

I must not overlook mention of a charming china toast rack with floral decorations, equally useful as a letter rack, and the elegant cake trowel with its pattern of blue flowers. The small scarlet non-stick saucepan still in service at Maywrite Towers is not only practical but also a reminder of day trips to London to visit friends. It was purchased in the Tottenham Court Road, still a prime location to find beautiful and stylish home wares.

At the other end of the colour palette, Dad constructed piggy banks in the shape of benches painted beige for me and my sister. These money boxes accepted coins through a slot in their seats and the official method of retrieving our cash involved undoing the screws holding their bases in place. We found it easier to get our pennies back by holding a bank upside down and wiggling a thin-bladed knife in its slot to coax our pennies out into the open, thus demonstrating children are ever inventive.

Speaking of inventive, along with family letters and photos, some of my early scribbles found their way into the trunk as did the novels devoted to the lives of the March family. They were a gift when I was eleven and I still re-read these popular stories every couple of years. Jo was my favourite character and I've noticed a number of writers have made the same declaration.

I should also mention my collection of penguins, including a heavy blue glass example in modernistic style (an excellent paperweight) and an egg timer guarded by a penguin, which I felt was unkind. Two plastic Christmas ornaments from long before I was born also made the trip -- a dark red star and a leaping blue deer sporting antlers, reminding me of the running deer mentioned in the Christmas carol. They accompanied a fairy doll tree-topper. She had suffered somewhat over the years, poor thing, having lost one of her red high-heeled shoes and most of the gold glitter from her tulle dress and magic wand. Despite the damage to her wardrobe she still majestically ruled the Christmas tree every year.

When I went to Port Canaveral to retrieve my trunk the official who examined its contents asked more than once if there was anything else to declare. Perhaps he noticed its glaring lack of apparel but all the garments I possessed arrived in two suitcases already dealt with when I passed through the customs hall at Miami Airport. The inspector involved was a charming fellow who asked me out to dinner that evening so I have no doubt more than one marriage has resulted from a meeting over someone's rummaged luggage!

* See Jean-Paul's Memorial Tombola at https://reed-mayer-mysteries.blogspot.com/p/our-essays.html#jean

The Scent of Earl Grey Tea

by Eric

This time of year I always think about long ago school vacations when my family moved to a cottage at the lakeside picnic grove they operated during the summer months. Just about everyone remembers how the last school bell of the year heralded what might as well have been an eternity of freedom even though it was less than three months. And though that was an illusion, in retrospect it sometimes seems like those summers, filled with new experiences, did last longer than entire decades later on.

Life at the lake was different than life in the suburbs. To begin with, there was the tiny cottage with electric lights but no indoor plumbing. A hand pump in the yard supplied water that was ice cold and pure, without the chemical taste of the town water to which I was accustomed. There was an outhouse a short walk from the cottage. It reeked sharply of the pink disinfectant cakes sitting here and there. A small ragged hole at the base of one wall showed where a porcupine had gnawed to get at the salt in the wood.

Yes, even going to the bathroom could be an adventure, especially at night, following the flashlight beam along the flagstone walk, alert for prowling porcupines.

The frogs in the creek were exciting too. The creek ran behind a bed of bergamot which filled the air with the aroma of Earl Grey Tea. Hummingbees (as we called them -- actually sphinx moths) hovered around the red flowers looking so much like hummingbirds they didn't trigger my usual aversion to large buzzing insects. I'd make my way through the flowers and hunker down on the bank learning to spot the twin bumps of amphibious eyes poking out of the water like periscopes. I mastered my frog catching technique, positioning my open hand so that I could close my fingers around the frogs' extended legs when they sprang towards safety.

Not that they had anything to fear from me. No frogs were harmed in the making of this memory. I always released them.

The stream was a whole world of wonders. Crayfish rocketed backwards in clouds of mud when I lifted the rocks they hid beneath. Numberless minnows glittered in the shallows and in the slow moving water near the lake floated black clouds of baby catfish. Sticklebacks built pebble nests while water striders skittered across the stream's sun flashing skin and dragonflies darted through the air.

There was plenty of non-aquatic life. A chipmunk made a habit of rambling around under the family picnic table looking for crumbs while we ate. At night bats squeaked and swooped so close you could feel the rush of air as they flew by your face but never colliding with you, and never eating the lightning bugs that twinkled around the edges of the yard like an out-of-season Christmas display. The bats knew the bugs were toxic.

Four-leaf clovers for luck were to be found in the lawn but I found more honey bees with my bare feet, which was not lucky at all. Worse yet were the blood sucking leeches in the lake, undulating alien horrors resembling elongated bits of raw liver. (I found liver almost as horrible as leeches.)

The natural world didn't have a monopoly on amazing new experiences. I hunted along the roadside and amid the tables in the grove for empty soda bottles discarded by careless picnickers. They were returnable and the few cents I redeemed each for added up to more than my allowance every week. The general store where I took the bottles featured a remarkable display of dead and dying flies stuck to coils of flypaper that hung from the ceiling, twisting slowly in the breeze from several large fans.

One summer, the Purple People Eater was another unforgettable novelty. My parents were under strict orders to call me whenever that Sheb Wooley number popped up on the radio and I'd come running even if I was catching frogs by the creek. I'm not sure any other song has affected me as deeply.

Nor have I ever experienced a quest as exciting as my successful effort to collect every Davy Crockett trading card, the card completing my set being, memorably, "A Bullet Finds Its Mark."

And that barely touches on the fascinating new world those ancient summers offered to a grade schooler. I didn't mention Fudgsicles, Fourth of July sparklers, thunderstorms, tadpoles, grilling

No wonder summers seemed so long.

Review: The Eye in the Museum by J. J. Connington

by Mary

As this novel opens, Leslie Seaforth and his fiancee Joyce Hazlemere are visiting the Struan Museum. Its eccentric collection includes examples of the taxidermist's art in the forms of a stuffed five-legged calf and a crocodile, jars of water from great rivers, somewhat suspect pottery, and the titular glass eye which replaced one Mr Struan lost in a childhood accident. In fact, the museum possesses two ocular items, the other being its camera obscura.

Under the terms of Joyce's father's will, she must live with her aunt Mrs Evelyn Fenton at The Cedars until she is 25, otherwise her inheritance will go to her aunt. It is a strained relationship to say the least since Mrs Fenton is vindictive and spiteful towards her niece, going so far as to blame her for her heart troubles, perhaps hoping to drive Joyce out of the house and so receive her inheritance. It would be welcome indeed given Mrs Fenton is addicted to betting. Dr Simon Hyndford, an intimate friend who often visits her, also likes to bet but neither is very successful at it. However, Simon shares a house with his brother Richard, who after years spent in Japan returned a rich man and is generous with loans to him.

Mrs Fenton is found dead in her home and the jury returns a verdict of wilful murder by a person or persons unknown.

Enter Superintendent Ross with a mixed bag of suspects. Was the culprit Mrs Fenton's husband John, who left her and the town after they separated? He wishes to marry his mistress but his wife refuses to divorce him. Now the couple are free to marry and since the Fentons are childless the money he settled on his departed wife when they wed will be returned to him. Furthermore, he was seen back in town not long before Mrs Fenton was murdered.

Then there's Joyce. Her aunt's death frees her from domestic tyranny and she will be able to claim her inheritance. She tells her fiance Leslie Mrs Fenton's treatment has brought her to the end of her tether so might the young couple have collaborated in a deadly plot? What about Mr Wachet, who manages properties Mrs Fenton owned? She intends to consult her solicitor unless he immediately pays her the rents collected on her behalf. If the culprit was Mr Wachet, Mrs Fenton's death would certainly be convenient.

My verdict: Superintendent Ross untangles a case that comes to include graphology, the puzzle of The Cedars' locked French window, IOUs worth thousands of pounds, a tumbler of a certain design, missing betting books, financial shenanigans, an overheard conversation suggesting plans for murder, and the dynamics of the Hyndford family. His summing up of evidence for the prosecution, including providing the names of those who will be able to confirm his reasoning, is a welcome feature in explaining a complicated case.

My verdict: Readers may deduce at least part of the solution but the full explanation of the affair is shocking and completely blindsided me. I award it an A, with a rueful smile at missing what was so obvious in hindsight.

E-text: The Eye in the Museum by J. J. Connington

Obelists Ahoy!

by Eric

Years ago I purchased a Dover trade paperback edition of C. Daly King's 1935 novel Obelists Fly High. Dover's catalog featured a few old and obscure -- to me -- authors and titles like The Thinking Machine by Jacques Futrelle and The Old Man in the Corner by Baroness Orczy. The sort of thing you can find easily online today at sites like Project Gutenberg but which were harder to come by years ago.

C. Daly King and his mysteriously named novel (what the heck is an obelist anyway?) were unknown to me. However, I was fascinated by the murder mystery set on a passenger plane making a cross country flight during the 1930s. Unfortunately there were no more King books to be found, at least by a non-collector like myself. The author and his work, although highly rated by critics, had dropped out of sight. Even during the 1930s his six novels had struggled to find American publishers which, perhaps, is why he virtually abandoned detective fiction after 1940 and returned to writing psychology books.

So I was delighted when I ran across The Complete Curious Mr Tarrant, a collection of a dozen stories, mostly published during the 1930s. Ed Hoch ranks the original edition of this book as one of the three greatest locked room mystery collections along with Carter Dickson’s The Department of Queer Complaints and G. K. Chesterton’s The Incredulity of Father Brown. I'd disagree. The locked room collections I've read by Mr Hoch himself struck me as clearly superior. But anyone who's ever met Ed Hoch would know he'd never blow his own trumpet.

Not to say I disliked C. Daly King's short stories. They were intriguing and entertaining in their own eccentric way. Like many amateur sleuths of the period, Trevis Tarrant is a gentleman of independent means with apparently unlimited time for investigations. Unlike most he is assisted by a valet, Katoh, who is a Japanese doctor and in his spare time, a spy. Tarrant is particularly interested in bizarre cases, which usually means cases that appear to involve the supernatural. In fact one case does turn out to be supernatural, a nice touch. I'm reminded of William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki the Ghost Finder stories in which Carnacki sometimes fails to find mundane explanations for strange events.

Tarrant encounters a house that is purportedly haunted and a highway where headless corpses keep showing up. An Irish harp, an ancient codex, and a famous actress are all seemingly spirited out of locked rooms. Maybe best of all is the motor boat which causes its occupants to jump overboard and drown themselves.

As you can imagine, the weird and puzzling events make for fun reading. My problem was with the solutions. The first story, in particular, featured an explanation so obvious, even to me, that I'd have to call it the worst locked room story I've ever read. There's at least one other solution which seemed unsurprising and another whose mechanics didn't appear to be very workable but then I'm not very mechanically inclined.

Although the stories are certainly worth reading, I'd caution you to enjoy the rides but be prepared for some disappointing denouements.

Did I mention C. Daly King is an eccentric writer? Consider that word obelist, used in titles for three of his books. Way back when I read Obelists Fly High I looked the word up in the dictionary. No luck. Over the years I never did find a dictionary definition or anyone who knew what it meant. Not until the all-knowing internet came along did I discover that obelist was an authorism, that is to say a word coined by an author. In this case, King invented obelist to mean one who harbors suspicion, for example an amateur sleuth.

With the renewed popularity of Golden Age of Detection fiction C. Daly King may be emerging from undeserved obscurity but I doubt his authorism (another new word to me!) is going to enter common use.

A Week in the Life of Dracula

by Mary

When I was in my mid-teens my favourite teacher was the fellow who taught the English class.

Given our age group, my classmates naturally considered it the height of wit to refer to him as Bugsy, due to rumours he had several children. Since he may well still be alive, I shall therefore cover his possible blushes by referring to him as Mr H. He didn't present the traditional portrait of a teacher, often visualized as garbed in trousers slightly baggy at the knees and a chalk-dusted tweed jacket with leather patches at the elbows. He was slight and otherwise average in appearance but he was certainly brilliant in his way of engaging the attention and interest of his class. His teaching was more in the mould of Mr Thackeray (the educator known as Sir in the Sidney Poitier film, not the author of Vanity Fair, whose pseudonyms included George Savage Fitz-Boodle)

At the start of our first class he told us he was a strict marker and rarely awarded, if memory serves, more than a middling grade. But if perchance he did, he went on, we should go home and lie down. The phrase will be familiar to long-time readers of various of my compositions because I pinched it, adding "with a damp cloth on your forehead" to round it out a bit.

When the topic was Shakespeare. members of the class took roles in the play under discussion and though remaining at their desks presented the chosen extract as a read-through. Of these miniature theatricals, one springing immediately to mind was from The History of The Life and Death of King John, which the toilers in the Maywrite Research Bureau inform me is one of the least performed of the Bard's creations.

On thus particular occasion, Mr H selected a conversation in which Philip Faulconbridge, a pivotal character in the play, takes part. Commonly known as Philip the Bastard, he claimed to be an illegitimate son of Richard the Lionheart, John's predecessor on the throne. As mentioned, the class was composed of teenagers, regarded by some who should know better as young savages whose language would shock a fish wife. However, the young lady chosen to take part in this excerpt refused to use Faulconbridge's nickname. Even tearaways have good hearts and her classmates did the right thing, nobly sparing her embarrassment by not sniggering whenever other characters used That Word.

Mr H usually presented us with a choice of homework essay topics. He possessed a robust sense of humour as demonstrated by the memorable afternoon when A Week In The Life of Dracula was on the list. I can only surmise he'd overheard a friend and I talking about how much we liked Hammer Films' presentations of such sanguinary tales of teeth and terror because I doubt he knew we'd stolen out of the building the previous Friday afternoon to catch a matinee screening of one such extravaganza at the local cinema, It was the only time we braved our formidable principal's wrath by decamping early but really teenagers must rebel at times, is it not so?

In any event, my colourful account of seven days in Transylvania received the best mark of any essay I wrote for Mr H. For reasons now forgotten I was unable to skive off and go home early in search of a cloth to dampen and apply to my forehead. Just as well perhaps, for as Demosthenes (the orator, not the actor) cautioned unexpected success often leads to extravagant acts, or as we would have said then "Don't push your luck, mate."

When my first short mystery story was accepted -- it was Aunt Ba's Story, broadcast on the BBC World Service -- I was so thrilled I wrote to Mr H at the school address to tell him and received a really nice congratulatory letter back. It meant a lot to me and still does. So Mr H. if you should happen to stumble over these reminiscences, a doff of the chapeau to you for your kindness in encouraging an apprentice writer and an all-round good egg to boot.

And that's no yolk!

Review: The Twenty-One Clues by J. J. Connington

by Mary

Much of the plot of The Twenty-One Clues revolves around members of the dwindling congregation of the Church of Awakened Israel, among them wealthy Mrs Victoria Alvington. She's made a will favouring her son Arthur and niece Helen, having disinherited her other son Edward and barred him from her house because he had the nerve to get a divorce. His divorce also cost him his deaconship in the church, largely due to the hue and cry raised by its minister, John Barrett. Mrs Alvington has been generous to the church, which Arthur and Helen don't like since it means less for them when the time comes. What's worse, Barratt is a frequent visitor to the Alvington home and has a fair bit of influence over Mrs Alvington's decisions.

Helen, the minister's wife, isn't much interested in church matters, regarding the congregation as of a lower class than herself. Nor does she care Mrs Esther Callis, wife of the church treasurer, seems rather keen on Barratt. Helen's not the only person who's noticed and others have been kind enough to mention it to her. Then there's Stephen Kerrison, possessor of a vicious tongue and successfully sued for slander twice. He's also narrow-minded, kills stray cats, and strongly disapproves of local couples dallying on a bracken-covered slope overlooked by the house he shares with his mother. Then there's Miss Maldon, a confirmed snooper according to local reporter Peter Diamond, and one not adverse to tattling about other people's business.

Adding to the undercurrents swirling about the congregation: a poisoned pen writer's scribbles are accusing members of impropriety.

Scandal erupts after a couple connected to the church are found dead among the aforementioned bracken, both shot in the head and a pistol and two suitcases lying nearby. A receipt showing the suitcases were deposited in the left luggage office at the local main line station the day before and two rail tickets to London are found in the dead man's jacket pocket. Torn love letters are strewn around the pair. The circumstances strongly suggest well-laid plans to elope so what caused this last-minute suicide pact? Or was it murder -- or possibly even a murder-suicide? Other possibilities exist...

During his investigation Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield quotes a rhyme neatly summarising the information needed to solve a crime:

What was the crime? Who did it?
When was it done? And where?
How done? And with what motive?
Who in the deed did share?

Some answers to these questions are immediately obvious but others are much more difficult to establish as Driffield and Inspector Rufford unravel a case becoming more complicated the longer it remains unsolved. Readers will learn contemporary details about notepaper manufacture, fire-arm forensics, Victorian double-florins, and fingerprint analysis -- I particularly enjoyed the fascinating methods used by the postal authorities to catch poisoned pen letter writers. Missing common household items, a disappearing car, and the fate of the most recent collection at the Church of Awakened Israel all play their parts in advancing to the solution to the case, one of the most complicated I've read in recent months.

My Verdict: The Twenty-One Clues relates a case where readers might wish to have pencil and paper on hand to aid them untangling the plot. And yes, there are indeed twenty-one clues, as I ascertained when I went back and counted 'em after missing several on my first read-through. I particularly enjoyed the scene where Driffield, his old friend Wendover, and Diamond play "choose your clue" for its clever way of reminding readers what information the investigators possessed at that point and award The Twenty-One Clues an A.

E-text: The Twenty-One Clues

Sludge or Slum-Gullian?

by Mary

I collect unusual words and recently learned a new one: slum-gullian, courtesy of a gent we know in Virginia who also provided a photo of a large pot of same simmering on his wood stove. The ingredients: hamburger, tomato paste, and several vegetables. It immediately struck me as essentially the same recipe as that for a dish we call sludge, made from cooked mince stirred into spaghetti.

Investigation of slum-gullian uncovered more than one theory as to how it got its name. The most common explanation of this prime example of a portmanteau word is that it's composed of slum, in the sense of an area with poor housing conditions, and gullian, said to be English dialect for cesspool or mud. Not exactly the most enticing dish to appear on a menu but its culinary cousin sludge provides equally hearty vittles in the sort of weather Mr Maywrite writes about.

According to those who know about these things, the first literary reference to "slumgullion" occurs in Mark Twain's Roughing It, published in 1872 *, The dish shows up when the proprietor of a stagecoach stop serves it to the latest batch of travelers passing through, Twain among them. Though it bears the name, it's been argued it's not the genuine article since Twain refers to it as a beverage pretending to be tea "but there was too much dish-rag, and sand, and old bacon-rind in it to deceive the intelligent traveler."

Admittedly naming our culinary invention sludge hints at nosh almost as awful as that served to Twain but in its defence it is both warming and filling while also attractive to us for another reason.

Why? Because sludge requires only three items: a tin of mince, spaghetti sauce, and a packet of pasta, meaning its ingredients don't take up much storage space, This is important for us because we don't have much room to spare after stocking up the pantry in late autumn against those days or weeks when due to local geography and stretches of brutal winter weather our buggy cannot roll to town. Thus we purchase enough comestibles we calculate as sufficient to provide sustenance for 77 days, the longest period -- so far at least -- when grocery shopping was just not possible. The most difficult time we've had in that regard was several years ago when we almost ran out of coffee. The horror! The horror!

Whatever way you spell it slum-gullian is a word to gladden wordsmiths' hearts, just crying out to be used in a limerick. Here's my attempt at

Boarding house owner Miss Mulligan
Claimed to serve genuine slum-gallian
Her paying guests cried
You stand there and lie!
Where's its bacon-rind scraps, you rapscallion?

Perhaps Miss Mulligan would have been better served by providing her boarders with a hearty helping of the stew whose name she shared.

* Twain describes this entertaining travelogue as a record of several years of variegated vagabondizing. It's available on Gutenberg at: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3177/pg3177.txt