I, Said the Fly (1945) by Elizabeth Ferrars

Recently, I treated myself to 8 Elizabeth Ferrars novels, which you can see in the photo below:

Top Row: Death of a Minor Character and The Clock That Wouldn’t Stop. Middle Row: A Murder Too Many, The Other Devil’s Name, Remove the Bodies (Toby Dyke Mystery) and I Said the Fly. Bottom Row: Something Wicked and The Crime and The Crystal.

I went for a smattering of earlier titles, published pre-1960, which I feel is when she wrote her best non-series mysteries. But I also added to my collection of later Ferrars novels, dipping into two series which she only started writing in the final 17 years of her life. These two series are her Virginia and Felix Freer series and her Professor Andrew Basnett series. Yet despite being late creations I think these light-hearted mysteries hold together well plot-wise. Ferrars was surprisingly consistent in that way. The only major dud I encountered by her was a 1970s mystery entitled Breath of Suspicion (1972). Today’s read is said to be one of Ferrars’ favourite books.

Synopsis

‘One day in spring, 1941, Kay Bryant walked along the bombed London street in which she had rented a bed-sitting-room before the war. She had come to see what the Blitz had done to Little Carberry Street, but now that she had seen its emptiness and stillness there was a chance she might be able to forget some of the horror associated with No. 10 and at last blot out its grim memories or murder. It began when a gun was found hidden in the room of a new tenant – a gun which proved to be the weapon used against the room’s former occupant, found shot on Hampstead Heath. The police, led by Inspector Cory, were convinced that the murderer would be found among the denizens of No. 10, yet to Kay this seemed impossible, for all of them were her friends. But as she talked with them about the murder, each put forward the name of a different suspect, and each made out an undeniably strong case. One of them had judged correctly, and a further death took place.’

[I removed the last bit of the original Collins Crime Club blurb as I think if you remember it, it might spoil the read.]

Overall Thoughts

The title is not the be-all and end-all for me when it comes to my mystery fiction reading. Certain titles might bring a book to my attention for closer inspection, or I might find one quite amusing. Yet I wouldn’t often say titles impact my reading experience. Today’s read though is one of those exceptions. It is an intriguing literary allusion, as on first glance (and first Google) it could potentially be alluding to more than one poem. It is not until the denouement that Ferrars pins down precisely which poem she is alluding to and why. Literary allusion themed titles can sometimes feel forced, but I enjoyed how this one is a slippery clue which fits in well with the plot. I would say Ferrars even includes a red herring in the story to wrongfoot you over the title, which I found unusual.

I, Said the Fly is a retrospective mystery with a framing device bookending it. Interestingly the framing device is dated as being in 1941 at the beginning, but the closing segment dates it as being in 1942. I assume this is an error, as there is nothing to suggest in the text that that much time has elapsed.  I think the wartime setting of the framing device works well as a setup for an extended flashback set in 1939, pre-WW2 commencing.  On the opening page we are told that:

‘Little Carberry Street in those days had been pretty squalid. But now the squalor, like a far earlier respectability, had entirely departed. The era of bugs, bawdy houses, dirty lace curtains, barrel-organs, shrieking children and detective-inspectors had been blotted out by the bombs and the demolition-squads between them. Desolation had taken their place. Kay found it a very curious discovery.’

The reader encounters a cacophony of street sounds in this passage, which resurrect the life of street before the war. Yet tagged on to the end of the list is the mention of the police, which is the first hint we have of a murder having taken place there in the past. Moreover, it seems like the bombing is not being depicted as wholly negative in its destructiveness. It arguably has had a levelling effect. Nevertheless, we get a feeling that Kay Bryant has had unfinished business with the street:

‘Yet as she started walking away a feeling almost of relief came over her, a feeling that she wondered at, that she had not expected. It was as if, now that she had seen this emptiness and stillness, this end of so many things, there was a possibility that she might at last find herself forgetting some of the horror that had happened while she lived there, a possibility that this visit to a bomb-wrecked street might help along the blotting-out of some grim memories of murder.’

All in all, this leads us up nicely to the flashback.

Kay Bryant in 1939 was 29 years old, parted from her husband, and she is shown to be struggling with reintegrating into the world of work. The discussion between her and Pamela Fuller (new tenant) allows the reader to get the lay of the land and find out more about the other people who live there. Ferrars closes the first chapter with the discovery of the gun, and I think this scene is particularly well-crafted from a drama point of view but also from a clue-puzzle one.

The start of the novel also sows the seeds of a sitcom-ish romance for Kay, as fellow tenant Charlie Boyce always rings her doorbell when he has gone out drinking and has forgotten his key, with the plan being she chucks her key out the window for him to use. He then flirts when he brings the key back upstairs. But with murder in their midst, are there not also seeds of doubt and mistrust? I like how this aspect of the plot is integrated into the mystery, showing that Ferrars could use the romance subplot in less conventional ways.

Murder is not treated like a game in this story, and I felt Ferrars portrays her characters’ reactions to the news and police photo of the dead ex-tenant well. The author captures the seriousness of the occasion without being too bleak and she also considers the social impact the murder will have on her characters, their private lives poked into. The introduction of jewellery theft adds a further interesting dimension to the case as well.

This is a dialogue driven mystery, but that does not mean it is without physical clues and I like how even the location of where the gun was found has far more significance and meaning than you would first suspect. Mysteries with a lot of dialogue are not always a success. Having re-read Three Act Tragedy (1934) by Agatha Christie this month, listening to an audio version, I must admit the high amount of dialogue really did not work well for me, not because of the volume of it, but due to the personalities of the characters delivering it and due to the cyclical contents of the dialogue. The combination was a dull one to say the least. The same cannot be said for Ferrars’ book which keeps the reader’s attention going throughout and I think this is partially due to her knack for depicting relationship nuances and complexities with a gently comic hue. (I am not saying Christie could not do this, I just don’t think Three Act Tragedy specifically manages to do this in an interesting way).

The ending of Ferrars’ mystery underwhelmed fellow blogger Tomcat, who had enjoyed more the Anthony Berkeley-esque discussion of possible solutions by the tenants, and I can see why the denouement might have that effect. In some ways I can’t fully decide if I am underwhelmed or not. In the final quarter of the book Ferrars includes a trope (that has been built up to) which I think gives the solution a ‘slightly unfair solution’ as The Criminal Record in The Saturday Review puts it. Yet, due to the way it is used and feeds into the reason for the story having a framing device, I think Ferrars was trying to do something different with it, which I did find interesting. This ambiguity is shared by The Criminal Record reviewer, who also said this novel was ‘oddly effective’. However, I am not entirely sure she pulls it off 100% successfully, as I think it will leave readers with anything from a lingering feeling of dissatisfaction to full on rage and annoyance. It very much depends on your attitude towards the trope in question and how it is handled. I haven’t mentioned it, as I think that would alter the reading experience. I feel it is this aspect of the book which affected my final rating the most. Perhaps if this trope had been deployed slightly differently, the finale would have had a more satisfying effect.

Rating: 4.25/5