The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books

by Martin Edwards

  ***

  Henry Wade, for whom Crofts was an early influence, had a close understanding of police work, and its internal politics, conveying the work ofhis detectives with realism but without sacrificing entertainment. As his confidence grew, Wade’s accounts of the conduct of criminal investigations, skilfully integrated with whodunit plots, became increasingly compelling. He created a hard-working police constable, John Bragg, who appeared in short stories and a single novel, but his main series character was Inspector John Poole.

  Like Ngaio Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn, E.R. Punshon’s Bobby Owen, Michael Innes’ John Appleby and Margaret Erskine’s Septimus Finch, all of whom came later, Poole was a ‘gentleman cop’. In roughly the same mould was Francis Beeding’s Inspector George Martin, described in No Fury (1937) as a member of ‘the new school [of police detectives] which placed a premium on imagination and psychology’. Poole’s ambition and quiet determination are plausible. So is Wade’s depiction of rivalries and tensions within the police—typically between those, like Froest, who had risen from humble beginnings, and those whose education seemed, to some colleagues, to give them an unfair advantage.

  Police numbers had been depleted by the First World War, and the Twenties saw increasing concern about their professionalism, as well as fears about corruption. Towards the end of that decade, the scandal surrounding Sergeant George Goddard, convicted for taking bribes from nightclub owners, made clear the need for change. At first, the Police Federation resisted proposals to introduce a new training regime, but the appointment of Lord Trenchard as Metropolitan Police Commissioner led to the establishment of a police college at Hendon. The Labour MP Aneurin Bevan denounced this as ‘an entirely fascist development’, and the Police Review claimed that Trenchard’s reforms amounted to ‘“class” legislation with a vengeance’.

  These tensions were not ignored in classic crime fiction. In Comes a Stranger (1938), E.R. Punshon employed his series policeman Bobby Owen, educated at Oxford, but not trained at Hendon, as a mouthpiece for his own views: ‘Lord Trenchard thought the police only existed to protect society, and he only saw society as a society of the rich, so he thought he had to bring in chaps from the rich classes to keep the police loyal…The Trenchard result is that for the first time the police are split with class feeling…and none of them know quite where they are.’ Agatha Christie also dropped a hint in The ABC Murders that she was unconvinced by the Trenchard reforms, but a more positive view was presented by John Rhode in Hendon’s First Case.

  As time passed, links between police work and crime writing became more commonplace. Sir Basil Home Thomson, whose eventful life included spells as a prison governor, and as an Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard, wrote eight novels about a detective called Richardson who rose from police constable to Chief Constable almost in the blink of an eye. Thomson emphasises that effective police investigations depend upon team work, and are pioneering examples of the ‘police procedural’ story. The highly capable Richardson is no maverick loner, and in the last two books he takes a back seat as more junior officers do the legwork. Thomson was never elected to membership of the Detection Club, though that honour was granted in 1936 to Sir Norman Kendal (1880–1966), who was appointed Assistant Commissioner in 1928, seven years after Thomson’s departure, but never wrote fiction.

  The Detection Club also invited the recently retired Superintendent Cornish to take part in one of its collaborative books, Six Against the Yard (1936). The idea was that six writers, among them Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham and Ronald Knox, produced stories about a ‘perfect crime’, and then Cornish was tasked with explaining how the police would, in reality, bring the perpetrator to justice.

  Detective novelists became increasingly interested in presenting police work realistically. Henry Wade led the way, and in the closing pages of Lonely Magdalen (1940), he combined a clever plot twist with a glance—all the more startling because it was unexpected—at police brutality.

  After the Second World War, ‘police procedural’ novels such as those by Maurice Procter became increasingly popular. Unlike Froest and Sir Basil Thomson, Procter was a serving police officer, based in Yorkshire. His description of cops, criminals and everyday police work had a gritty authenticity that not even Wade could match. Although Procter soon resigned from the force in order to write full-time, his experience of front-line policing ensured that his later books remained credible as well as influential. Realism came to be regarded as a key requirement of an effective police procedural novel, although some novels featuring police officers, notably Colin Dexter’s bestselling Inspector Morse series, continued to make a virtue of ingenious plotting rather than strict authenticity of investigative methods.

  The Grell Mystery

  by Frank Froest (1913)

  Robert Grell is a daring explorer who has also enjoyed success in the worlds of finance and politics in the United States prior to settling in England as a gentleman of leisure. He spends his ‘last night of bachelordom’ prior to marrying the lovely Lady Eileen Meredith at his club. When he tells his friend Sir Ralph Fairfield that he needs to keep an appointment, his evasiveness about what he is doing puzzles Fairfield. Two hours later, ‘a wild-eyed breathless servant’ is reporting to the police that Grell has been found murdered in his study, and it emerges that another servant, a Russian called Ivan, has vanished. All is not, however, as it seems. The police quickly establish that the dead man is not Grell, but someone who bears him a close resemblance.

  At the start of the second chapter, the author observes: ‘When a man has passed thirty years in the service of the Criminal Investigation Department at New Scotland Yard his nerves are pretty well shock-proof. Few emergencies can shake him.’ As a former policeman himself, Frank Froest was speaking from the heart. Similarly, when Heldon Foyle, Chief of the C.I.D., reflects that sometimes a police officer needs to ‘put a blind eye to the telescope’ and act in a ‘technically illegal’ way so as to do justice, there can be little doubt that this reflects Froest’s own attitude. In real life, he was as unorthodox as many a fictional sleuth.

  Frank Froest was born in Bristol, and joined the Metropolitan Police as a constable in 1879. He rose steadily through the ranks, becoming Superintendent in the C.I.D. in 1906, a post he held until his retirement six years later. A eulogistic obituary in The Times recorded that: ‘He was quite unlike the popular idea of a detective, having all the appearance of a prosperous and ingenuous country gentleman, but he was a man of shrewdness and resource, and was highly esteemed for his professional ability, not only at home but also by his many friends among foreign detectives…He once had a desperate struggle with a captive while travelling in an express train. He managed to handcuff him, but was then nearly killed by a footwarmer which his prisoner contrived to hurl at him. He was particularly successful with “confidence” tricksters and with gangs of Continental swindlers.’

  A capable linguist, Froest handled many cases with a foreign element, and was responsible for bringing the disgraced financier and former Liberal MP Jabez Balfour, who had fled the country, back from Argentina. When extradition proceedings dragged, Froest simply bundled his man into a train and later into a boat sailing for England. Described by one journalist as resembling ‘a Prussian field-marshal’ in appearance when in uniform, he was famed for his physical appearance, and known as ‘the man with iron hands’. He received the King’s Police Medal, and on his retirement in 1912, King George V gave a speech in his honour.

  After leaving the Yard, Froest put his experience to good use in two novels, a collection of stories and a history of the Metropolitan Police. Generally, he acknowledged a journalist collaborator, George Dilnot, who may also have ghost-written The Grell Mystery. This novel and The Rogues’ Syndicate (1916) were made into silent films, and Froest spent his final years in Somerset as a pillar of the community, becoming an alderman, and also a Justice of the Peace.

  The Duk
e of York’s Steps

  by Henry Wade (1929)

  After being involved in an apparently accidental collision on London’s Duke of York Steps, Sir Garth Fratten, chairman of a bank, suffers a burst aneurism and dies. Inez Fratten, as shrewd as she is attractive, is not satisfied about the circumstances of her father’s death, and shares her concerns with Sir Leward Marradine, the Assistant Commissioner in charge of the C.I.D. Chief Inspector Barrod regards the matter as a waste of time, and suggests that the newly promoted Inspector John Poole should look into it. Barrod has a low opinion of ‘soft’ university graduates like Poole, reckoning that ‘a failure—or at any rate, a fiasco, would do him no harm’. But Marradine is wise enough to recognise Poole’s potential as a detective.

  Poole, the privately educated son of a country doctor, studied law at Oxford before becoming fascinated by crime, and earning election to the Criminologists’ Club (perhaps a fictionalised version of the then embryonic Detection Club, of which Wade became a founder member). He is well aware that senior police posts ‘usually went to soldiers and sailors, and even occasionally to barristers, though in some of the borough forces promotion through the ranks was becoming more common’, but sets his heart on one day becoming the head of the C.I.D. himself.

  As the investigation into Fratten’s death becomes increasingly complex, Wade makes passing mention of the crime writer Robert Eustace, in connection with the stories he wrote with L.T. Meade. Poole is familiar with the detective work of Holmes, Poirot and Hanaud, but regards the approach of Freeman Wills Crofts’ Inspector French as much more ‘true to life’. Crofts’ influence on Wade is reflected in the careful unravelling of an ingenious conspiracy, but even at this early stage in his career, Wade displays more interest than Crofts in bringing his characters to life. As his literary confidence increased, his writing became increasingly ambitious and impressive, but he did not sacrifice authenticity; in Bury Him Darkly (1936), in which the point is made that Poole (that is, his creator) had anticipated the Trenchard reforms, the realistic depiction of police work ensures that a Crofts-like quest to destroy an alibi, accompanied in the first edition by a fold-out map of roads and railways crucial to the plot, is never less than absorbing. Heir Presumptive (1935), a highly entertaining story in the tradition of Israel Rank included two fold-out bonus extras: a family tree of the ill-fated Hendels, and a map of Captain David Hendel’s deer-forest.

  ***

  Henry Wade was the pen-name adopted by Henry Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher when he turned to writing crime fiction. Aubrey-Fletcher was the son of a baronet, and educated at Eton and Oxford. He fought with the Grenadier Guards during the First World War, and when peace returned, he played cricket for Buckinghamshire, served on the county council, and became High Sheriff and Lord Lieutenant of the county. This book, like The Missing Partners (1928), demonstrates that Wade understood the practical world of business and finance better than many of his crime-writing contemporaries. An even more significant recurring element in his fiction is the impact of the First World War on individuals as well as on British society.

  Wade’s public appointments included a spell as a Justice of the Peace, and his stories display a fascination with the methods, and ‘office politics’, of the police. Constable, Guard Thyself! (1934) is a clever whodunit about a murder of a chief constable inside a police station—floor plans are supplied. Poole solves the case, but Wade presents him subtly, as a human and fallible cop, rather than a superman. In Bury Him Darkly (1936) a naive lack of discretion on Poole’s part is even responsible for the death of a colleague, and the novel ends on a note of tantalising uncertainty about the fate of one of the culprits. Wade’s ambition as a writer is illustrated by books such as Mist on the Saltings (1933), a study of jealousy and suspicion with an atmospheric setting on the coast of Norfolk, and Released for Death (1938), which focuses on the misadventures of a former prisoner. His self-critical approach and determination to develop as a writer were key to the success of his books. In September 1946, he wrote to a friend that ‘the last 6 or 7 chapters [of Released for Death] were thoroughly bad and when I was lying up last year with a bad leg I re-wrote them’. Regrettably, the revised ending never saw the light of day.

  Poole made regular appearances in Wade’s fiction for a quarter of a century, most memorably in Lonely Magdalen (1940), a poignant study of an investigation into the strangling of a prostitute on Hampstead Heath. The novel is memorable not only for the sophistication of the story but also for Wade’s striking—given the period, and his position in the establishment—acknowledgement that the police were not always wonderful.

  Hendon’s First Case

  by John Rhode (1935)

  This ingenious poisoning mystery earned high praise from Dorothy L. Sayers, who judged the plot to be ‘exceedingly good’. A chemist called Threlfall receives a menacing letter from his estranged wife, who is demanding a divorce. Before long, someone breaks in to the laboratory where Threlfall conducts research with a colleague called Harwood, there is an explosion in Threlfall’s study, and Threlfall dies of ptomaine poisoning after dining in a restaurant with Harwood. Harwood shared the same meal, and is also poisoned, but recovers. The plot continues to thicken, not least with the discovery that Threlfall left with his solicitor a mysterious coded message.

  Sayers considered the story in the context of a discussion about how writers of long series of novels might deal with the ageing of their detectives. One possibility is to prevent them from growing older; another is to allow them to age; a third is to ‘hurl them over the Reichenbach Falls (at the risk, to be sure, of having to haul them painfully up again later) and let younger rivals step into their shoes’.

  Rhode’s solution to the dilemma was cunning. He had previously matched his brilliant, irascible Great Detective Dr Lancelot Priestley with an experienced Scotland Yard man, Superintendent Hanslet. In this book, he introduced a youthful new police officer, who works alongside the two older men as they search for the explanation of Threlfall’s death.

  Cambridge-educated Jimmy Waghorn is one of the first graduates of Hendon Police College, and has been appointed Junior Station Inspector. Hanslet, who had risen through the ranks in the time-honoured manner (rather as Frank Froest did), sees the merit of experimenting with a new regime, but fears that it will have an adverse effect upon morale—traditionally, the Metropolitan Police had not had an equivalent of the ‘officer class’ in the British Army.

  Rhode’s highly topical storyline was marred by failings characteristic of an author who wrote too much, too quickly. The discussion about ciphers becomes wearisome, and once Priestley decodes Threlfall’s message, the mystery is wrapped up in perfunctory fashion. Yet the book presents an appealing trio of detectives with diverse skills. As Sayers put it, ‘three ways of tackling a detective problem are fruitfully contrasted: the way of experience, the way of imagination, and the way of the scientific inquirer’. Jimmy Waghorn became a continuing character in Rhode’s books, while Hanslet faded gradually into the background. Priestley also began to play a less active part in the stories—but Rhode refused to consign him to an English equivalent of the Reichenbach Falls.

  Green for Danger

  by Christianna Brand (1944)

  ‘He looked rather a sweet little man,’ Frederica Linley says, shortly after Inspector Cockrill takes charge of the investigation into the death of Joseph Higgins, while on the operating table at a military hospital. His nickname ‘Cockie’ is unlikely to inspire fear in a suspect. But in a detective story, appearances are invariably deceptive, and we are told that: ‘Inspector Cockrill was anything but a sweet little man.’ He has been described by Tony Medawar, introducing The Spotted Cat and other Mysteries from Inspector Cockrill’s Casebook (2002), as ‘one of the best loved “official” detectives in the whole of the crime and mystery genre’.

  Higgins was a postman, and the first chapter sees him delivering letters in Heron’s Park, Kent
; seven other characters make an appearance, and we are told at the end of the chapter that one of them would die a year later, ‘self-confessed a murderer’. This is a murder mystery with a closed circle of suspects, a form in which Brand specialised. Her ingeniously plotted detective fiction belonged in spirit to the Golden Age, even though she did not publish her first novel until 1941.

  The frenetic atmosphere of rural England under attack by German doodlebugs is superbly evoked in a story combining an original murder method with a clever whodunit puzzle. Brand, like most Golden Age writers, had little interest in the minutiae of police procedure, and Cockrill is an unlikely cop, in part because, as Brand admitted: he was ‘unique in being several inches below the minimum height for a British policeman…he does also seem to be a bit too old’. She acknowledged that Cockrill ‘is not a great one for the physical details of an investigation’, but he has the classic attributes of a successful fictional detective: ‘acute powers of observation…a considerable understanding of human nature; a total integrity and commitment…Above all, he has patience.’

  Crucially, he is an appealing character, a widower whose only child is dead; a man whose gruff manner conceals compassion, not least for the guilty. When he finally arrests the killer, he shows his humanity, saying: ‘I’m sorry…This is a terrible thing for me to have to do.’ Even at this late stage, with an unexpected motive for murder revealed, Brand still has time for a final ironic twist, and a poignant final paragraph.