*huzzah for the ladies: The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective

9781434440549
Wildside Press, 2012
originally serialized in Ludgate Monthly (1893)
   (minus "Missing"); published 1894
142 pp

hardcover

"Too much of a lady, do you say?...I don't care twopence halfpenny whether she is or is not a lady." 

So says Mr. Ebenezer Dyer, the head of the "flourishing detective agency in Lynch Court.  In fact, he goes on to brag about his operative, Loveday Brooke, as having "so much common sense that it amounts to genius."  And that she does, often, it seems, moreso than the police or even her boss when it comes to solving a case.

Up to now in this "history of mystery" I've been doing, I've experienced two "lady" detectives, both of them characters sprung from male minds.   Loveday Brooke comes straight from the pen of Catherine Louisa Pirkis (1839-1910),  who would go on to write a total of thirteen novels, several short stories (aside from Loveday Brooke), and a novella.  She and her husband were very actively involved in the anti-vivisectionist movement as well as the National Canine Defence League, and she was also engaged in other types of humanitarian work. 

Loveday Brooke as a fictional character fits squarely into the "New Woman" mold, a term which refers to

"a significant cultural icon of the fin de siècle, departed from the stereotypical Victorian woman. She was intelligent, educated, emancipated, independent and self-supporting."

 Her significance as a New Woman detective is so important, in fact, that Volume IV of a series produced by Routledge  that explores New Women Fiction is completely dedicated to this character; since it's highly likely that while I'm very much into it, the state of fin-de-siècle Britain's pre-feminist women's literature is probably not a hot topic for a number people reading this at the moment, I'll leave it to anyone at all interested to read Adrienne Gavin's introduction  here and get right to the book.

from victorianclare, original cover complete with business card

We actually learn very little about Loveday Brooke herself here.  We know that she was "a little over thirty years of age" that she dressed "invariably" in black, her dress "almost Quaker-like in its appearance."   Of her backstory Pirkis writes that

"Some five or six years previously, by a jerk of Fortune's wheel, Loveday had been thrown upon the world penniless and all but friendless. Marketable accomplishments she had found she had none, so she had forthwith defied convention, she had chosen for herself a career that had cut her off sharply from her former associates and her position in society.  For five or six years she drudged away patiently in the lower walks of her profession; then chance, or to speak more precisely, an intricate criminal case, threw her in the way of the experienced head of the flourishing detective agency in Lynch Court." (8)

Her boss seems to have been a shrewd man; he realized her worth quickly and "threw her in the way of better-class work," which meant better pay.    Over the course of the seven stories in this book, her "common sense" that "amounts to genius" is reflected in the way she not only comes up with solutions to each mystery, but also in the way that she refuses to go along with the police or with the victims of each crime who immediately settle on "foreigners" as the guilty parties. Xenophobic attitudes of the period are writ large here, by the way, but to her credit, our heroine has an ability to see right through them.   She is also not the sort of female detective who needs to rely on seduction as a tool for getting close to suspects, relying mainly on her keen sense of observation and her wide-ranging understanding of human nature.

all pulped-up, from Amazon  (NO!)

I have to say that one thing readers might notice is that in most of these stories it doesn't seem like Brooke is doing much "detecting" -- that she goes on scene, takes in a few details and then dazzles us with her observations.  That is true in more than one case and it has caused readers to complain about the lack of "fair play."  I had to go and look up the concept of "fair play," and learned that the so-called "rules" involved in "fair play" were not codified until 1928, so really, in my opinion it doesn't apply here.  There are a couple of very good stories here, none the least of which is "The Redhill Sisterhood," in which Loveday is sent to spy on a "home for cripples" (you really have to look beyond the language here) in order to try to figure out the connection between the nuns who run the place and a string of country house robberies.   That one was just great, for several reasons I won't go into in case anyone decides to read the book.  I will also mention that I completely sussed the solution to "Drawn Daggers!" not too far into it, but for the most part, the big reveals were complete surprises.  However, because this collection of tales is a product of the late Victorian era, I would advise a bit of patience while reading.  The stories are good, not great, but to me it's all about Loveday Brooke herself, making her way in what was normally a male profession, often doing a much better job than her male counterparts in this book.

*The Dorrington Deed-Box, by Arthur Morrison

9781479423873
Wildside Press, 2016
originally serialized in The Windsor Magazine, January - June 1897
originally published in 1897 by Ward, Lock
139 pp

paperback

Picking up from where I left off in December, we roll into the 1890s with this little gem, The Dorrington Deed-Box. While it continues the detective-fiction craze of the late Victorian period, Horace Dorrington, of the firm Dorrington and Hicks,  is no run-of-the-mill private enquiry agent.  Au contraire -- the back-cover blurb refers to him as a "cheerfully unrepentant sociopath,"  as well as someone who doesn't shy away from a bit of "blackmail, fraud, or cold-blooded murder to make a dishonest penny."  The Dorrington Deed-Box was actually my second choice of stories by Arthur Morrison -- I had thought to read his collection of Martin Hewitt stories, but Hewitt seemed a bit tame compared to Dorrington and I wanted something different than the usual detective fare.  Trust me, I got what I asked for in this book.  The fun here is not so much in the crime solving but in watching Dorrington slowly ensnaring his victims -- he is the proverbial spider inviting the fly into his carefully-constructed web.

There are six short stories in this collection which begins with "The Narrative of Mr. James Rigby."  In a strange sort of twist, Rigby becomes our guide through five more nefarious adventures of this slimy worm of a detective,  which Rigby unearths from documents left behind in the offices of Dorrington and Hicks after his own harrowing experience.  As he says,

"...among their papers were found complete sets, neatly arranged in dockets, each containing in skeleton a complete history of a case.  Many of these cases were of a most interesting character, and I have been enabled to piece together, out of material thus suppllied the narratives which will follow this." (28)

from Project Gutenberg Australia

It seems that Rigby wants everyone to understand the type of fellow Mr. Horace Dorrington really is,  and if anyone should know, it's Rigby.   His own encounter with Dorrington obviously left several scars, including the fact that he never received any sort of justice in his case.  The book exposes the true nature of the detective, who presents one side of himself to some people and his real self to others.  While I won't go into the individual cases, Rigby enlightens us as to Dorrington's sinister deeds in

"The Case of Janissary"

"The Case of the 'Mirror of Portugal"

"The Affair of the 'Avalanche Bicycle and Tyre Co. Limited' "

"The Case of Mr. Loftus Deacon" and

"Old Cater's Money."

in which we find the detective involved in crimes ranging from the upper-class, race-track set on down to a moneylender who makes Scrooge seem generous.  The Dorrington Deed-Box is not only cleverly constructed, but in the character of Dorrington himself, we find something quite different than the normal run of detectives up to this point in crime-fiction literature and I have to say it was refreshing.  My only issue with this book is that there are things in these stories that "skeleton" accounts would not offer, and although Rigby sort of covers that fact by saying he'd picked up things from various people about these cases, it still led me to wonder how he could have constructed conversations and thoughts, etc.  In the long run though, it doesn't really matter -- this is my first exposure to a late-Victorian sleazy detective and I thought it was just great.  

*an evil genius at work: Fantômas, by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain

1434450260
Wildside Press, 2009
originally published 1911
246 pp

hardcover

"Fantômas."

"What did you say?"

"I said: Fantômas."

"And what does that mean?"

"Nothing ...Everything!"

"But what is it?" 

"Nobody...And yet, yes, it is somebody!"

"And what does the somebody do?" 

"Spreads terror!" 

Fantômas is book two in this year's focus on crime fiction/mysteries that were made into movies.  Although I had planned on watching the movie today, I found enough time to take a look at it yesterday. To my surprise, the movie version isn't just one film but several serialized silents, so it didn't take as long as I thought it would since I only watched the film corresponding to this book. 

And oh, what a book it is!! Not only is it fun, but it ends in a complete cliffhanger so I had to buy book two,  The Exploits of Juve (Juve contre Fantômas), just to see what happens. I have this feeling that I'll end up with the entire set of  Fantômas novels if the ending of book one is any indicator.

The story begins in the Dordogne chateau of Beaulieu, the home of the Marquise de Langrune, at one of her regular Wednesday dinner parties.   Conversation comes around to the mysterious disappearance of Lord Beltham,  now being investigated by the celebrated  M. Juve of the Criminal Investigation Department. This conversation is our introduction to the mysterious Fantômas; it seems that the word is out that Juve believes this evil criminal is somehow responsible for Lord Beltham's disappearance and that Juve has "sworn that he will take him, and he is after him body and soul."   The very next day the body of the Marquise de Langrune is found in her room, her throat cut so deeply that it seemed almost as if "her head was severed from the trunk."  It seems that robbery was not the motive, and it also seems as though only someone in the house could have done this horrific deed.  Signs point to young Charles Rambert, a young man staying there as a guest (and who soon disappears)  but Juve, who is investigating, isn't quite sure.

The murder of the Marquise de Langrune is the first of a series of strange crimes and murders that take place at various locations;   Juve is convinced that they are all the work of a single person: Fantômas. Trying to catch him, though, is going to be tough. Some people even have doubts as to whether or not there is a Fantômas; one magistrate tells Juve that

"Fantômas is the too obvious subterfuge, the cheapest device for investing a case with mock honours. Between you and me, you know perfectly well that Fantômas is merely a legal fiction -- a lawyers' joke. Fantômas has no existence in fact!"

But Juve thinks he knows better -- he is obsessed with finding this elusive figure and has been after him for years.  The story begins to really heat up with the discovery of a body in a trunk at No. 147 rue Lévert, the rooms of a man named Gurn; even then, although Juve notes that "Everything points to Gurn," and while wondering if his imagination is getting the better of him, he can't help but think that

"about this murder, committed in the very middle of Paris, in a crowded house where yet nobody heard or suspected anything, there is an audacity, a certainty of impunity, an above all a multiplicity of precautions, that are typical of the Fantômas manner!"

As the crimes start to stack up, Juve employs all manner of disguises, subterfuge, and even applies the latest scientific methods of Bertillon  to try to rein in this mysterious evil genius.  Toward the end of the book it looks like things may just be going his way, but in this twisted tale, nothing is ever quite as it seems.

René Navarre as Fantômas

The movie version I watched is the old, silent version, starring Rene Navarre as Fantômas (1913).  It is a joy to watch, although since it's a part of a string of serials, it doesn't quite pick up a lot of what's in the book, nor does it really pick up the essence of this novel.  There are also some changes in character (I can't say who or I'd be giving one of the secrets of the novel away), and it starts with a crime that comes later in the novel, skipping the murder of the Marquise, for example. However, what it does reflect very, very well is Juve's obsession with trying to catch Fantômas.  Edmund Breon, who portrays the erstwhile Inspector, does such an excellent job in the role that it's not hard at all to see him not as the actor but as Juve himself.

Edmund Breon as Inspector Juve

The book was so much fun that I didn't even mind the cliffhanger ending, and now I'm caught up in Juve's ongoing quest to bring this mysterious evildoer to justice, so I know I'm  going to have many hours of entertainment ahead of me as I make my way through the books.  I'll most definitely recommend the book to people who are into classics, or into fun sort of pulpy mysteries or to those who want something very much off the beaten path.  This book (if you'll forgive the trite phrase) held me spellbound the entire time I was reading it -- and I can't think of a better recommendation for a couple of days' worth of sheer reading enjoyment.

back to the past #17: Death in the Cards, by Ann T. Smith

9781434407382
Wildside books, 2010
originally published 1945, Phoenix Press
256 pp

paperback

I love these Wildside editions -- I have several in my shelves spreading across genres.  They're great facsimile editions which offer readers like myself the opportunity to rediscover old book without having to go into debt buying them.  Sadly, the author remains a mystery to me, since I could find absolutely nothing outside of this book to her credit; I couldn't find any personal information either.  I went through several sources I have at home, including Hubin's great reference work which would normally list a pseudonym as well as at least a birthdate, but got nothing. If I find more later, I'll make an addendum here, but for now, she remains a question mark. That's a shame -- I love unearthing people's histories; they're often very enlightening as well as interesting.  Oh well. I tried.

I did, however, discover two different covers of  Death in the Cards -- the original

and the reprint

both of which as you can see, offer a clue in the cat on the cover. While I won't say why the cat (whose name is Beauty) is important, let's just say that the poor kitty has a role to play, ultimately coming to a pretty sad end.  But the cat is the least of the worries at the old house on Brattle Street, where Paul and Lita Redfern have taken rooms so that Paul can be close to his new professorial job in Boston.

Death in the Cards is not the best book I've ever read from the 1940s, but it did keep me turning pages to find out who killed old Mrs. Carrie Seton, who owns the house and rents out rooms.  The tenants, aside from Paul and Lita, include an anthropologist (Dr. Oglesbie) whose rooms are filled with skulls, a handyman named George from South Dakota, a Navy man (Phillips) who's just finished a tour of duty on a submarine, two elderly, former Beacon Hill women (Miss Lovelace and Miss Brundage) whose fortunes have faded since the social heyday, and Mrs. Seton's granddaughter Caroline.  Within just a few weeks of moving into the place, old Mrs. Seton ends up dead and Paul, who comes across her body, finds evidence that his wife may have been the culprit.  So many things point to her guilt that he hides what he discovers and takes it upon himself to find the real murderer before the police hone in on his wife.  With so many people in the house though, that's not going to be easy -- and the police are eager to bring this case to a close.

Way more interesting to me than the mystery (which quite frankly gets a bit convoluted and even  brings in a Nazi spy as a sort of patsy -- remember, it's still wartime) is that the author takes her readers into the world of Boston's Beacon Hill society in its heyday (and later as fortunes decline) as she recalls Mrs. Seton's life.  As it turns out, the dead woman was not of their ilk -- au contraire, she was a young woman nee O'Toole from Irish stock and from the wrong part of town. She had caught the attention of her future husband who fell for her and was bound and determined to introduce her to his Boston Brahmin world, which did not go over so well and required the help of her old Miss Lovelace, who remained her very best friend and stayed with her long after Mr.Seton had passed on.

It's a good find, probably not of interest to most people unless you're into obscure vintage fiction, and aside from the meandering nature of the story, not a bad read.

Just as an aside, I have pretty much finished my obscure women writers project for this year, but I have been stacking my shelves with many, many more titles and I'll be reading and posting about them as I come to them.  I'll also be inaugurating my page "Forgotten Women Found" here shortly -- so stay tuned. Thanks to all who have commented.