Review: The Bat by Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary

Everyone in the city, from millionaires to the shady citizens of the underworld, goes in fear of The Bat. All that is known of him is like his namesake "he chose the night hours for his work of rapine; like a bat he struck and vanished, pouncingly, noiselessly; like a bat he never showed himself to the face of the day". The media scream in vain for his arrest. Such was his tawdry fame that, inevitably, "a popular revue put on a special Bat number wherein eighteen beautiful chorus girls appeared masked and black-winged in costumes of Brazilian bat fur; there were Bat club sandwiches, Bat cigarettes, and a new shade of hosiery called simply and succinctly Bat".

But the fact remains the Bat was a cold-blooded loner whose crimes range from jewel theft to murder and whose calling card was a drawing or some other form of expression of bathood.

Detective Anderson asks his chief to be transferred to the Bat case. His superior is reluctant, because his other best investigator, Wentworth, was killed by The Bat. However, Anderson insists, having been a friend of the dead man, and so his chief, convinced Anderson will meet the same fate as Wentworth, promises the next time the Bat strikes and a new case is opened Anderson will be transferred to work on it.

We next meet wealthy, elderly, and independent spinster Miss Cornelia Van Gorder, scion of a noble family and the last of the line. An adventurous spirit, at 65 and comfortably situated, she still longs for a bit of an adventure. It maddens her to think of the sensational experiences she is missing as she contemplates that "...out in the world people were murdering and robbing each other, floating over Niagara Falls in barrels, rescuing children from burning houses, taming tigers, going to Africa to hunt gorillas, doing all sorts of exciting things!" Why, she'd love to have a stab at catching The Bat given half a chance!

But all is not lost, for having taken a house in the country for the summer Miss Van Gorder finds herself within twenty miles from the very area wherein the Bat had committed three crimes. Courtleigh Fleming, owner of the house, has died, and the bank of which he was president just failed, possibly because Mr Bailey, its cashier, has stolen over a million dollars -- or so it is said.

Since Miss Van Gorder's arrival at the Fleming mansion strange things have happened: she has received an anonymous letter advising her to leave, the lights mysteriously went off one evening, her butler claims he spied someone looking into the kitchen, and Lizzie Allen, Miss Van Gorder's personal maid for decades, is convinced she saw a strange man on the stairs.

Miss Van Gorder's niece, Dale Ogden, is a guest and her aunt senses she is unhappy about something, perhaps an affair of the heart. As the story opens, Dale has a phone call and goes off to the city. While she is there she will look for a gardener. After she departs, it transpires the cook and housemaid have decided to leave for obviously false reasons. Despite all persuasion, Miss Van Gorder states she *will* remain in the house with or without a full staff, but as it happens an agency promises replacements in three days. Until then they will just have to manage with the aid of the butler and the hoped-for gardener.

And then adventure makes its appearance in Miss Van Gorder's life, for in the morning post there comes another anonymous letter stating "If you stay in this house any longer--DEATH. Go back to the city at once and save your life". Being a stubborn person, Miss Van Gorder decides to handle the matter not by calling in the authorities but by ensuring the numerous windows and doors of the house are kept locked and by making a phone call, the recipient of which we are not told at that point.

She is practicing with a revolver she purchased for a trip to China when Dale arrives with the news a gardener will be there to take up his duties that evening. After dark a storm begins to rise while Dale goes off to the local country club to visit Richard Fleming, the deceased house owner's nephew and heir, who lives at the club. Miss Van Gorder, left with her maid and the butler, finds herself growing nervous. So she gets out the ouija board and she and a very reluctant Lizzie hold a session. The board first spells out a string of nonsense and then B-A-T.

Not long afterwards, Brooks, the new gardener, arrives. The advancing tempest knocks out the lights and the stage is set for various characters to flit in and out a many doored and windowed living room lit most of the time only by candle and firelight. The Bat is based upon a stage play and I imagine one that must have had its audiences perched on the edge of their seats a fair bit of the time.

My verdict: I would describe The Bat as related to the old dark house mystery, with enough obfuscation to keep the reader guessing although one or two surprises are less well concealed. I found it a light, diverting read which held the interest without taxing the attention too much and would sum up The Bat as an excellent cold-night-outside read.

Etext: The Bat by Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Rinehart

Break Out the Bubbly!

by Eric

The Yankees clinched a playoff spot over the weekend, a few days before the official publication date for Murder in Megara so, as a baseball fan and writer, it has been a good week for me. When I read about the Yankees' clubhouse champagne celebration I recalled the last time I had champagne, on the first of January, outside in the cold and snow, at Mendon Ponds Park in Rochester, New York. The C.A.T.S. running club put on a New Years Day 10K race. Beyond the finish line, in the icy parking lot, folding tables held boxes of bagels and plastic cups of bubbly.

The park terrain was formed by ancient ice sheets so we ran up and down a confusion of hills and hollows, puffing steam, our procession gradually lengthening as fast runners pulled away from those of us laboring behind. There is one particularly steep incline curving around the hill into which ancient ice gouged out a kettle pond called The Devil's Bathtub. I can still see clearly that challenge rearing up in my path. Heavily bundled, early morning dog walkers gave us perplexed stares as we passed, warmed only by light sweats and our own efforts.

I loved running. There's a camaraderie in getting together to do something pointless and stupid simply because you can. It's exhilarating. In retrospect. At the time, at the five mile mark, where the route turned out of the park onto a slushy highway exposed to a raw north wind, I wondered what the hell I'd been thinking to sign up for this.

That was a long time ago. Longer than it seems because after my back decided I could no longer run I kept making sporadic attempts and held out hope. Now it has become obvious that running is a chapter that's finished. It was one of my favorite chapters.

Running is simple. It rewards your efforts. If you put in the miles you improve. Unlike the arts where efforts can go forever unrecognized. Nor is there the subjective quibbling artistic works are subject to. At the end of the race the clock gives each competitor the objective, inarguable truth. There's no room for critics. Blowhards can't change reality or promote themselves into prominence.

These days my endeavors are limited to activities which do not require healthy of spinal discs. Things like writing. Today Murder in Megara is out. It is always exhilarating when a new novel appears. The writing itself can be grueling. With each bend in the plot a writer is confronted by new challenges. And towards the end, when we're already exhausted, rewriting feels like running an endless straight-away into a bitter north wind. Now that the finish line has been crossed maybe we should break out the bubbly.

Review: The Man In Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary

Lawrence "Lollie" Blakely, narrator of The Man In Lower Ten, is a partner in the Washington law firm of Blakeley and McKnight. In this novel he describes "the strange events on the Pullman car Ontario, between Washington and Pittsburgh, on the night of September ninth, last".

Blakeley is going to Pittsburgh to take a deposition from John Gilmore, an ailing millionaire and the prosecution's chief witness in a big forgery case. Strictly speaking, it is his partner Richard McKnight's turn to take the journey, but he's cried off, claiming he's "always car sick crossing the mountains." However, the real reason, as Lollie well knows, is McKnight wishes to visit a girl he loves, as on a number of previous weekends.

While Lollie is packing a bag, McKnight drops in to give him certain vital documents relating to the forgery case. During his visit, even before Lollie sets out on his journey, mysteries start to gather. Who is the woman McKnight claims to see staring into Lollie's room from a house across the way, a house that has supposedly been empty a year? McKnight connects this strange event with the documentation Lollie is to carry, and advises him to guard it with every care, for its loss will mean disaster for the prosecution.

So Lollie visits Gilmore's house, where he notices a framed photo of a lovely girl named Alison, Gilmore's granddaughter. Needless to say, this photo makes quite an impression on Lollie. Having obtained Gilmore's deposition, Lollie visits a restaurant for a meal before taking the overnight train back to Washington, and while dining notices a couple whose relationship seems rather strained and that the man is somewhat intoxicated. At the station, he is just about to buy his sleeping berth for the return journey when a woman unknown to him asks him to buy her a lower berth when he purchases his, as she has been traveling in upper berths for three nights.

I would have thought anyone approached by a stranger in this fashion, and especially a lawyer, would consider it somewhat odd, the more so given the social mores of the time. In any event, Lollie being a gentleman obliges. Given the choice of berths, he gives the lady lower eleven and takes lower ten for himself.

However, when he goes to his berth later that evening he finds the man from the restaurant snoring away in it, evidently having mistaken it for his due to his intoxicated condition, and so Lollie instead occupies lower nine. But sleep eludes Lollie, so he is up and about in his jammies and bathrobe while just about everyone else aboard is in the arms of Morpheus. He eventually retires to bed and wakes up next day to find his clothing and bag (wherein is locked the vital legal evidence) missing and the man in lower ten murdered.

Forced to wear the clothing left behind by whoever stole his clobber and due to circumstantial evidence of a convincing nature, Lollie is suspected of the murder. He is saved from arrest by perhaps one of the most outrageous deux ex machina in detective fiction: a train crash in which he and one or two others are the only survivors.

But to be fair, this crash later leads to an important pointer on a line of enquiry in the investigation of the murder, although this pointer is one whose method of appearance rather strains credulity.

Suspected of murder, Lollie (arm is broken in the crash) returns home and finds himself plunged into all manner of strange goings on. With his partner McBride and one or two helpers he tries to find out the who and why of the death, while himself being shadowed by the police and fighting a growing attraction to McBride's light o' love.

The Man In Lower Ten is written in MRR's usual light style but offers a fairly dense plot with an occasional red herring and a large cast of characters bound together in occasionally unexpected ways. Narrator Lollie is not as giddy as some of her protagonists, though there are dollops of humour here and there. Ultimately the mystery is tied up in a satisfactory fashion. I haven't read all the author's works yet, but enjoyed this one, not least because it's a sort of locked room mystery -- but not quite. My eye always lights up when I see plans of houses or rooms or fragments of documents reproduced in the text, and this novel features a sketch of the carriage where the murder was committed although its role is minimal compared to what is revealed in similar diagrams included in, say, Agatha Christie's works.

Etext: The Man In Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Review: The Opal Serpent by Fergus Hume

by Mary

After falling out with his boorish country gentleman father, Paul Beecot ups and goes to London to make his way as a writer. There he rents a Bloomsbury garret and while not setting the literary world ablaze manages to get along although only just this side of falling into debt. Then he finds himself caught up in evil events.

It all starts when one afternoon he happens to meet his old public schoolmate Grexon Hay in Oxford Street. Hay is turned out like the proverbial dog's dinner but condescends to share Paul's supper of plump sausages. During their conversation over the bangers, Paul talks about his beloved, Sylvia Norman, whose father Aaron runs a second-hand book shop with a bit of pawnbroking on the side, or rather in the cellar. Alas, Paul and Sylvia cannot marry until he can support a wife and they have said nothing to her father for fear he will forbid Paul to visit.

Apparently Aaron Norman has "the manner of a frightened rabbit" and seems to be always looking over his shoulder with his one good eye. Obviously something fishy is going on there, but what?

Even stranger, when he sees the titular opal, diamond, and gold brooch, Aaron faints. Shown the brooch during their dinner, Hay makes an offer for it, but Paul refuses because it is his mother's and he prefers to pawn it so he can hopefully redeem it in due course.

We now meet the memorable Deborah Junk, servant of the Norman household and devoted to Sylvia. By far the most colourful person in the novel, her unique style of conversation would not disgrace a working class character created by Dickens, and when she is on-stage she dominates the scene.

But there's plenty going on when she's engaged elsewhere. Why did Aaron Norman faint when he saw the serpent brooch? Who is the man who warns Beecot against Hay, describing the latter as "a man on the market", and what does the curious phrase mean? Why did an Indian visitor to Aaron Norman's book emporium leave a pile of sugar on the counter? Does a truly ghastly guttersnipe born to hang know more than he lets on?

My verdict: The Opal Serpent contains some surprisingly strong content, such as certain comments made by the murderer, which would be disturbing even in this day and age, while the method used to kill the victim in full view of others is so awful I was surprised to find it in a novel of this vintage. Plus the use to which the brooch is put is equally grim.

This novel trots along at a steady pace with as many twists and turns as a serpent as it slithers its way to a rip-roaring denouement, and I must say the plot certainly underlines the traditional belief opals are unlucky! Recommended.

Etext: The Opal Serpent by Fergus Hume

Review: Jack O' Judgement by Edgar Wallace

by Mary

The novel opens on a snowy night with the murder of drug addict "Snow" Gregory, found with a jack of clubs in his pocket. Some whisper he could tell a lot about the wealthy and exceedingly shady businessman Colonel Dan Boundary, a classic example of an honourable title assumed by a dishonourable man. Now of course Gregory is silent forever.

The colonel subsequently receives several jacks of clubs from an anonymous source, and not being one to hesitate when his life is in danger, goes to see Stafford King of the CID. You might say he knows King by way of business in that the investigator has spent the past three years trying to smash Boundary's gang of associates, an unsavoury bunch but as yet unprosecuted. For while Boundary's business acquisitions are on the surface above board, the method by which they were obtained is not, but the problem is proving it. The irony of this visit is not lost on King.

Next we meet the odious Pinto Silva, a stage door johny enamoured of theatrical artiste Maisie White, who dislikes him intensely. Silva belongs to Boundary's bunch, and other members include Maisie's father Solomon White. Solly now wants to break away from them. Will he literally turn King's evidence and blow the whistle on the criminal syndicate?

Another gang member, er, associate is Lollie Marsh, a femme fatale whom Boundary has set to follow King. She discovers King is spending a lot of time with Maisie. Meantime, Boundary tries to blackmail the girl into agreeing to tie the knot with Pinto -- he's already married but says he will get a divorce, the cur -- by threatening if she refuses her father will be framed for forgery.

But then Boundary is arrested and brought to trial for blackmail and conspiracy.

Meantime, the mysterious Jack o' Judgment whose calling card is the jack of clubs keeps popping up, a strange, almost supernatural, shrill-voiced figure disguised in a long black silk coat, slouch hat, and a face concealed by a white silk hanky. Jack makes it his business to stick spokes in Boundary and company's various wheels and does it extraordinarily well. Indeed his machinations are so troubling Boundary offers a hundred thousand pounds to anyone who can rid him of that pestilent Jack.

The mystery here is two-fold. Who is Jack and will he succeed in bringing to justice all the members of Boundary's gang? And just as importantly what is his motive?

My verdict: The answers to these conundrums certainly caught me by surprise. Boundary and company are particularly nasty villains, not above kidnapping and murder, and readers will likely cheer Jack on despite his illegal activities as they are carried along at the gallop to a satisfying conclusion.

Etext: Jack O' Judgement by Edgar Wallace

Review: The Canary Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine

by Mary

Broadway beauty Margaret Odell, dubbed The Canary after her rise to fame playing that yellow avian at the Follies, is found murdered in her flat. The only way to enter or exit her building after 6 pm, when the side door is bolted, is through the front entrance, clearly visible from a telephone switchboard manned 24 hours a day. The side door is still bolted when Miss Odell is discovered strangled, her flat ransacked, and valuable jewelry missing. Yet nobody was seen entering or leaving her home during the relevant period.

Miss Odell has kept company with a number of admirers at one time or another and their ranks provide the suspects: socialite Charles Cleaver, wealthy manufacturer Kenneth Spotswoode, fur importer Louis Mannix, and neurologist Dr Lindquist, not to mention professional burglar Tony Skeel. Philo Vance investigates to the babble of his usual erudite running commentary, seeking answers to such questions as how did the murderer get into Miss Odell's flat without being observed? What was the motive? Could more than one person be involved?

My verdict: The novels in this series always require some suspension of belief, what with Vance and his biographer/narrator Van Dine traipsing around crime scenes with the connivance of DA Markham, in this entry to the extent of lying about in Miss Odell's flat smoking themselves silly. Then there's the question of Vance being permitted to participate in police interviews. But if you lock your disbelief in the cupboard the story rattles along quite well, or at least until the closing stages wherein the identity of the murderer is deduced via a poker game in DA Markham's home, a daring stroke of plotting, I admit, but somehow it felt curiously flat. This is probably because I'm not a poker player so the lengthy explanation needed acted as a brake on the action for me. And how did the murderer get into the locked flat unseen? GAD fans will probably know the method from elsewhere but my gripe is Vance coneals the necessary information from Markham *and* the reader until very late in the game. So ultimately a bit of a disappointment for this reviewer at least.

Etext: The Canary Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine

Review: The Dragon Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine

by Mary

The Dragon Murder Case is kicked off when weekend house-guests on the Stamm estate decide to go for a nocturnal swim during torrid weather. All of them have been imbibing too much alcohol and when one of the men dives into Dragon Pool...he vanishes.

The estate itself is an oddity, being situated in a heavily wooded rocky area of Manhattan and yet more or less cut off from the busy city. Mine host is exotic fish fancier and semi alcoholic Rudolph Stamm. Also present is his sister Bernice, fiancee of Montague, the man who went missing. Then there is stockbroker and family financial advisor Alex Greeff, dissipated man about town Kirwin Tatum, widowed Mrs Teeny McAdam, who may have been a past flame of Montague's, Ruby Steele, an artiste much enamoured of dramatic gestures, and the level-headed Mr Leland, who lives in a cottage on the estate and is routinely insulted by certain guests for his Native American blood. Most of them have reason to wish Montague ill and none seem particularly upset about his death. In addition, Rudolph Stamm's ailing mother, given to oracular announcements and mentally unwell, lives under the care a nurse on the top floor of the mansion and tells the investigators rambling stories of the strange sights she has seen, such as the flying dragon who protects the family.

Once Philo Vance and company are called in, events unfold in sometimes startling fashion, most notably when Dragon Pool is drained. The operation discloses a trail made across its silt floor by l4" long feet, accompanied by prints from a three-clawed beast. Could the latter be the dragon of local and family legends?

My verdict: It's always fun trying to work out how a seemingly impossible crime is carried out. My theory on how a body could be removed from the pool without other guests noticing was nothing like the solution advanced by Vance -- and mine was (of course) wrong. Bizarre as it is, Vance's explanation is workable in the scene as given, even though it must be one of the most outrageous methods to remove a corpse without being discovered in the act ever utilised in a mystery. An aside: readers will learn Vance bred exotic fish as well as Scotties. Is there nothing Vance can't undertake?

Etext: The Dragon Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine