Yeah, I Know the Muffled Man

The Mystery of the Muffled Man

Max Braithwaite

Toronto: Little, Brown, 1962

160 pages

Fifty-five years ago, The Mystery of the Muffled Man vied with Joe Holliday's Dale of the Mounted in Hong Kong as a Christmas gift for young, bookish nephews. I doubt either won, but it would not surprise

me if the former achieved greater sales. After thirteen volumes, Holliday's Dale of the Mounted books were getting tired; I think it worth noting that the Hong Kong adventure would be his last. Braithwaite's, on the other hand, was part of the Secret Circle, a new and exciting series driven by a survey of booksellers, librarians, teachers and, most importantly, Scarborough school children and their parents.

Results in hand, General Editor Arthur Hammond, set about recruiting what was described in a November 1962 press release as "the best available Canadian authors."

It seems that most were too busy.

The Secret Circle stable was very small,  containing veteran workhorses like Robert Collins, Lawrence Earl, David Gammon, and Scott Young. Hammond himself contributed two of the series' twelve books, while dictating length, plot points, and endings for the others.

The extent of Hammond's influence on The Mystery of the Muffled Man might make for an interesting paper, but I'm not the one to write it. Braithwaite's first novel, preceding Why Shoot the Teacher by three years, this one is a bit of a bore. It begins with a chilly wait for a train in

a northern Ontario mining town. Young Chris Summerville has been sent by his parents to meet his cousin, equally-young Carol Fitzpatrick, who will be visiting while her parents spend the Christmas holidays in Bermuda. Eventually, the train arrives, but before Chris meets Carol there is an altercation that will hang over the remainder of the novel. Chris's overly-friendly dog, Arthur, runs to greet the new arrivals, only to be clubbed by a "muffled man" who had emerged from the train. Carol later tells her cousin of some suspicious behaviour the muffled man exhibited on the train: pouring over maps, avoiding RCMP officers, and pretending to have a broken left arm.

There's little more worth reporting, except to say that The Mystery of the Muffled Man is a novel bereft of mystery. The character who clubs a dog is obviously the villain. Why is he in the northern Ontario mining town? Well, the only thing we know of the area's history is that there had been a bank robbery ten years earlier, and that the money was never found.

By far the most interesting thing about the novel is how little the muffled man figures. Accompanied by friend Dumont LePage, Chris and Carol decide to go ice fishing, get lost in the woods, climb an old fire tower to get their bearings, and discover an abandoned gold mine. After a cave-in separates him from the rest of the group, Chris sees the muffled man digging to retrieve the stolen loot and empties the bullets from his unattended rifle. Chris's father and two RCMP officers show up in the nick of time, resulting in this climactic passage:

"You stay here with the boy," Constable Scott said to Mr Summerville. "We'll deal with him." And, holding their guns at the ready, the two uniformed men moved down the tunnel.
     In five minutes it was over. The muffled man, trapped by the wall of fallen stone, and with an empty gun in his hands, was quickly overpowered.

Before dismissing The Mystery of the Muffled Man as the weakest novel read this year, it's only fair to acknowledge that it wasn't written with me in mind. The survey that informed the Secret Circle was conducted before I was even born. What's more, I've never so much as considered living in Scarborough.

Trivia: Jack McClelland once encouraged a hard-up Norman Levine to contribute to the series.

Object: A compact hardcover with eight illustrations of varying quality by Joseph Rosenthal. My copy, not nearly so nice as the one pictured above, was purchased three years ago at a London book store. Price: 60¢

Access: WorldCat records a grand total of two Canadian libraries holding the Little, Brown edition. It also lists a 1981 Bantam-Seal paperback, and something titled The Muffled Man (Scarborough: Nelson, 1990).

Interestingly, no copies of the Bantam-Seal and Nelson editions are on offer from online booksellers. The original Little, Brown came and went with a single printing. Though not many copies are listed online, it is cheap. Very Good copies begin at US$8.00. At US$30.10, the most expensive is an inscribed copy offered by an Ontario bookseller.

Remarkably, the novel has been translated into Dutch (Avontuur in een goudmijn) and Swedish (Mysteriet med den maskerade mannen).

Related posts:

Braithwaite's True First

Condensed CanLit
Dale's Dumb Luck; or, A Mountie Messes Up

Where Is Jenny Now?

Did she forget to pack pyjamas? Who wears shoes to bed? These questions and others are answered in my new review of Frances Shelley Wees' 1958 mystery, just posted at at the Canadian Notes & Queries website. You can read it here:

To Serve and To Serve and Protect

Regular readers may remember my praise for Wees' The Keys of My Prison, a mystery I liked so much that I worked to get it back into print as part of the Véhicule Press Ricochet Books series. Will history repeat itself? I somehow doubt it.

Related posts:

A Rival for Margaret Millar?

Romance and the Psychopath's Daughter

The Return of Frances Shelley Wees

Frustration, Part II: Paint a Vulgar Picture

So, how was your weekend?

Regular readers will remember that I ended last week's post on Henry C. Clayton's very, very bad Frustration by recommending the novel. There are several reasons why you should read it, and all have to do with the past.

Like any work of fiction – historical novels included – Frustration is of its time, and reveals a good deal about same. A News Stand Library title, it was sold through news stands, not book stores. A cheap thing, it was not built to last much beyond its November 1949 pub date. News Stand Library didn't last long either, but in its brief history, it published several novels about men who make a living as artists. My favourite is Artists, Models and Murder by Toronto-based comic book artist Tedd Steele.

You can see why these books appealed to post-war commuters. Painting nudes for a living is far preferable to, say, processing overdue payments in the accounts department at Sun Life.

Maybe that's just me.

Tony Pearce, the protagonist of Frustration, paints nudes for a living. Some of his canvasses end up in high-end Manhattan art galleries, but most are used in ads for Joyous Brassieres and more restrictive undergarment manufacturers: "The moguls of feminine underthings were well aware that the touch of genius in Tony's renderings of the body beautiful gave them an out-of-this-world quality which caused men to lick their lips and some wives to first fume, then rush out to buy the same type of girdle in the hope, never realized, that they would look like that." The most unusual thing about Tony's craft is revealed three pages into the novel:

There was the cynical, flippant Tony Pearce who painted gloss nudes, adroitly exaggerating a curve here on the bust, adding length to the thigh there, and so causing virile men to become restless and their wives to rage with futile envy. Tony never put the garments on his creations. They were added to the nude, with just the proper degree of transparency, by air-brush experts at the advertising agency.

Today's ad agencies would have no use for Tony – nor air-brush artists – though the manipulation of the female form continues. That in itself makes this novel interesting, but the main reason one should read Frustration has nothing to do with advertising.

Spoilers follow:

The murderer in Frustration – three bodies in total – is Tony's friend Eileen Henley. A talented artist, and smart as a whip, Eileen has by far the most attractive personality in the novel... and yet she is a spinster. To Tony, Eileen is beautiful in every single way except that she walks with "a slight limp." Minutes after meeting Eileen, Tony turns to his agent, Johnny Kozak, and says: "I liked her. Too bad she's crippled."

Tony is sometimes distracted from Eileen's limp by "the swelling of her breasts and the enticing valley between," and so he must remind himself that she is a cripple. Nevertheless, our hero enjoys Eileen's company and is often tempted to give her a kiss. As the novel draws to an end, author Henry C. Clayton rushes things along by having Tony take Eileen to the Stork Club, then really ramps it up:

Funny, wasn't it? The girl he would fall for wasn't perfect – and maybe that was why. Physically perfect girls were a dime a dozen. But the fact that she could ignore her infirmity so blithely, that she could climb the ladder of her career with any sears on her soul, that meant that Eileen was a girl in a thousand.

After eats, Tony ends up at his date's Sutton Place flat, where she slips into something more diaphanous:

Eileen came back in to the room and he stared. She was wearing a thin black negligee – and nothing else, and her hair was down on her shoulders. He hardly noticed her limp until her saw clearly her left leg was thinner than the other. Not much, but enough to show. It wasn't nearly as bad as he thought it would be.

Yes, not nearly as bad as he thought it would be, but Eileen has let slip something that suggests she just might be the triple-murderer. Tony doesn't do anything about it because her negligee falls open and he is fairly choked by "the heat of her breasts."

Next thing you know, Tony is struggling for breath as Eileen tries to strangle him with a strip of canvas. Fortunately, Tony is able to fish a penknife from his pocket and cut the fabric. Eileen says she has to pee and commits suicide in the bathroom. This leaves our hero to explain her motive:

The girl had beauty and talent, a rare combination, and yet she was deformed. She had a passionate nature, and yet it would be difficult for her to find a husband, a decent husband who was on her own intellectual level.

And so, you see, she killed.

"Different times," remarked my wife.

Indeed.

Researching this piece, I learned that last year the World Health Organization recorded just forty-two cases of polio worldwide. It is expected that next year the disease will be eradicated completely.

This information felt good. But it was followed that same day by a video from The Rebel's in-house Jew-hater Gavin McInnes:, in which we find these words:

Who doesn't want to know a handicapped person? That's cooler than a black friend. I want to at least have a friend with, like, a lobster claw. You need that in your repertoire. Friends are baseball cards. You need some freaks in the mix.

Different times.

Frustration is a novel I won't forget. I recommend it to anyone who has so much as a passing interest in the portrayal of the physically challenged in popular fiction.

The Rebel is also recommended. Know thine enemy.

Note: Gavin McInnes is not a "drunk Scotsman," as he claims. He was born in Herefordshire and grew up in Ottawa. That said, I do believe he is a drunk.

Object: A cheap, poorly-produced 158-page mass market paperback, reading Frustration proved to be more challenging than the average New Stand Library title.

I purchased my copy three years ago from bookseller Nelson Ball. Price: $6.00.

Not on WorldCat. Four copies are listed for sale online. Get one while you can!

Related posts:

Frustration, Part I: Paint Over Passion
Hurray for the Crippled Children's Bus!
A Comic Book Artist's Absurd Murder Mystery

The Canada Doctor (First Visit)

The Canada Doctor (Second Visit)

Frustration, Part I: Paint Over Passion

Frustration
Henry C. Clayton
Toronto: News Stand Library, 1949

Tony Pearce's nudes are sold in Manhattan's finest galleries, but the really big bucks come from Madison Avenue. He's the artist of choice for Joyous Brassieres, Silky Scanties, a number of girdle companies, and Sparkle deodorant. What Tony does with all that money remains a mystery to this reader. He lives alone in a flat that doubles as his studio, eats and drinks courtesy of others' expense accounts, and is a complete skinflint when it comes to paying his models. The first we encounter, Luba Belleau, "a lush brunette with glistening up-thrust breasts and sleek thighs," is a favourite. One evening, because he's cheap, he hitches a ride with an agency art director to a party being held at a sprawling mansion on Long Island Sound. More free booze and eats. As in a fantasy – mine at twenty – he's approached by a tall, beautiful woman in an evening gown: "Well, fancy meeting you here."

Tony pretends to recognize her, as one does. Fortunately, before things get too awkward, the beauty drops a clue.

"Someday, Tony, you must paint me like this. I've always wanted to be be painted in something swish." She swirled around in front of him, smiling provocatively, and the movement jolted his brain. Good heavens, it was Luba!
     He said lightly, "I hardly knew you with your clothes on."

They walk along the beach and have sex, I guess:

Her resilient body pressed against him demandingly until the moon rocked in the star-studded dome overhead
     Then Luba went limp against him and whispered into his chest, "Oh Tony!"

Whatdoya think? Did they do it? If Tony had gone limp I'd be more certain.

The morning after, Luba arrives at the studio ready for more, but Tony, ever the professional, is intent on continuing work on her portrait. "It was like a douche of cold water." As Friday approaches, Luba suggests a dirty weekend in the Poconos. Tony agrees, and although he does feel a bit bad about it all – Luba is a married woman – they have a great Saturday together. Things cool down that evening when Luba gets all naked and lies down on top of the bed.

The bathroom door opened and Tony entered in his pyjamas. He walked over and gazed down at her for a moment, then exclaimed, "God, Luba, but you are beautiful!"
     He stepped back a pace and mused, "There's something radiant about you – something ethereal."
     Her eyes were black pools. She murmured happily, "You like me, Tony?"
     Tony shook his head admiringly, "Damn it, this is terrific." He turned and opened his bag, fumbling around anxiously.
     "What are you looking for, darling?" Luba smiled in expectation.
     "Oh," said Tony, "I'm looking for my sketching pad."
     "Your what?" Luba raised up on one elbow.
     "It's okay, I've found it."

Luba bursts into tears and accuses Tony of being a "pansy". Frankly, I was beginning to wonder if the man didn't have some sort of clothing fetish; he'd never so much as touched her unless she was dressed. And what's with the PJs?

Luba takes off in the rented car, leaving Tony to find a way back to New York. Two days later, her strangled body is fished out of the East River.

Tony has an alibi, having attended a small get-together hosted by fellow artist and brand new friend Eileen Henley. The same alibi proves handy when Luba's husband is also found murdered.

As mysteries go, Frustration is... well, frustrating. Lieutenant O'Hara's police investigation is slowed because Tony lies and neglects to pass on key information. The artist tries to solve the murder himself, and author Clayton cheats by having Tony focus exclusively on two men who prove to be innocent. Ultimately, the murderer is revealed only when caught trying to kill again, leaving Tony to put all the pieces together as O'Hara nods in agreement.

Frustrating, but not without some value. In fact, I recommend this very bad novel. There's a specific reason why, and so much to write in this regard (and so much that is spoiler) that I'm going to save it for Monday. You know, after the weekend.

Keep it clean, everyone.

Related post:

Frustration, Part II: Paint a Vulgar Picture

Mister Allen Writes a Murder Mystery

Recalled to Life
Grant Allen
n.p.: Velde, 2009

Una Callingham remembers nothing before the death of her father – and that she remembers with great clarity. A flash of light revealed his bloodied body dead the floor and the back of another man escaping through an open window. The shock of it all rendered Una an amnesiac, famous throughout Victorian England as the one person who might be able to bring the killer to justice. The poor girl's condition was so severe that she was reduced to something akin to infancy. Una must again learn to speak, dress and, one presumes, use the water closet. After four years of seclusion and instruction, she emerges, aged twenty-two, as an inquisitive and highly intelligent woman who is intent on solving the murder of her father.

Recalled to Life is one of Allen's more commercial endeavours; he would've told his friends to give it a pass, but I'll not give the same advice. An entertaining novella, it touches upon the scientific advancements that consumed much of the author's non-fiction. For example, Una's father was working on a camera that takes photographs in rapid succession, much like real-life murderer Eadweard Muybridge. In fact, one of these photographs shows the very scene the poor girl remembers, but from a different angle. It's a remarkable piece of evidence, one that confirms Una's earliest memory.

What so attracted me to Recalled to Life – when I still haven't read The Woman Who Did – is that Una's investigations lead to Canada. In fact, the latter half takes place in the Dominion, then not three decades old, as Una tracks the man she believes to be her father's killer to British Columbia. It is the weaker half, and flirts with melodrama at the end, yet I admit to having been taken by surprise when the murderer is revealed.

Could be that I'm not much of a detective.

Allen isn't exactly remembered as a mystery writer, but the intricacy of his plots and his talent for creating interesting, often quirky characters are just the thing one wants in the genre. Shame he didn't do more... I write of a man who published 51 books in his fifty-one years.

Favourite passage:

"Canada!" Minnie exclaimed, alarmed. "You 're not really going to Canada! Oh, Una, you're joking!"

Trivia: After What's Bred in the Bone, Recalled to Life is the second Allen I've read to feature a railway accident, and the third in which the railway influences the plot (see: Michael's Crag).

Object and Access: A 127-page trade-size paperback with blindingly white paper, my copy is one of two print-on-demand books in my collection. Coincidentally, the other is Allen's Michael's Crag, the work of Whiskey Priest and Caustic Cover Critic JRSM.

Valde Books can't compare. I bought it for the sole reason that in five years of hunting I'd never seen a copy for sale or auction. It's a sad fact that Recalled to Life was not terribly successful. It was first published in 1891 by J.W. Arrowsmith of Bristol, a house Allen biographer Peter

 Morton informs had "a surprising reputation for detecting potential best-sellers: the Grossmiths, Chesterton, Jerome and Edgar Wallace all appeared under its imprint." Sadly, with Recalled to Life Allen didn't join their ranks. The only other English-language edition came from Henry Holt in New York (above), though it has been translated into Swedish (Återkallad till livet, 1911) and Finnish (Elämään palautunut, 1920). Not one copy of any edition is listed for sale online.

English-language editions are held by the Kingston Frontenac Public Library and ten of our universities. Library and Archives Canada fails miserably.

The first edition can be read online here – gratis – courtesy of the Internet Archive.

Related posts:

K is for Kindle

Words Fail Me

Cheese! What a Story!

The Mystery of the Folded Paper
Hulbert Footner
New York: Collier, n.d.

The British title is The Folded Paper Mystery.

Any better?

I would have dropped "Mystery," which isn't much in evidence. The first page introduces Finlay Corveth, a young go-getter who mines the criminal underworld for material he uses in his short stories. Today he's on the hunt for of a brass ball that went missing during a break-in

at Nick Peters' flat. Tony Casino grabbed it from the bed frame, used it to knock out Nick, and then took off with the thing in his hand. What Tony and Fin don't know is that the ball contains an antique locket, which in turn contains a folded paper upon which is a message that leads to the basement of a large house in on the outskirts of New York. Sealed in the brick wall behind the furnace is a box that holds information relating to the line of succession in a fictional monarchy on the Black Sea.

I haven't spoiled a thing. The Mystery of the Folded Paper tells a familiar tale; the reader will recognize it with the entrance of pretty Mariula, a sixteen-year-old private schoolgirl with a mysterious past.

There will be a murder and a suicide, and yet this is one of the happiest novels I've ever read: boy meets girl, boy never loses girl, and girl turns out to be a princess. Pay no mind that the boy is twenty-five and the girl is sixteen.

So, yes, a happy story... and not at all taxing! Anyone not paying attention will be set right by frequent explanations and summaries.

Small wonder that few people have bothered writing about The Mystery of the Folded Paper; those who have invariably mention the appearance of the author's friend Christopher Morley as a character.

Is he, really?

The Mystery of the Folded Paper features someone named Christopher Morley, but he's a theatre director, not a writer. I suppose it may be that the character shares something of Morley's... um, character, but I'm not interested enough to investigate further.

It's also noted that The Mystery of the Folded Paper is the first of Hulbert Footner's Amos Lee Mappin mysteries.

I was sorry to hear it.

Mappin is a bland figure. A bloated bachelor, spoiled by privilege, he lives a life of luxury and leisure in an expansive Manhattan apartment run by manservant Jermyn. Fin bows to the older writer's judgment, as younger writers so often do, for no other reason than he has published a few books. Though Mappin's deal with the criminal mind, he doesn't bring much insight. His greatest contribution comes in the way of funds.

Things are left to Fin, the boy who meets the girl, to carry the story to its predictable conclusion. Energetic, chatty and crazily optimistic, he's  always ready with a word and smile, as in this scene which finds him running for his life beside a woman whom he's endangered:

"You're doing fine!" Fin said to Daisy, grinning. "It's no cinch to run uphill!"

Though I can't recommend The Mystery of the Folded Paper, Fin's boyish over-the-top enthusiasm and cheery, positive attitude make it worth a fleeting look. This snippet of dialogue should suffice:

"Cheese! Tony, you sure are some nervy kid! It's a treat to hear you! You must tell me some more stories!"

Reaching the end of the novel, I couldn't help but wonder whether the whole thing wasn't a parody of something I'd never read. Again, I'm not interested enough to investigate further.

No, the only truly intriguing thing about The Mystery of the Folded Paper is this: With all Fin's snooping around the criminal class, never mind the stories he publishes about its crimes, wouldn't he have been offed long ago?

I suppose it's worth nothing that Fin doesn't feature in any of the other Amos Lee Mappin mysteries.

Object: A well-constructed 350-page hardcover in crimson boards with gold stamping, my copy belongs to Collier's Front Page Mysteries series. It was purchased earlier this year at London's Attic Books. Price: $10.00.

Access: First published in 1930 by Harper in the United States and Collins in the United Kingdom. As one might expect, a cheap Burt edition followed. I haven't been able to determine just when the Collier edition appeared.

Used copies are not plentiful, but they are cheap. The least expensive, a jacketless, cocked copy of the Collins first, is listed online for US$7.61. The only copy of the Collier edition - not quite so nice as mine - can be had for US$20.00. One Pennsylvania bookseller is trying to get away with selling the Burt reprint as a first edition. Price: US$300. Steer clear.

Remarkably, The Mystery of the Folded Paper was reissued in 2014 by Coachwhip Publications.

Seven of our university libraries hold copies.

Desperately Seeking Violet

Do Evil in Return
Margaret Millar
New York: Dell [1951]

Two men are in love with Charlotte Keating. It's easy to see why. Beautiful, intelligent, confident and caring, Charlotte is the complete package. She has her own medical practice and just last year bought an expansive house complete with sweeping city and harbour views of Salinda, California. Gossipy Nurse Schiller doesn't think much of Dr Keating's after-hours attire – picture hats, sheer dresses and high-heeled pumps – but that's just jealousy speaking.

The real black mark against Charlotte is found in the form of married lawyer Lewis Ballard. You can't quite accuse them of running around; they're far too discrete. They spend most of their time together at Charlotte's house. He parks himself in a large leather chair as she stands staring out her large living room picture window at the lights below. The bedroom doesn't come into play. One year in, they've yet to consummate their relationship.

Sex enters the novel on the first page when young Violet O'Gorman arrives at Charlotte's practice. Four months pregnant by a man who is not her estranged brute of a husband, she's desperate and lays it all out on the line:

"I – oh, doctor, please. You've got to help me."
     "I'm sorry I can't, not in the way you mean."
     The girl let out a cry of despair. "I thought – I thought being you was a woman like me – being you –"
     "I'm sorry," Charlotte said again.
     "What can I do? What can I do with this – this thing growing inside of me, growing and growing, and me with no money and no job and no husband. Oh, God, I wish I was dead!" She struck her thighs with both fists. "I'll kill myself!"
     "You can't, Violet. Stop now and be sensible."

Words of a woman who by all appearances has always had it together to a woman whose life is in chaos. It's an interesting part of the novel in that there is a subtle implication that Charlotte does indeed perform abortions, but is trying to be cautious. The first mystery here is just how Violet, a girl from Ashley, Oregon, ended up in her Southern California office. Charlotte is trying to get at the answer when Lewis phones and Violet bolts.

Charlotte isn't really so concerned about the mystery as she is about Violet; her evening with Lewis is ruined as a result. After he returns home to his wife, she visits the address Violet gave Nurse Schiller to find the girl missing. Step-uncle Clarence Voss tells Charlotte that his niece must've gone to a movie or something. It's all very suspicious.

Violet's body is washed ashore the next day. Lieutenant Easter, the detective assigned to the case, tells Charlotte that the girl was a suicide, though you never quite feel he believes it.

This reader didn't believe it. I was certain Violet didn't kill herself if only because I knew that Do Evil in Return followed Experiment in Springtime (1947), It's All in the Family (1948) and The Cannibal Heart (1949), marking Millar's return to writing mysteries.

You'd think she'd never been away. Do Evil in Return ranks amongst Millar's best novels, which is to say that it is just a hair's breath above the average Millar novel. She was that consistent. Scenes stay, as do the characters. It says much about her talent that one of the most fully drawn examples of the latter is an inessential figure we meet just twice: Roy H. Coombs, a pudgy motel manager who finds escape in reading romance comic books of the sort aimed at teenage girls.

On the subject of romance, Lieutenant Easter follows Lewis as the second man to fall for Charlotte. His aggressive pursuit of the doctor would be deemed inappropriate and unprofessional today.

Times change.

For the life of me, I couldn't understand how it was that so attractive a woman as Charlotte hadn't been able to find a mate. My wife suggests that the post-war male might have found her intelligence, her confidence and her independence intimidating.

Times change.

Poor Violet.

Object: A 192-page classic Dell, complete with map back. The cover is by Bill Fleming, the artist who will always be remembered for this:

I'm not sure what to think of his illustration for Do Evil in Return. Does it not look like poor Violet has a beard?

Access: Only eight of our university libraries hold copies. Library and Archives Canada also has one, as does the public library in Kitchener, the author's hometown.

Do Evil in Return was first published by Random House in 1950, with paperbacks from Dell, Lancer and Avon following. Paired with my favourite Margaret Millar novel, An Air That Kills, it was last published ten years ago by Stark House. Syndicate Books is rereleasing Do Evil in Return as an ebook next month.

As with most Millars, Do Evil in Return has enjoyed a number of translations: French (Rendons le mal pour le mal), German (Wie du mir), Italian (Inganno per quattro), Spanish (Pagarás con maldad), Finnish (Pahan valta) and Japanese (悪意の糸). Google translates the Polish title, Pięknym za nadobne as Tit for Tat.

Related post:

Margaret Millar and the Air Up North

A Rival for Margaret Millar?

The Keys of My Prison
Frances Shelley Wees
London: Jenkins, 1956

Is The Keys of My Prison typical Frances Shelley Wees? If so, she's a writer who deserves attention. If not, the worst that can be said is that she wrote at least one novel worthy of same.

The beginning is quiet and subtle. In the well-appointed private room of a Toronto hospital, devoted wife Julie Jonason sits watching over husband Rafe. Ten days earlier, he was involved in a car accident. Rafe's been unconscious ever since, poor man, but he is improving; Dr Prescott expects a full recovery. Julie has every right to believe that things will eventually return to normal. Then Nurse Burnell enters and mentions, as casually as possible, that that morning her patient had mumbled something about a woman named Bess.

This shouldn't be taken as much – Nurse Burnell is a bitch – but it marks a beginning. Julie's life, with its inherited riches and ideal husband, is slowly revealed as something less than blessèd. For one, she's always had to deal with the tragedy of her birth, during which her mother died. As if in punishment, Julie was cursed with an unsightly facial disfigurement that had her hiding away for the first two decades of her life. No man would ever take Julie for his bride – on this everyone agreed – yet Rafe did.

Polite, contemplative, dedicated, diligent and sober is Rafe, but the man who emerges from the comatose state is none of these things. This Rafe denies he's Rafe and doesn't recognize his own wife. "And who the hell are you?" are his first words to Julie.

Doctor Prescott determines that the best course of action is to transfer the patient to the family home; a familiar environment is sure to restore his memory. And so, Julie is forced to share the Rosedale mansion built by her father with a crude, intemperate man who downs drams of whisky, keeps ungodly hours and might just be an impostor.

The Keys of My Prison is an exploration of identity, of course. That psychology plays such a part brought Margaret Millar to mind, though the similarities extend far beyond the psychoanalytic trends of the post-war era. The novel takes place in Millar territory: here are the comfortable Torontonians found in Wall of Eyes (1943) and The Iron Gates (1945). The novel also shares something with Millar's An Air That Kills (1957) in featuring a car accident that takes place between Toronto and cottage country. And then there's the dialogue… Not one Canadian writer of the time matched Millar, but Wees comes close.

If The Keys of My Prison is Frances Shelley Wees at her very best, she rose to the level of the average Millar.

That's a high watermark.

Object: A very attractive, very compact 190-page hardcover with jacket by English illustrator Eric Tansley. The scans above don't do it justice.

The very same year, The Keys of My Prison was published by Doubleday. Your guess is as good as mine as to which is the true first, though my money is on Doubleday. If it makes any difference, Doubleday's was the one sold in Canada.

The third and final edition appeared in 1966 as a Pyramid Books paperback. It has been out of print ever since.

Access: My American cousins will have an easy time of it. The bad news is that in this country the novel is held only by Library and Archives Canada, the Toronto Public Library and six of our universities. The good news is that used copies are cheap. At US$5.00, the cheapest is a library discard of the Pyramid edition. Ignore that. The copies most worthy of consideration are:

• the lone Jenkins edition, despite its "tatty" dust jacket. £4.00;
• a Very Good Doubleday in Very Good dust jacket. US$14.50;
• a Near Fine Doubleday in Very Good dust jacket, inscribed to Wees' doctor and his wife. US$25.00;
• a Very Good Doubleday in Very Good dust jacket, inscribed to a person or persons unknown C$50.00.

I recommend the third option.

There is one translation: Das Gefängnis seiner Wahl (Frankfurt, 1960).

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Sugar Pills and a Nurse Named Molly

Rx for Murder
Jane Layhew
Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1946

I've read Rx for Murder, but I'm not sure about anyone else; certainly the person responsible for this newspaper advertisement hadn't:

The Gazette, 30 August 1946

Nor D.S.S. Mackenzie, who reviewed the book for Montreal's Gazette (30 August 1946):

Ditto J.W. Hurlow, who wrote this in the Ottawa Citizen (8 February 1947):

And most definitely not the person who wrote the book's dust jacket copy:

I know this because the heroine's name is Molly, not "Mollie".

D.S.S. Mackenzie is right about one thing: Rx for Murder opens in a hospital – and much as described. Nurse Molly Thompson is on duty at Vancouver's Hamilton Memorial when arrives accident victim Mrs Mabel Landover. The poor woman, a widow, was walking along a city street when she was struck by a car. There's no crime here, rather Mrs Landover, lost in troubled thoughts, had wandered into traffic.

Perfectly understandable.

As we soon learn, lovely Landover daughter Clara is missing, possibly abducted. She's found soon enough, locked up in an apartment in Clifton (read: Abbotsford). The body of a man named Graves lies on the other side of the door. For no good reason, pretty Clara is suspected of murder… and for no good reason, Mrs Landover offers Molly's fiancé, chemistry student Larry Stone, $1000 to prove her daughter's innocence.

Larry stumbles about – sometimes with Molly, sometimes without – in an effort to figure out just what the hell happened. Lawyer pal Ronald Raft helps out. The trio benefits from remarkably talkative witnesses and absurdly detailed newspaper stories. Good thing too, because Mrs Landover is of no help whatsoever. Sure, she's concerned for her daughter, but that doesn't mean she's willing to share her suspicions about the murdered man. Larry's left in the dark… again, for no good reason. Or is it simply that Jane Layhew, a first-time novelist, believed she could create suspense through inexplicable obstruction.

Molly and Larry are novice sleuths under the influence of a novice mystery writer writing madly off in all directions. With a few exceptions, progress takes place off-stage, and is reported when next the betrothed meet. In this passage, Larry informs Molly that Clara was indeed abducted:

Publisher Lippincott positioned Rx for Murder as a mixture of homicide and humour. Return to the jacket copy above and you'll see "Mollie [sic] and Larry are as appealing, keen-witted and wisecracking a pair  of detective youngsters as ever bubbled through the pages of mystery fiction. Readers will chuckle with them and share their adventures with absorbed interest."

There are no chuckles to be had in Rx for Murder. Molly and Larry's idea of humour rests solely on stilted speech and caricature. The combination is never more tiresome than here:

"Come my sweet, at last we sleep," he carolled.
     "Oh, sweetheart mine, speak lower, I entreat," Molly responded tunefully.
     "There's none to hear my words, my own, my sweet," he finished the song. "None but Ronald, who has ears but hears not. We, the workers of the world, have many great deeds to do tomorrow while you sleep. Let us to our downy nests.'
     "Very well" Molly said, rising, "though to speak of my humble hospital cot as a downy nest is a euphemism of the most optimistic. Only such an expert slumberer as myself could even achieve a recumbent posture upon it."
     "Ah, well," Larry consoled her, "some day – after we're married, of course – you will share my bed, and I do insist on comfort. You must just be patient until that happy time."

Mine eyes fairly glazed ov'r, but not so much that I didst not witness this:

"You alarm me," Molly murmured. "Are you addicted to brawling?"
     "Can't take it, huh? Life in the raw doesn't appeal to you? Want everything to be a bed of roses, I suppose. Well, I'm a hard-drinkin', hard-fightin' man, Miss Thompson," Larry intoned, "and my wumman will just have to get used to being beat up a few times a month."
     "Ah, the price of romance," said Molly tenderly. "I'll learn to be brave; honest I will."
     "Well, I won't put you to the test right now."

This is Molly's reaction upon seeing the bruised and beaten face of her fiancé. Until that moment she had no idea that straight-laced, presumably straight-A student Larry had been roughed up. Her lack of surprise or concern might seem suspicious, but don't read anything into it, the author's just going for yucks.

In a strange way, I began to feel sorry for Larry. All that running around with such little payoff – and a beating to boot – for no other reason than his creator has no idea what she's doing. In the eighteenth chapter, poor Larry encounters a kid named Wilson, but has no idea why. Our amateur sleuth can't help but compare himself with others:

Who of all his favorite characters would not by now have a complete case against someone? by [sic] now they would be working only for the collection of incontrovertible evidence; their theories would be such that a casual intruder like Wilson would be fitted into his place without a ripple. In fact, they would probably have been expecting his advent. Larry sighed with wholehearted dissatisfaction.

I too sighed with wholehearted dissatisfaction. Yet, I persevered through the remaining eighty-one pages.

As I say, I've read this novel.

The most regrettable passage: 

"I'm disappointed in Mr. Pearson," Molly said ruefully. "He seemed so friendly and pleasant, I had no idea he had a nigger in the woodpile."

A real mystery: The 30 August 1946 Gazette reports that Mrs. Layhew is at work on another "blood and thunder". Rx for Murder is her only book, though she did publish something titled "Prescription for Murder" in the 22 March 1947 edition of the Standard. I presume it's a bowdlerized version, but can't say for certain.

Object: A 252-page hardcover, published as part of Lippincott's Main Line Mystery series. The paper is a bit cheap, but the binding is good. I bought my copy online from a Shropshire bookseller this past summer. Price: US$22.50.

The uncredited dust jacket image depicts a scene that does not feature in the novel.

Access: Six copies are currently listed for sale online. The cheapest jacketless copy is listed at US$7.50. The cheapest with jacket costs US$30.00. No one is asking more than US$48.50.

The novel never enjoyed a paperback edition – not as Rx for Murder anyway. In 1950, a French translation was published in paper by Éditions des deux mondes under the title Meurtres aux rayons X? Note the question mark. X-rays are mentioned only fleetingly, and there isn't so much as a suggestion that they played a part in the murder. Le Meurtre de Roger Ackroyd? would have been just as appropriate a title.

Toronto Public Library, the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia have copies. You won't find it at Library and Archives, but you will find Meurtres aux rayons X?

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The Most Offensive Author's Bio of All Time?

The Most Offensive Author's Bio of All Time?

Time has been tight, so tight that I've read no more than the front and back flaps of Jane Layhew's Rx for Murder, next up in my stroll through Canada's suppressed, ignored and forgotten writing. The author's debut, it wasn't suppressed, nor was it ignored – the novel was reviewed widely – but it is forgotten.

There may be good reason for this; the front flap doesn't describe any book I'd want to read. The most memorable thing about it is a typo – which isn't something you see every day on dust jackets.

In contrast, the back flap is unforgettable:

The 8 February 1947 edition of the Ottawa Citizen informs that the "small village" is Alert Bay, which would make the "Indian reservation [sic] whose inhabitants were only two generations removed from the days of scalping parties" that of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw.

The Ottawa Citizen, 7 February 1947

Jane Layhew never published another novel. Nearly everything I know about her is found in the above, though I can add that the author eventually returned to British Columbia, where she served for a time as Head Nurse of the Medical Ward at Prince George Regional Hospital. Here she is in the May 1970 issue of The Canadian Nurse, showing off her unique method for moving bedside lockers:

The last trace I've found of Jane Layhew is in an ad that lists supporters of Prince George alderman Phillis Parker (The Prince George Citizen, 13 November 1986).

There's a Jane Layhew Nursing Bursary, which is awarded annually to a worthy British Columbia nursing student.

Further digging will bring more, I expect, but as I say, time has been tight… and, to be frank, I'm not sure I care.

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Bewitched, Bothered, but Not Bewildered

Murder without Regret
E. Louise Cushing
[New York]: Arcadia House, 1954

There are two ways to approach this novel: the first is as a murder mystery, the second is as an account of four pivotal days in the life of a repressed, frustrated and somewhat unpleasant lesbian. Both lead to intertwining paths, but the latter is much more interesting.

Murder without Regret was Enid Louise Cushing's second novel, and is one of several to feature Inspector MacKay of the Montreal Police Service. He'll be the one who solves the crimes, but the roles of protagonist and narrator fall to twenty-something Barbara Hiller. Babs opens the novel by driving through the gates of the Randall mansion on Peel Street. It's been some time since her last visit. She'd once been close to Julie Randall, heiress presumptive of the Randall fortune. The two had "gone around together" for years, but then Julie met Joyce Prescott and Babs was replaced. What Babs refers to as a "bewitchment" came to an abrupt end: "It hurt at first, but I got over it."

So, here we have Babs in her car, steeling herself in anticipation of Julie, whom she hasn't seen in years. Babs is at Randall House because Julie asked her – now, that phone call was unexpected – saying something about the reading of her grandfather's will. It seems that tonight's the night the fortune becomes hers. Just a formality, really, but Julie wants Babs present.

After all that build-up, the meeting between the two comes as an anticlimax. Julie sends Babs upstairs to her bedroom, but it's just to freshen up. Once there, Babs notices a girl slumped over the vanity, places her hand on a cooling left breast, and determines that she's dead.

Who's the dead girl? Why, Joyce Prescott, of course.

Enter Lieutenant Brandy Fernley, Royal Canadian Navy. He'd met Babs once during those years she and Julie had been close. She's forgotten all about him, but not he her: "Funny, I remember you so well… Your red hair, and the way your eyes always followed Julie." Brandy has returned for a reason, though Joyce's dead body serves as a spanner in the works:

"I was going to announce my engagement to Brandy," Julie sniffed.
     "Your engagement?" I said somewhat flatly. For some unaccountable reason, I had a funny letdown feeling. 

Who killed Joyce? Who cares. By this point I wasn't so much interested in the solution to the crime as I was in getting a read on Babs. News of a second murder victim, former acquaintance Paul Hadrill, doesn't distract much, though his name brings further insight. Babs is quick to make clear that they'd "never gone around": "It was true that we'd driven a lot together – he and Julie in the back seat and me alone in front." Babs later reveals that she'd taken in the action through the rearview mirror.

Who killed Paul? As with Joyce, MacKay is on the case. Babs is somewhat helpful – much less than she likes to think – but everyone else moves on. Joyce hasn't been dead twenty-four hours before Julie invites Babs to Malcolm's, an upscale downtown restaurant. Babs, who had anticipated an intimate luncheon, is irritated to discover her old friend surrounded by women she doesn't know: "Even before I'd a chance to declare my neutrality, I was ignored with the successful rudeness cultivated by and perfected by female cats who have decided after one glance that the latest arrival is not One of Them." Babs' own feline glances linger:

Kitty Buckley was a languid, black-haired would-be beauty, with mascara that thick. I gulped when I saw her dress. It was black and very smart, but it dropped down to here in the front. I was fascinated, and practically had to tear my eyes away to take in Kathleen Haines, beside her.

Cushing's Montrealers are either catty, cold or insensitive. Even "nice Inspector MacKay" (see review below) can't help but joke with Babs at the inquest into Joyce's death. Still, the detective is dedicated, solving her murder within a matter of days. Nothing is spoiled in revealing that the killer turns out to be Julie; she's the lone character the reader might have cause to suspect.

You'd be wrong to suppose that her arrest would upset Brandy Fernley. Julie's fiancé reveals that their engagement was meant as a joke played on assembled friends. It doesn't speak well for the mystery writer that what follows comes as the novel's greatest surprise:

"So you see, even last Tuesday night I had no idea of marrying Julie.
     "Oh," I said flatly. He had seemed to expect some noise from me.
     "Yes, I decided then and there I'd like to marry you. The party Thursday night rather clinched it. How does that appeal to you?
     "Quite a lot," I admitted honestly.

There's no talk of love, no embrace, no kiss; the two don't so much as touch. And so, navy man Brandy trades an engagement of convenience for a marriage of convenience, and Babs prepares union to a man who likes nothing more than being at sea in the company of other men.

That's it, really, though an awkward page is tacked to the end in which Babs learns that she, not Julie, will be inheriting the vast Randall estate.

All in all, a strange book… and I do like strange books. I'll be reading more E. Louise Cushing. One of her mysteries is about a Montreal bookseller who finds a body in her shop.

The title is Blood on My Rug.

Favourite passage:

"You always have been longer in stores than you intended to be," she said calmly. "I think you like to talk to the salesgirls. Anyway, I didn't mind at all; it seems perfectly natural for me to wait for you."
     I grinned. She'd hit the nail on the head; it seemed perfectly natural for me. I did like chatting to salesgirls, as she well knew…

Trivia I: Montrealers, particularly residents of NDG, will enjoy the local flavour. Paul's murder takes place at 4312 Melrose Avenue, which is currently the site of a Jean Coutu parking lot. His killer walks over from Wilson using the alleyway that runs just north of Sherbrooke. One minor character works in Simpson's – disguised as "Mason's" – and is shot just up the street on Mansfield.

Yes, shot. See, I haven't given everything away.

Trivia II: The only Montreal novel I've encountered to feature not a single French-speaking character. "Madame Cecile of the French Salon in one of the large stores" receives fleeting mention.

The critics rave: "Montreal gal's poisoning sets off chain reaction; nice Inspector MacKay takes over. Badly organized, plus other structural faults but holds interest. Fifty-fifty." – Saturday Review, 1 January 1955.

Object: A compact, cheaply produced hardcover in maroon cloth with black type. Depicting the scene of the crime, the uncredited dust jacket illustration is best viewed from afar; up close it looks nothing if not bizarre. That piece of furniture is awfully high for a vanity, is it not? The keys are the size of children's teethers and those coins look like pieces of eight. I'm not bothering with the levitating purse.

The rear cover and flap features ads for other obscure Arcadia mysteries by Fred Orpet (Murder's No Accident), R.A. Braun (Murder Four Miles High), Maude M. Thomas (Wait Long, Wait Still) and Harry Walker (né Hillary Waugh; The Case of the Missing Gardener).

Access: An uncommon title, Murder without Regret appears to have enjoyed one lone printing. Just three copies are currently listed for sale online. The cheapest, Very Good in Very Good dust jacket, is going for US$25. The one you'll want, sold by a Dartmouth bookseller, is inscribed by the author. Price: C$95.

Not a single Canadian library has a copy.

Mrs. Brown in the Conservatory with the Lead Pipe

In Passion's Fiery Pit
Joy Brown
Toronto: News Stand Library, 1950

In Passion's Fiery Pit features a misprint unlike any other I've seen:

Not Joy Brown's fault, of course, but it does say something about her publisher. News Stand Library didn't much care what it published or who it published. In its stable, Joy Brown stands as lone mare alongside Hugh Garner, Ted Allan, Al Palmer, Raymond Souster and H. Gordon Green in having had something of a writing career. Given her early struggles with punctuation, this is truly remarkable.

In Passion's Fiery Pit was Brown's second novel. The first, Murdered Mistress, had been published by News Stand Library a few months earlier. Night of Terror, her third, was a pre-romance Harlequin. It hit the stands about eight weeks later.

Three novels in one year. Do not be impressed.

This one begins with a bit of a cheat. What's depicted as murder will later be revealed as assault. The victim, Alicia Wallace, turns up dead on the very next page just the same. Her body is discovered amongst the exotic plants in the conservatory of wealthy bachelor Robert Roget.

Yes, a conservatory. Roget builds upon the cliché, sniffing: "It's damned embarrassing… I mean with a houseful of guests."

Houseful? Well, there's Paul Stewart, wife Gwyneth and brother Bridge. The Greys – Tim and Trixie – are also there. That's five, right? Not really a houseful, not for a mansion, though things get a touch more crowded when the police show up. Detective Dan Weaver leads the investigation.

Dan's an interesting fellow. The novel's hero, when first seen he's drinking in the beauty of Alicia's cooling corpse… the curve of her cheek, her full lips and her shapely calves. "She was the kind of girl Dan Weaver had been wanting to meet for a long time. Unfortunately, she was dead."

The trail leads straight to the Three Bells nightclub:

Dan Weaver did a double take. The somebody sitting on the piano should have been lying in a steaming conservatory with her skull crushed. But here she was singing in a hushed, tuneless voice. Nobody seemed to care what sort of a singer she'd make.

Here the author dodges cliché by making Alicia's doppelgänger, torch singer Phyllis, a younger sister. Alicia may have been as bad, but she was no evil twin.

Because Dan clearly has a type, he falls for Phyllis, and redoubles his efforts to solve the murder. He's not afraid to cut a corner in getting at the truth. This Canadian is fully prepared to walk into a room without knocking first.

Sergeant Cummings, Dan's superior, is infuriated by this maverick behaviour:

"I've mentioned that to you before. You're still on the force, you know, even if you're not in uniform, and the rules are that..."
     "But you find out more this way. I make a few exceptions to a few rules. I like a variation of a theme. And see what happens? I find two boudoir scenes in one afternoon." Dan waved his hand, "What is this thing called procedure."
     Cummings frowned. He had mentioned things like this to Weaver before, but the younger man paid no attention.

The two boudoir scenes aren't all that much – a fully clothed woman walks out of a bedroom, a man comforts a grieving widow – and neither is pertinent to the case. Dan is overselling things. He really has no idea what he's doing. I'm not sure Brown did, either. In the course of his investigation, Dan settles on Alicia's former husband Jeff Wallace as the murderer, for no other reason than they divorced. You know, acrimony and all that. Blackmail, too, though this makes no sense.

As Alicia's ex doesn't seem to be around, Dan becomes convinced that one of the men present on the night of the murder is in actuality Wallace. He's proven wrong in a most public way by Phyllis, but feels no embarrassment. Dan's big break comes at the end of the novel when the murderer drinks too much and spills the beans. Sergeant Cummings is impressed.

In truth, Dan isn't much of a detective, and In Passion's Fiery Pit isn't much of a mystery. It's no wonder that News Stand Library tried to sell the thing as something spicy: "GREEN EYES - RED HAIR - and FLAMING LIPS", but no mention of murder. Sadly, the hottest action involves women primping before mirrors and crossing rooms in varying states of undress. There's lots of lingerie, though much of it is superfluous:

She scampered ahead of him into the bedroom, and then proceeded to dress before his interested eyes in such a flurry of panties, garter belts, bras and stockings that she was fully clothed in a brief moment.

Brief moment.

No pun intended.

To my great surprise, the word "diaphanous" doesn't feature.

Object and Access: A typical News Stand Library production with requisite 160 pages. The cover is by Syd Dyke.

My copy was purchased in June from a New York bookseller. Price: US$4.00. I was lucky. Just four copies are listed for sale online, the cheapest of which goes for C$20.00. At C$140.00, the one you want to buy is graced with another of those odd and uncommon NSL dust jackets.

Not listed on Amicus or WorldCat.

My thanks to Bowdler at Canadian Fly-By-Night for the image of Murdered Mistress.

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