I was impressed and surprised with myself that by pure accident I managed to read this book on the same day ten years apart. That said I had no memories of the plot when I returned to this novel for a re-read.
Synopsis
‘Several days after private detective and poet Nigel Strangeways dines with Dr Piers Loudon and his family, the doctor vanishes, only for his legless corpse to be fished out of the river Thames. When his family ask Nigel to protect their interests during the police investigation, it soon becomes apparent that each member of the deceased’s family, from his adopted son to his daughter’s unpleasant fiancée, had a strong motive for killing him. As the winter fog swirls outside, Nigel must find his way through a maze of conflicting stories, missing diaries and red herrings.’
Overall Thoughts
Like the Ferrars mystery that I reviewed in my last post, I picked up this Blake title as the premise intrigued me. The novel is concerned with a victim, called Dr Piers Loudron, who knows someone wishes to kill them. This is revealed to the reader via a diary extract at the start of the story. It is also shown that Loudron unusually does not want to thwart the murderer’s intentions: ‘… So there it is. He intends to kill me. And I must let him kill me. I’ve slept on it, and that is my conclusion, I owe it to him – or rather, to her.’ I felt this offered an interesting variation on the trope of murder for revenge, as in this scenario the prospective victim validates the need for that revenge.
Nevertheless, the doctor worries about how the deed will be done:
‘There are so many possibilities I must be on my guard not to guard against.’ Worries about the consequences of X becoming a murderer. Chapter one ends with a possible solution: ‘Forstall him. If I died before he could kill me – why didn’t that occur to me? – it would solve the whole problem. Justice would be done without making him a murderer. The high old Roman way out of trouble.’
Yet intentions do not always translate into actions and the diary entry at the opening of the novel provides interesting fragments of information, which leave the reader puzzling over how much of this is true and how well this information can aid us in putting together the whole situation. What parts is it leaving out?
Nicholas Blake’s series sleuth is Nigel Strangeways and in this tale he is living at Greenwich, with his partner Clare Massinger. They are invited to dine with Dr Piers, which enables us to get an outside perspective on the doctor and his family setup. The dinner quickly reveals how dysfunctional and irritable Loudron’s family are, with the domineering patriarch at the head of it. I can imagine it being an awkward place to dine if you’re a visitor. Although Nigel seems to have enjoyed himself well enough, comfortably excusing his host’s bad behaviour with the comment: ‘[…] excellent company – if you’re not a member of his family.’
Like several other mysteries of the time period, set in London, a key part of the setting is a thick fog and Blake has a nice way of describing it: ‘From the Thames a hoarse bellowing broke out, and like the pandemonium in a jungle when one great animal roars, it was followed by a series of hoots, yelps, bronchitic snorts and breathy howls as the river traffic crept cautiously through the mirk.’ The novel’s title also contains creature-based imagery and Dr Piers Loudron’s diary extract includes the first reference to it in the text: ‘I have always known mortal illness when I saw it – a man’s death first lifting up its little worm’s head within him […]’ However, we get a more sustained example when Clare talks about Nigel’s detecting style:
“Nigel insinuates himself into the confidence of the suspects – they’ve often no notion what a viper they’ve taken into their bosom until it’s too late. He worms his way along, deeper and deeper through the secret passages of people’s lives –.”
This shows sleuthing in a more morally ambiguous light. Interestingly, though the worm imagery peters out pretty quickly, which makes me wonder why Blake made it the name of his book, as it is not hugely pertinent to the plot.
Three days after the dinner party, Dr Piers disappears, and I enjoyed noting the reactions of the relevant parties to this development. It also leads to one of my favourite outbursts of the mystery. Walt Barn, Rebecca Loudron’s artistic love interest, is initially obsessed with finding out when Rebecca will inherit, if her father never turns up. He is very insensitive in the way he does this, so eventually Clare has enough of his poor behaviour:
‘Clare’s eyes blazed. Her long black hair swirled like smoke on a gusty day as she turned upon him. “To hell with where you come from! Do you think there’s some virtue in bad manners and moronic insensitivity? Does your being working-class give you a permit to behave like a bloody-minded little clown? No, you wait, young Walt Barn, I’ve not finished with you! People like you make me sick. You boast of your poverty and your slum origins: you behave as if they give you a divine dispensation from showing ordinary human decency. I’m just a plain, blunt proletarian painter, so I don’t have to think about anyone else’s feelings. Van Gogh was uncouth, Van Gogh was a genius, therefore I’ll show them I’m a genius by behaving uncouthly. Lovely logic, isn’t it? Exhibitionism as the short cut to success, eh […] But you’ll never make a good painter till you’ve learnt that the artist must be anonymous. So for God’s sake stop splashing your virility over everyone and keep it for your canvases.”’
This was a great moment for ‘spitfire’ Clare and Walt responds well to this rebuke. It is such a shame though that we don’t see enough of Clare in the plot. I love how she takes no nonsense from the other characters. Her independence and her passion for her sculpting work also make her an engaging character.
Initially, at the start of the tale, we are more in the know than Nigel, as the culprit ensures he cannot find the relevant pages of Dr Piers’s diary entry. However, the absence of these pages opens up possibilities for the case in hand. In chapter 6 a more traditional mystery device is included. Nigel lists the family members next to his first thoughts about them and quotes of things they have said. This tabulating of information brings key ideas to the readers’ attention, which is helpful in case they have missed them, and it also encourages armchair sleuthing. I would say the police and Nigel conduct a very thorough investigation. Nevertheless, I did increasingly feel like they were doing a lot of work but not really getting anywhere, even when there was less than a hundred pages to go. The lack of progress made the middle of this book drag a lot. A second murder is required to break the investigative stalemate, although the victim would come under the heading too dumb to live, as they take no heed of any of the danger signs preceding their demise. However, it could be said that Nigel nearly joins this category too…
Even with a second murder to detect, a trap is still needed for Nigel to unmask the killer. It is a trap he makes without any backup, and it is one that Nigel knowingly walks into under-prepared. If it wasn’t for Clare, Nigel would have been a goner. Whilst Nigel’s lack of forethought is irritating, Clare’s subversive assistance is interesting. Clare is proof that Nicholas Blake could write female characters with agency. It is just a pity he didn’t populate his books with very many of them (this is more of an issue in the later novels I think). The choice of killer is dissatisfyingly convenient, although very much representative of cultural anxieties of the time. Given the interesting diary setup at the beginning, the ending is rather disappointing and lacking in surprise. I think Blake has used diary extracts more creatively in earlier stories, most notably in The Beast Must Die (1938). I feel like Blake earlier in his writing career would have done something more engaging with the puzzle element of the story. In addition, the diary extract which closes the novel is less effective than the opening one. Firstly, it repeats the whole diary extract used at the beginning and then the new passages repeat information we already know. They don’t tell us anything new, nor add to our understanding of the characters. I would have preferred more time with Nigel, Clare, and the surviving suspects, as we have no idea what happens to them. It feels like a part is missing.
Rating: 3.5/5
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