About the author: John Dickson Carr (1906 – 1977) was an American author, who also published using the pseudonyms Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson, and Roger Fairbairn. He lived in England for a number of years, and is often grouped among "British-style" mystery writers. Most (though not all) of his novels had English settings, especially country villages and estates, and English characters. His two best-known fictional detectives (Dr. Gideon Fell and Sir Henry Merrivale) were both English. (excerpt from this Wikipedia article.)
Major characters:
- Donald Holden, our protagonist, returned from the war
- * Celia Devereux, his former love
- * Margot Marsh, née Devereux, Celia's older sister, now deceased
- * Thorley Marsh, Margot's now former husband
- * Sir Danvers Locke, mask collector
- * Danvers' wife (unnamed)
- * Doris Locke, his daughter
- * Ronnie Merrick, friend of Doris
- * Derek Hurst-Gore, Member of Parliament
- Obey, the Devereux's nurse
- Dr. Eric Shepton, a G.P.
- Dr. Gideon Fell
Locale: England
Synopsis: Donald Holden returns from the war and wants to look up his former love, Celia Devereux, in hopes she is still single, and wants to rekindle their relationship. A possible wrinkle is that he was in intelligence work, and M.I. 5 publicized the "fact" that he was dead. All he knows is that Celia is living with her sister, Margot, at No. 1 Gloucester Gate. He learns Celia may be involved with a M.P., Derek Hurst-Gore.
He goes to Gloucester Gate and meets Margot's (now former) husband, Thorley Marsh. Thorley tells him that Margot has died, and Celia doesn't want to see him; and that she has psychological problems.
He learns Margot died following a party at the Sir Danvers Locke home, Widestairs. The party (attended by those with an asterisk above), was a Murder Game and the participants wore masks from Locke's collection of death masks. After the party, Thorley, Margot, and Celia returned to the Devereux family home, Caswell Moat. Margot reclined on a lounge in her room and was soon dead.
Celia claims Margot had been poisoned, but no one believes her. The others cite this as indicative of her insanity. If murder, motives abound: Thorley has been in an affair with Sir Danvers' young daughter, Doris Locke; and now plans to marry her. Margot had been in an affair with an unnamed man.
Holden and Celia enlist Dr. Gideon Fell to investigate Margot's death and prove Celia is not insane. First, he inspects the sealed vault where Margot is interred, to find coffins in disarray and the poison bottle. And the bottle has Celia's fingerprints all over it.
Review:
This is pretty much two separate stories in one: Margot's murder, and the restless coffins inside a locked mausoleum. They do connect briefly.
I had a bit of trouble figuring out the three venues of the story, but here they are:
- No. 1 Gloucester Gate, London: home of Thorley and Margot Marsh, and Celia
- Caswell Moat: Devereux ancestral home
- Widestairs: home of the Lockes
The character Thorley was the most interesting to follow - is he a good husband or a cad? Or maybe a murderer? His marriage is certainly a shambles as he and Margot each have affairs with others.
The story line of the restless coffins looks to me like a verbatim copy of the Chase Vault episode of the 1800's in Barbados, complete with sand spread on the floor to detect footprints (see Wikipedia article). Perhaps that was the inspiration for this story line - the story notes it was a sensation early in the century, and followed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment