Hanged Man’s House is my latest pick from my unread Ferrars novels, and it is a non-series title this time. The synopsis intrigued me, as it has a victim who is found hanging, but who did not die from strangulation, and the victim’s home also contains another corpse, and a mummified one at that! This latter aspect certainly raised a few questions…
Synopsis
‘Dr Charles Gair was found hanged, but that was not what had killed him. this was the first of the bizarre surprises awaiting those who penetrated the home of the head of the Martindale research establishment on a Sunday morning to see what was amiss. Even more startling was the discovery in the house of a second body – perfectly mummified. When the mummy is identified, the mystery deepened. What had this foreign visitor, missing for more than a year, to do with the Martindale? Unless he had some connection with the attractive wife of the administrative officer who, like Gair’s wife, had left her husband but still wrote occasionally from distant corners of the world […]’
Overall Thoughts
Ferrars’ second husband, Robert Brown, had a scientific background as according to Wikipedia, he ‘was appointed Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Edinburgh, they lived in Edinburgh until shortly after his retirement in 1977.’ I wondered if this inspired the setting for this story of a scientific research unit. Ferrars would go on to create a series featuring an amateur sleuth called Andrew Basnett who is a retired professor of botany. That said no scientific knowledge is required to solve today’s mystery. Ferrars as a rule tends to use more character-based clues.
Our entry point into Hanged Man’s House is a pair of grown-up siblings: Valerie Bayne and Edmund Hackett. They are the neighbours of the hanging victim, who is in fact Edmund’s boss, Dr Charles Gair. I think Ferrars draws their relationship well. Valerie has only lived with her brother for a few years, after her own husband died in a rock-climbing accident. Initially we are told that:
‘He was forty and she was seven years younger, but her attitude to him, for as long as she could remember, even in their childhood, had been maternal. He had always seemed to need it. in his work he might be, indeed she was convinced that he was, extremely competent, but outside it he was a man who found the little practicalities of life almost impossible to deal with, his clothes, his papers, the acting of remembering where he had put something down, his health, or making important decisions, such as when he should have his hair cut or what thriller he should read next, all presented him with problems which it seemed were impossible for him to solve without Valerie’s advice and assistance.’
Whilst Valerie might lean into the caring role more naturally, it also seems like she is expected to be the “competent” one, and deviation from this role elicits a negative response:
‘“I sometimes think about the future […] Then I start wondering. I sometimes feel as if I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing with myself. But it’s just a mood, it’ll go.”
“You don’t usually go in for moods.”
There was a trace of complaint in Edmund’s voice. Moods were his privilege. So were uncertainties and indecision. Valerie was the one who was supposed never to be at a loss as to what should be done next.’
However, as the plot unfolds, I don’t think Edmund and Valerie remain rigidly in their sibling roles. Edmund does have the capacity to notice changes within Valerie and can see that she needs to spread her wings and develop her own life beyond looking after him and his house, which does have a bit of a 1930s-ish feel to it.
Edmund at the start of the novel complains of a poor night’s sleep, as he says he has been unwell and that Dr Gair’s dogs have kept him awake most of the night with their barking. Naturally as readers we know this is an indication that something has gone wrong. Valerie attempts to investigate but she is delayed by another character, a colleague of her brother’s called Hugh. He insists Valerie reads a recent letter by his wife who left him and his daughter five years ago. When this plot element is introduced, I was curious. Was it just a delaying tactic so we don’t get to the dead body too soon? Was it just to show how put upon Valerie is? I think this scene has more than one purpose, including sowing quite a few seeds for the ending. Moreover, it also allows us to see a viewpoint on life at the Martindale research unit from someone who couldn’t stand it. The letter mentions the downsides of living in an intense closed community:
‘I know I shan’t ever want to marry again. I can’t stand being tied to anyone and I can’t stand living the kind of life people expect of you if you’re married. That awful Martindale! The fearful gossip sessions over coffee. The scandals we used to whisper about one another. Perhaps things would have been better for you and me if we’d lived in London or some big town, then people wouldn’t have been able to watch every single thing I did and make me feel they all hated me.’
With Ferrars’ characters you are kept in a position of inquisitiveness as you query their actions and the motivations behind them. For example, it is Hugh who discovers the mummified body in the cellar of Dr Gair’s, inside an unlocked cupboard. But why did he go looking there in the first place? Did he get Valerie out of the way deliberately in order to do this?
Unsurprisingly, police interviewing reveals that Valerie and the others did not know as much about Charles as they first thought. Furthermore, it also shows that the police aren’t sure how much they can trust Valerie and Edmund. The reader, however, is more likely to regard them as innocent. Ferrars’ standalones tend to have a female lead who is not the killer, but who nevertheless gets caught up in a murder and in Valerie’s case she has some awkward explaining to do about her movements on the night of the crime.
There are times in this mystery, when you wonder why such and such a scene has been included or why we are told a piece of information and to the author’s credit all these parts are highly relevant to the solution. The answer to the case is very character driven, yet to add further complexity Ferrars is adept at disarming you in the way she describes her characters. I liked the solution as it was far more intricate than I was expecting, but if the book had been a bit longer then I think the author could have cemented the clues a bit more firmly. It felt like the police had to make some mental leaps to wrap up the case.
Rating: 4/5
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