Tag: Dr. Priestley

The Detection Club Project: John Rhode – The Claverton Affair

September 20, 2022
Investigating the Detection Club - a series of posts exploring works written by members of the famous club for writers of mystery fiction.
Image Credit: John Rhode (Cecil John Charles Street) by Howard Coster (1930) © National Portrait Gallery, London, licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0

#11: John Rhode

He possessed enough scientific, medical and practical know-how to set in motion an almost never-ending conveyer belt of ingenious methods for committing murder.

Martin Edwards, The Golden Age of Murder (2015)

I had expected that this next installment of my Detection Club series would feature Victor Whitechurch but issues with my copy of Murder at the Pageant left me scrambling for a replacement copy (thankfully on its way) and a new subject to profile. Fortunately I happen to have rather a lot of John Rhode novels on my TBR pile…

Rhode, born Cecil John Charles Street, was one of the more prolific members of the Detection Club. Though he was late to start writing mystery fiction, beginning in his 40s, he would write over one hundred and forty novels in about thirty five years, utilizing multiple pen names to do so. Of these the most famous were John Rhode and Miles Burton though he also wrote as Cecil Waye.

Spiderman Pointing Image - labeled as John Rhode, Miles Burton and Cecil Waye

In spite of the length of his career, outlasting many of his peers in the Detection Club, Rhode’s reputation would be strongly affected by Julian Symon’s categorization of him as a “humdrum” writer. There is a value judgement to that phrase that I think is rather unfair but there is some truth to the broader suggestion that his work was antithetical to the type of stories contemporary crime writers were creating towards the end of his long career. He did not, for instance, show much interest in exploring the social issues around crime and his characters are often quite functional, defined by their professions and roles in the story rather than their own personalities.

Instead Rhode’s interest lay in the technical challenges of puzzle design – an area in which he could be quite masterful. While the quality of his output could vary, he crafted some truly ingenious murder puzzles that often utilized unusual and unexpected murder methods leaving the reader wondering how the murder was done.

I have previously read several works by this author both from his Dr. Priestley series (written as Rhode) and the Desmond Merrion series (as Burton) including several from the period before this blog began. While I have to acknowledge that this is only a fraction of his output and I may come across works to change my mind, at this time I have a pretty strong preference for the Rhode stories.

My reason is that I really like the somewhat fussy scientist who typically plays armchair sleuth, giving advice to the professional police to get their floundering investigations back on track. I enjoy the character’s logical approach to breaking down problems which, to my mind, really suits the types of ingenious puzzles Rhode tended to construct.

Today’s read, The Claverton Affair, is a good example of the author’s skill at constructing that type of puzzle. Though it is not an inverted mystery, readers may well have a pretty good idea of who is responsible for the crime from the outset of the investigation. The focus therefore is not on whodunnit but how and the answer, as is typical of Rhode, is quite remarkable…

The Claverton Affair by John Rhode

Originally published in 1933
Dr. Priestley #15
Preceded by The Motor Rally Mystery
Followed by The Venner Crime

After drifting apart from Sir John Claverton, Dr. Lancelot Priestley is finally visiting his old friend for dinner. But Claverton’s situation is worrying. He’s surrounded by relatives, among them a sister who speaks to the dead—but not to him—and a niece who may or may not be a qualified nurse. Based on Claverton’s odd behavior, Priestley and a mutual friend suspect that someone is slipping him arsenic.

But when Priestley discovers that Claverton has died just a week later and shares his concerns with the police, no trace of arsenic—or anything else untoward—is found during the autopsy. Still, the perceptive professor can’t shake his sense that something isn’t right, and Claverton’s recently revised will only adds to the mystery . . .

This novel finds Dr. Priestley visiting an old friend, Sir John Claverton at his invitation. Over the years the pair have fallen out of touch and Priestley has some misgivings about resuming the friendship but when he arrives he finds a strange atmosphere in the home and his friend recovering from a bout of sickness. As he bids farewell with a promise to return the following week, Priestley speaks with Claverton’s physician who confides that while his patient is on the path to recovery, he believes that someone gave him arsenic.

When Priestley returns the following week he discovers that Claverton had died shortly before while his doctor was away. He decides he must share the information about the earlier attempted poisoning, expecting that the medical examination will reveal signs of arsenical poisoning, but it surprised when there are no signs of the poison. Priestley is certain that his old friend was murdered – the question is: how was it done?

One of the things I really like about the setup for The Claverton Affair is its subversion of our expectations. We come to the novel expecting that we will quickly learn the way Claverton was murdered and try to work out whodunnit but instead a large part of the case will involve overcoming the evidence that seems to suggest a natural death. This is not dissimilar to the setup found in Dorothy L. Sayers’ Unnatural Death, though I would suggest that this has the more technically creative solution, for better and worse.

The problem with any puzzle that has a very technical solution, as we saw with my previous Detection Club Project title, The Documents in the Case by Sayers and Robert Eustace, is that when a problem requires some technical knowledge the author either has to make an effort to subtly provide that to the reader or else you run the risk that you get a puzzle that doesn’t feel fair. I think an argument could be made that Rhode doesn’t explain every element of his solution prior to its reveal. The key elements however are all easily identified and, I would argue, the reader ought to be able to work out most of the solution even if they do not possess the technical expertise to solve it in its entirety.

Indeed a large part of Rhode’s skill as a mystery writer is taking a technical problem with medical or scientific elements like the one presented here and making it accessible. His characters often speak in a rather dry and mannered way but while that doesn’t feel like natural dialogue, it is essential for clean, clear distribution of key points of information.

A strong example of that can be found here in the conversations concerning the autopsy. Rhode clearly outlines what the tests for arsenical poisoning are in an exchange between Priestley and the police pathologist as the latter walks Priestley through those tests as he repeats them for his benefit. The exchange is somewhat redundant – the latter acknowledges that Priestley likely knows just as much if not more than him about those tests – but it occurs primarily for the benefit of the reader and to demonstrate conclusively to us that it is not a case of a test not being run or scientific incompetence.

This brings me to one of the differences between this and most of the other Priestley stories I have read before; in The Claverton Affair our sleuth is unusually active both in finding the case for himself and working to collect evidence. Typically Priestley behaves as an armchair detective, listening to the accounts of others and then pointing out the type of evidence he would like the police to look for. The initial setup here does include someone bringing their concerns of foul play to him but the difference is that once this happens he becomes personally involved in gathering that evidence.

Priestley is not a natural lead investigator in large part because of his personality. His fussiness and attention to detail wouldn’t be an asset in the type of story where he has to conduct lots of interviews, befriend witnesses and so forth. He is perfectly suited however for this sort of story in which he has to find the small details and inconsistencies, interacting primarily with medical professionals to spot the evidence that will enable him to prove murder.

As I have found with other Rhode stories, the personalities of the suspects here are not particularly noteworthy. While the family members do make an impression when they are first introduced for not being very talkative, I don’t feel that they have particularly strong personalities. One of them however does have an interesting background that Rhode will utilize: working as a medium.

The séance is one of those great tropes of the Golden Age that when done well, as it is here, can really elevate a story. This is no exception. Rhode not only does a good job of using it to create an atmosphere but the device also plays an important role in advancing the story, particularly as we reach the novel’s conclusion.

That conclusion is both dramatic and interesting, providing a very satisfying conclusion to what is one of the most intriguing Priestley cases I have read to date. While I was able to work out a few key points of the crime, the actual method used caught me by surprise (and, I should note, I did know a crucial piece of information prior to reading it so I could well have got to it if the idea had ever occurred to me).

The Verdict: One of the more successful Dr. Priestley stories I have read offering a curious puzzle with a rather ingenious solution. While the sleuth is rather unusually active in this investigation, it offers a good example of Rhode’s most notable attributes as a writer – his ingenuity and ability to convey technical information clearly so that even those with no scientific ability (i.e. me) should have no difficulty following the solution.

Second Opinions: The Puzzle Doctor @ In Search of the Classic Mystery considered this an interesting take on the impossible crime.

Nick Fuller @ The Grandest Game in the World, who is far better read in Rhode than me, describes this as ‘One of Rhode’s undoubted classics’. He also notes that the atmosphere generated in this story is unusual for the author.

Interested in purchasing this book to read yourself? While there hasn’t been a new physical edition of this book in a while, the title was recently republished by Mysterious Press as an eBook (cover page pictured above) complete with introduction from Dr. Curtis Evans.

The Paddington Mystery by John Rhode

July 4, 2018
Paddington
The Paddington Mystery
John Rhode
Originally Published 1925
Dr. Priestley #1
Followed by Dr. Priestley’s Quest

Earlier this year the Collins Crime Club reissued four John Rhode novels featuring his series detective Dr. Lancelot Priestley. If you’re been reading my blog for any length of time you will have seen that I enjoyed each of those releases, albeit to different degrees. So why, you may be asking, has it taken me so long to get around to the last of those four, The Paddington Mystery?

Part of the reason is that among my blogging chums who know their Rhode, this book was universally regarded as the weakest of the four. For instance, Puzzle Doctor wrote in his review that it is not only atypical of Rhode’s usual style but that it commits the crime of being rather dull. Not promising.

Now, I’m not going to say that those reviews are wrong as The Paddington Mystery is certainly the least satisfying of those four novels. In spite of that though I found it to be quite an enjoyable read and some aspects of the novel are pretty successful.

Let’s start with the premise which is simple but very effective. Harold is a young man whose life was mapped out by his father but when the old man dies and leaves him with a less substantial than expected inheritance, he decides to find a small flat in the city and living a generally disreputable life.

One night after being stood up by a lady friend who had made a date with him he returns to that flat in a drunken state to discover a corpse lying on his bed. No one comes forward to claim the body which lacks any kind of identification and there are no signs that anything has been interfered with in the apartment other than the window that was forced. As far as anyone can tell a man who was unknown to the deceased and had no reason to be there jumped in the canal, swam across, forced a window to a flat whose owner he did not know, climbed in and lay down on the bed to die. What’s more, the coroner returns a verdict of a natural death.

What I think Rhode does particularly well here is lay out a situation that is clearly odd and naturally gives us several logical lines of inquiry to follow. I found it interesting that for much of the novel there is no clear suggestion that there has been a crime committed. Instead we are trying to get to grips with a situation that just does not make sense. Harold is not implicated in these events as he has a clear alibi for the time of death and the coroner’s verdict provides further relief but his character is stained and he is contemplating starting a new life overseas to escape the scandal. Fortunately he knows Dr. Priestley whose logical, mathematical mind is equal to the challenge of figuring out just what has taken place.

Given that this was the first Priestley novel, I was very pleasantly surprised that he establishes the story structure here that he will return to throughout the character’s literary life. We open with a short explanation of the crime and then the investigation follows a consultation model in which Priestley provides some direction, the young investigator gathers evidence, chats things over with Priestley, goes in search of more evidence, chats things over with Priestley, follows up his leads and then Priestley reveals what happened. The pacing is somewhat different however reflecting that he gets involved earlier in the story and plays a much more active role in this adventure than he does in any of the other stories I have read so far.

There are some ways in which this novel does distinguish itself from the other Rhode titles I have read. For one, because we spend much of the novel without a clear crime to investigate, Rhode does not devote time to building up suspects. This means that once we know the nature of the crime, the criminal’s identity can be easily inferred by the reader. This makes the revelations in the final few chapters feel a little underwhelming, undermining the impact of its ending.

The novel also adopts a somewhat moralizing tone about Harold’s life of excess and particularly his drinking that feels somewhat puritanical. Frequently we hear him chastising himself for his irresponsibility in throwing away a good friendship and abusing alcohol, giving the novel a strange, chiding tone. It is a very heavy-handed approach and I think it makes Harold a little less likeable than he might otherwise be.

Hanslet gets a mention but does not actually appear as a character here, nor do the various other characters we find fleshing out Priestley’s dinner circle in later novels, but we do get a glimpse of his personal life. His daughter, April, plays an important role within the narrative although she actually is given little to do herself. She is quite likeable anyhow and while I can’t say I was desperate for Harold and April to be reunited, I had no great objections to it either.

The cast of supporting characters are of variable interest, the most promising being Harold’s grouchy, Communist landlord. I do think the lack of fully fleshed out characters has the unfortunate effect of making some aspects of the solution a little simpler than the reader may like. This ties into an overall feeling I had that some aspects of the story, while logically sound, feel quite expected and so the explanations at the end seem to underwhelm.

In spite of these flaws, I did enjoy the process of reading The Paddington Mystery. Priestley is quite lively and fun to follow and I enjoyed his interactions with Harold. I think that the book contains some interesting incidents and a solid premise. Hopefully we will see some other books in this series appear as reprints soon as it would be nice to be able to read some of these titles that are currently very rare and hard to track down. A boy can dream!

The Lake House by John Rhode

June 8, 2018
LakeHouse
The Lake House
(aka. Secret of the Lake House)
John Rhode
Originally Published 1946
Dr. Priestley #42
Preceded by Shadow of a Crime
Followed by Death in Harley Street

Not being content to wait for the release of The Paddington Mystery in the United States later this month, I decided to go ahead and seek out a John Rhode novel through the interlibrary loan system to get my Dr. Priestley fix. The Lake House was the first title to find its way to me which I was pretty happy about given how Nick Fuller rates it as one of the stronger Rhodes of the 1940s.

The story concerns the death of George Potterne in his lake house late at night. Earlier in the evening he had contacted the Police, asking Sergeant Wryde to visit him there at eleven as he wished to make a serious complaint. When Wryde arrives he discovers the door ajar and Potterne lying with his head on his desk, shot in the back.

Soon Jimmy Waghorn, newly appointed as Superintendent, arrives on the scene to conduct what will be his first major investigation in the role. He quickly and competently sets about documenting the crime scene, noting scorch marks on the back of the dead man’s chair, footprints on the sooty floor of the cabin, a pistol case with one of the pair missing and fragments of a will in the fire grate. Curiously both the butler and the dead man’s wife are not at home, the former having disappeared on the evening of the murder while the latter has supposedly travelled to France for her health.

One of the most surprising things about this novel for me was how straightforward its plot seemed to be in comparison with the other Priestley stories I had read. For instance, the crime scene was quite accessible in the evening of the murder while the physical evidence of the crime scene seems to be leading us in a clear direction. Nor does there seem to be anything particularly strange or complex about the case beyond the question of how an assailant came to murder Potterne with his own weapon.

In spite of its apparent simplicity, I enjoyed the early part of the book and was pleased that Jimmy is shown to be quite competent and feel his thinking, while inevitably flawed to allow Priestley to solve the case, really seems quite well-reasoned. Even more surprising, he is allowed to progress quite some way into his investigation before Priestley makes his appearance and even then the two surprise by taking fairly similar views of the case and its evidence.

Of course, however simple things appear it is clear that there must be more to the case than meets the eye. The reader therefore needs to first consider how Jimmy’s suggestion for what happened is flawed before turning their mind to thinking up a better explanation using all of the facts of the case.

The correct explanation is certainly ingeniously worked and manages to take what is a seemingly simple crime and convincingly showing that it could only have been performed in a complex way. I do agree with Nick that the killer’s identity does seem to be quite straightforward though that didn’t bother me as I was interested to see how it would be managed. Though there are some echoes of another famous mystery story in the solution, I found it to be a very well described and cleverly worked solution and felt it resolved things very nicely.

While the premise for the story may not be as immediately grabbing as, say, Death at Breakfast or Mystery at Olympia, I found it to be tightly plotted and was impressed with the richness of its characterizations, both of the victim and the various suspects we encounter. I haven’t read enough Rhode yet to have a sense of just how good he could be but I think this compares favorably with each of the three reissued novels I have read and it leaves me excited to try some other of his works from this period.

This book was published in the United States under the title Secret of the Lake House.

Death at Breakfast by John Rhode

March 26, 2018
Breakfast
Death at Breakfast
John Rhode
Originally Published 1936
Dr. Priestley #23
Preceded by Shot at Dawn
Followed by In the Face of the Verdict

Victor Harleston, a clerk with an accounting firm, wakes up in anticipation of a very good day. He is expecting a financial windfall that he has no intention of sharing with his half-sister Jane who he exploits for housekeeping duties in exchange for putting a roof over her head. Within a few hours he will be dead.

The crime scene proves a curious one, riddled with contradictions. While it is clear that Victor was poisoned, the evidence collected seems to suggest that the poison was ingested while the autopsy indicates that it was absorbed.

Soon Superintendent Hanslet and Jimmy Waghorn are on the case but while they quickly seem to settle on a suspect, they cannot understand how the crime could have been achieved. Hanslet decides to turn to Dr. Priestley for his advice but before long some further complications emerge in the case…

I have only read a couple of Rhode/Street/Burton novels so far (the only one I have reviewed here is The Chinese Puzzle) and this is the first of his Dr. Priestley series. Of the novels that I have tried, this is easily my favorite so far. Knowing that Rhode-expert Puzzle Doctor says that he doesn’t consider this top rate Rhode makes me all the more intrigued to dig deeper into his work.

A large part of my enjoyment was based on the character of Dr. Priestley who is used rather sparingly, brought in to hear the various theories that Hanslet and Waghorn have developed and to set them on the right track with a judicious application of logical thinking. It put me a little in mind of the Professor in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and I like to imagine that after each meeting Dr. Priestley is silently tutting to himself and wondering what they teach them in those schools…

Most of the actual investigating work is carried out by Jimmy Waghorn while Hanslet seems to be mostly content with trying to make the facts he already has work to convict his chosen suspect. Jimmy certainly shows some spark in identifying the method the murderer actually used to carry out their crime and takes the initiative to follow up on some leads. While he lacks Priestley’s ability to analyse the evidence, he does at least show some imagination and his diligent approach to searching the crime scenes and interviewing suspects does bear some fruit.

That murder method is quite cleverly devised and while the methodical approach to the investigation means that the reader will likely reason out the solution much faster than the detectives, I enjoyed reading how Jimmy was carefully piecing the elements together. There are some similarly strong investigation sequences in the middle third of the book, though I do agree with Puzzle Doctor that there is some dragging as the investigators put forward multiple explanations of how a crime may have been managed. I think though that the problem is that the investigators have obviously failed to consider every reading of the evidence at that point so if you are already aware of an alternate reading of that evidence, the reader may feel impatient for the detectives to catch up with them.

Happily when they do I think that the case proves a satisfying one, repaying the reader’s investment. I think Rhode explains his characters’ motivations well and provides us with a credible sequence of events that may lead someone to murder. The mystery is well-clued and plays fair with the reader and though I suspect most will see key developments coming, Rhode spaces those moments out well throughout his story to maintain interest.

As some of you may be aware I will be collaborating with JJ at The Invisible Event next month to produce a spoilery review of another recently reissued book by Rhode, Invisible Weapons. All of the aspects of the plot will be up for discussion so if you fancy joining in, do be sure to pick up a copy. My hopes for a good read and discussion are certainly boosted by the experience of reading this one.

Vintage Mysteries Challenge: Time/date/etc in the Title (When)