Ask a Policeman

A crowd of people are assembled round a dinner table in The Red Widow Murders. There is a sinister room in the house, nailed up for many years. Anyone who stays in it alone is found dead. A man goes in, locks himself in while the others wait outside. Every quarter of an hour they call to him and he replies—but when the door is opened the man is dead, in a room with locked shutters and no secret ways in or out—and, what is more, that man has been dead for over an hour. The impossible has happened! You never noticed a little descriptive phrase about the man at dinner; pale, nervous, eating nothing but soup … Your clue was there, in those four words.

Dickson Carr’s detective is the beer drinking Dr. Fell, Carter Dickson’s sleuth is Sir Henry Merrivale, the “old man”, a former chief of Military Intelligence. I much prefer him of the two—but it is the actual unfolding of the story that is the real strength of Dickson Carr’s genius. He is a male Scheherazade—and certainly no cruel Empress could order his execution until she had heard the next instalment!

Ngaio Marsh is another deservedly popular detective writer. Her style is amusing and her characterizations excellent. Surfeit of Lampreys was a delightful book, though perhaps one so enjoyed the Lamprey family that one rather forgot about the murder. Death in Ecstasy is a very clever picture of a little coterie of worshippers in a “New Religion” adroitly put over by the infamous Father Garnett. Artists in Crime is a good story of murder amongst a collection of painters. Both the atmosphere and the people are first rate.

Then there is the master of alibis, Freeman Wills Crofts. Inspector French is a kindly painstaking man who accomplishes his results by sheer hard work. If you like alibis, then you will enjoy the efforts of Inspector French. The Cask, one of his earliest books, is a model of its kind. A cask arrives at a business firm in London and is found to contain the body of a young woman. From there on you trace the cask back to its sender and forward again—there seems no loop hole, no possible opportunity for the cask to have been opened and the body substituted for the original piece of statuary. Nevertheless, there is a flaw and at last, slowly worried out, the truth emerges.

There are many other good detective writers—space forbids the mention of all of them. There is Michael Innes, a brilliant and witty writer. There is straightforward John Rhode with Dr. Priestley in charge. There is Gladys Mitchell with her fascinating Mrs. Bradley, ugly as a toad and armed with the latest up-to-date theories of psychology. And Austin Freeman’s books remain interesting examples of scientific methods of crime deduction.

I have chosen out for fullest description those writers whom I myself admire most and consider at the top of their profession. No collection would be complete without the mention of Anthony Berkeley, founder of the Detective Club, although he has, alas, been silent for many years. But what delightful books he has written. Detection and crime at its wittiest—all his stories are amusing, intriguing, and he is a master of the final twist, the surprise dénouement. Roger Sheridan, the slightly fatuous novelist, is his detective, though Roger is not always allowed to shine. He remains always the gifted amateur—hit or miss—but whichever way it is, the entertainment is first class.

And now, perhaps, a few words about myself. Since I have been writing detective stories for a quarter of a century and have some forty-odd novels to my credit, I may lay claim at least to being an industrious craftsman. A more aristocratic title was given to me by an American paper which dubbed me the “Duchess of Death”.

I have enjoyed writing detective stories, and I think the austerity and stern discipline that goes to making a ‘tight’ detective plot is good for one’s thought processes. It is the kind of writing that does not permit loose or slipshod thinking. It all has to dovetail, to fit in as part of a carefully constructed whole. You must have your blueprint first, and it needs really constructive thinking to make a workmanlike job of it.

Naturally one’s methods alter. I have become more interested as the years go on in the preliminaries of crime—the interplay of character upon character, the deep smouldering resentments and dissatisfactions that do not always come to the surface but which may suddenly explode into violence. I have written light-hearted murder stories, and serious crime stories, and technical extravaganzas like Ten Little Niggers [And Then There Were None]. I have laid a crime story in Ancient Egypt, and a murder play on a modern Nile steamer. I have had the conventional Body in the Library, and Bodies in Aeroplanes, and on Boats and in Trans-European Trains. Hercule Poirot has made quite a place for himself in the world and is regarded perhaps with more affection by outsiders than by his own creator! I would give one piece of advice to young detective writers. Be very careful what central character you create—you may have him with you for a very long time!

INTRODUCTION TO PART I

(a)

“DEAR JOHN RHODE,

“People ask me, when they find out (let me be honest, ‘when I tell them’) that I write detective stories, ‘Oh, how do you begin? Do you think of a Murder and then work it out, or do you think of a Solution and do it backwards?’ I suppose the question is inevitable; I have never discovered the answer.

“At the moment I’m in a peculiar position: I’ve thought of a title—’ Ask a Policeman.’ That ought to suggest a nice murder, surely? You know, with Cabinet Ministers, and Papal Nuncios, and Libraries, and all the rest of it.

“But the queer thing is, the title does nothing of the sort—to me: how does it strike you?

“Yours ever,

“MILWARD KENNEDY.”

(b)

“DEAR MILWARD KENNEDY,

“Yes, I know. I have never answered the question myself. I have come to the conclusion that writing detective stories is just like any other vice. The deed is done without one’s having any clear knowledge of the temptation which led up to it. But I must confess that I usually start with something more comprehensive than a title.

“I suppose your veiled suggestion is that I supply a plot to fit your title. But, honestly, to my simple mind ‘Ask a Policeman’ suggests the pawning of a watch—or are you too young to remember the old song?—rather than your galaxy of celebrities. Besides, I have never met a Papal Nuncio. I shouldn’t know what to say to him if I did. But I have seen an Archbishop—in the distance. And once I used to hold awestruck conversations with a Cabinet Minister, whose powers of invective I have always admired.

“So here is your plot. As you will see, you have a choice of many Policemen to interrogate as to its solution.

“Yours,

“JOHN RHODE.”

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