This edition published 2016 by
The British Library
96 Euston Road
London
NW1 2DB
Originally published in 1934 by Hodder & Stoughton
Copyright © 2016 Estate of Freeman Wills Crofts
Introduction copyright © 2016 Martin Edwards
Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7123 5649 7
eISBN 978 0 7123 6423 2
Typesetting and eBook by Tetragon, London
Contents
Introduction
I. Andrew Takes the Air
II. Charles Considers Finance
III. Charles Suggests Accommodations
IV. Charles Advocates Matrimony
V. Charles Grows Desperate
VI. Charles Meets Temptation
VII. Charles Sees His Way
VIII. Charles Begins His Preparations
IX. Charles Completes His Preparations
X. Charles Burns His Boats
XI. Charles Achieves His Object
XII. Charles Becomes a Spectator
XIII. Charles Has a Caller
XIV. Charles Meets a Criminal
XV. Charles Shows the Strong Hand
XVI. Charles Assists Justice
XVII. Charles Attains Security
XVIII. Charles Experiences Panic
XIX. Charles Attends Court
XX. Charles Endures Despair
XXI. Charles Regains Hope
XXII. Charles Learns His Fate
XXIII. French Begins His Story
XXIV. French Completes His Story
Introduction
The 12.30 from Croydon is a pleasingly crafted novel about murder and its detection, which illustrates the evolving nature of crime fiction during ‘the Golden Age of Murder’ between the wars. Here, one of the most admired authors of traditional detective stories changed direction, to focus in detail on the behaviour and psychology of a ruthless murderer, before pitting him against doughty Inspector Joseph French of Scotland Yard.
First, a word about the book’s title. Some modern readers – especially those who know that Crofts was a railway engineer before he became a novelist, and that trains often feature in his books – may assume that it refers to a rail journey, like Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple novel, 4.50 from Paddington. In fact, the title refers to a trip by aeroplane. A small family group from Yorkshire flies from Croydon to Beauvais – but by the time the plane lands, Andrew Crowther, a wealthy manufacturer, is already dead.
The action promptly flashes back four weeks, and the setting switches to Yorkshire. We are introduced to Crowther’s nephew, Charles Swinburn, who is facing ruin because of the Slump. It is sometimes said that Golden Age novels ignored the harsh realities of life in the Thirties, but although the books certainly offered readers the chance of escapism, the truth is that the economic calamities of the time often acted as the catalyst for fictional crime, with financial disaster driving ordinary men and women to the drastic remedy of murder. So it is with Charles Swinburn, whose need for money is made more urgent by the mercenary nature of Una Mellor, the woman he adores. The solution to his difficulties seems to stare him in the face:
How strange it was, Charles ruminated, that the useless and obstructive so often live on, while the valuable and progressive die early! Here was Andrew Crowther, a man whose existence was a misery to himself and a nuisance to all around him. Why should he be spared and others who were doing a great work in the world be cut off in their prime? It didn’t somehow seem right. For the sake of himself and everyone else it would be better if Andrew were to die.
Charles devises a cunning plan to dispose of Andrew Crowther, and much of the appeal of the story comes from following his meticulous implementation of the scheme. Unfortunately for him, complications ensue, and his bad luck is compounded when Inspector French comes on to the scene.
This novel, the fifteenth published by Freeman Wills Crofts (1879–1957), followed The Hog’s Back Mystery, an outstanding example of the fairly clued whodunnit. The popularity of his books had enabled Crofts to retire from engineering, and relocate from his native Ireland to Guildford to concentrate on writing. He became a founder member of the Detection Club, alongside the likes of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and G.K. Chesterton, a sign of the regard in which his work was held by his peers.
But as Sayers noted in her enthusiastic review of this book, success for a novelist sometimes gives rise to a dilemma:
Among the major temptations that assail the detective author (and others) is that of writing the same book over and over again. Publishers and public encourage him to do so, because they like to know what to expect. Then, quite suddenly, they turn on the poor man and rend him, complaining that his books are all alike and that he has written himself out. The author, who is probably as heartily weary of the book as they are, but has been too timid to abandon a vein which has hitherto paid very well, is then faced with the task of starting all over again, under a heavy handicap.
Crofts had, Sayers noted, ‘lately shown signs of a certain restlessness’, and in Sudden Death, published in 1932, he had seemed to be ‘groping after a new formula’. With this book, he took the plunge, undoubtedly inspired by the recent emergence of the psychological crime novel. Novels focusing on the mindset and machinations of murderers had occasionally appeared in the Twenties – notable examples are A.P. Herbert’s The House on the River and C.S. Forester’s Payment Deferred. But the real breakthrough came when Anthony Berkeley Cox, the founder of the Detection Club, published Malice Aforethought in 1930, under the name Francis Iles. His novel achieved both critical acclaim and commercial success, and Iles soon gained a number of talented disciples, including newcomers to the crime genre such as C.E. Vulliamy and Richard Hull.
Several established writers of detective fiction were also inspired by Iles’ example; books written under his influence included Portrait of a Murderer, by Anne Meredith (a pen-name for Lucy Malleson, who usually wrote under the name Anthony Gilbert), and End of an Ancient Mariner, by G.D.H. and Margaret Cole. Crofts was, therefore, in good company in deciding that the time had come to try something different with the crime novel, but although his books did not delineate character in such depth as those by Iles, they benefited from his scrupulous attention to detail.
Sayers pronounced that 12.30 from Croydon was ‘an excellent book, though here and there the practised hand betrays a little unsureness in working on the unaccustomed material ... the story, as a story, is highly successful, and Mr. Crofts is to be congratulated upon his experiment’. Duly encouraged, Crofts promptly wrote another book in the same vein, Mystery on Southampton Water, before venturing on an even bolder experiment in 1938, with Antidote to Venom. That book, like The Hog’s Back Mystery and another cleverly plotted novel, Mystery in the Channel, is available in the British Library’s Crime Classics series. Taken together, the four novels provide an enjoyable reminder of Freeman Wills Crofts’ range and ambition as a crime writer.
MARTIN EDWARDS
www.martinedwardsbooks.com
Select bibliography:
Freeman Wills Crofts and Golden Age detective fiction
Melvyn Barnes, ‘Freeman Wills Crofts’, in St James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers (1996)
J. Barzun and W.H. Taylor, A Catalogue of Crime (1971)
John Cooper and B.A. Pike, Artists in Crime (1995)
John Cooper and B.A. Pike, Detective Fiction: The Collector’s Guide (2nd edn, 1994)
Martin Edwards, The Golden Age of Murder (
2015)
Curtis Evans, Masters of the ‘Humdrum’ Mystery: Cecil John Charles Street, Freeman Wills Crofts, Alfred Walter Stewart and the British Detective Novel, 1920–61 (2012)
H.R.F. Keating, Murder Must Appetize (1975)
H.M. Klein, ‘Freeman Wills Crofts’, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, volume 77: British Mystery Writers 1920–39 (1989)
Erik Routley, The Puritan Pleasures of the Detective Story: From Sherlock Holmes to Van der Valk (1972)
Chapter I
Andrew Takes the Air
Rose Morley was an excited young lady as with her father and grandfather and grandfather’s servant she reached the air station at Victoria. For the first time in her life she was going to fly!
Excitements indeed had followed one another without intermission since last night, when the dreadful news had come that her mother had been knocked down and seriously injured by a taxi in Paris. Rose was staying with a school friend at Thirsk, in Yorkshire. She had gone to bed and almost to sleep, and then Mrs Blessington had come in softly and told her to get up and dress, as her father had come to pay her a late visit. Wonderingly, Rose had obeyed. She had gone down to the drawing-room to find her father there alone. He had smiled at her bravely, but she had seen in a moment that he was really terribly upset. He had explained at once what had happened. That was one thing she did like about daddy: he always treated her as a grown-up and told her the truth about things. Poor mummy had had this accident in Paris and he and grandfather were going over to see her. And wouldn’t she, Rose, like to go with them and see poor mummy, too?
Rose said she would. At first she had been dreadfully distressed at the thought that her mother might be in pain, but then so many thrilling things had happened one after another that these regrets had become dulled. First there had been the run home in the car through the darkness, sitting beside daddy, who drove. Then the getting up again at half-past two in the morning – she had never before been up at such an hour; the coffee and sandwiches in the dining-room, and the long drive in the car to York. She was sleepy in the station, which was horrid, so big and empty and cold. But the train had soon come in and she had had such a delightful little room with a real bed to sleep in. Then daddy had wakened her to say that it was time to get up, and she had found that they were in London. As soon as she had dressed they had gone to an hotel for breakfast. There grandfather had rested till after a while they had had this thrilling drive across Town, and now here was the air station: and she was going to fly!
Now that the crowning excitement of the journey had been reached, all thoughts as to what might lie at its farther end vanished from her mind and she became intent solely on the present. Small wonder! Her outlook was not that of her father and grandfather. She was only ten.
Her father, Peter Morley, was a man of about forty, of medium height, thin, stooped, and a trifle dyspeptic. His face was set in a melancholy cast, as if he had little faith in the good intentions of the goddess of chance. His passion was farming, and when he had married Elsie Crowther they had bought the little estate which for many years he had coveted. Otterton Farm was near Cold Pickerby, where his father-in-law, Andrew Crowther, lived. It had a small but charming old homestead building, an excellent yard and out offices, and just over a hundred acres of good land. Peter’s management was sound and he made a success of the venture: until the slump had come. Now he found himself in the same difficulties as his co-agriculturists. He had a son and daughter: Hugh, a boy of thirteen, who was also away on a visit, and this girl, Rose.
Andrew Crowther, the father of Peter’s wife, Elsie, was a retired manufacturer and a wealthy man. The first impression that he produced on the observer was that of age. He was an old man; old for his years, which were only sixty-five. His hair was snow-white and his face seamed and haggard. For some time he had given up shaving, and now he wore a thin straggling beard and moustache. Always to Peter he suggested Henry Irving as Shylock, with his hooked nose, stooped shoulders and grasping, claw-like fingers. He could somehow be imagined crouching over a fire and holding out his thin hands to the blaze. Up to some five years earlier he had been a personable and well-set-up man, but he had then had a serious illness which had sapped his vitality and all but taken his life. He had pulled through, but he emerged from his sick-room the wreck of his former self. Peter had doubted the wisdom of his undertaking this journey, but Elsie was Andrew Crowther’s only daughter, the only living being indeed of whom he seemed really fond, and he had insisted on coming. His heart was known to be weak, and Peter had rung up his doctor and had him specially examined as to his fitness for the expedition. Of this Dr Gregory had expressed no doubt. All the same Peter watched him anxiously, though to his satisfaction the old man did not so far show signs of fatigue.
The fourth member of the quartet was John Weatherup, Andrew Crowther’s general attendant and butler. He was a thin man of middle height, with a dark saturnine face and a manner expressive of gloom. He had come to Andrew during the latter’s convalescence with excellent qualifications as a male nurse, and when Andrew was as well as he was ever likely to become and no longer required a nurse, Weatherup had taken no notice of the fact, but had stayed on as ‘man’. As an attendant, he was not the person Peter would have chosen, but he appeared to be a success at his job, and could effectively humour his employer.
Peter Morley was eagerly anticipating their arrival at the air station. He had arranged that a telegram with the latest bulletin of his wife’s condition should be sent him there, and his anxiety grew almost painful as they drove across Town. Indeed he could scarcely contain himself till the taxi came to rest, leaping out and hurrying to the office.
As he disappeared two porters in neat blue uniforms came forward.
‘Have you got reserved places?’ one asked.
Weatherup explained that these had been obtained on the previous evening. Thereupon the porters seized the luggage, and to Rose’s intense interest, threw it lightly into a hole in the office wall. She could see the suit-cases departing slowly and mysteriously downwards into the bowels of the earth on a series of metal rollers which stretched away like some unusual kind of flat stairway. But before she could point out the phenomenon to her grandfather, Peter reappeared, waving a buff slip.
‘It’s not so bad as we thought,’ he cried as he came forward. ‘Look at this! Better this morning. Injuries believed superficial. Thank God for that! Great news, Mr Crowther! Splendid, isn’t it, Rose?’ He was so excited that he could scarcely pay the taximan. ‘Great news, great news!’ he continued repeating as they crossed the footpath to the office. ‘We’ll see her in four hours! And she might have been killed!’
The others in their diverse ways expressed their relief and they entered the office. It was a large room, modern as to design and comfortable as to furniture: an office-waiting-room. Along one side was a counter behind which smart young men functioned. Elsewhere were settees on which would-be passengers had disposed themselves. Andrew Crowther joined the latter, while Peter and Rose went up to the counter.
‘Your tickets, please?’
‘You have them,’ Peter explained. ‘I rang up for places last night. Mr Peter Morley.’
The tickets were found to be in order, and then passports were demanded and handed over. ‘You’ll get them back at Croydon,’ explained the smart young man. Then he pointed. ‘Will you stand on the scales – with your handbags, please.’
They were duly weighed in. Rose wanted to know their weights, but as set forth in the Company’s advertisement, a veil is drawn over this intimate matter and the figures repose in the brain of the clerk alone. They were, however, handed a map and booklet of information about the flight. Presently there came the cry: ‘All for Paris, please!’ and with varying degrees of eagerness or indifference everyone began to drift towards the door. Outside the Croydon bus was waiting, they all got in, and it moved slowly off.
The morning had been fine when they left York, but the sky ha
d soon become overcast and now a dismal rain was falling. Though Rose remained immensely excited, her enthusiasm became somewhat damped by the miles of wet streets through which they passed and the drab and dingy buildings which edged them. An uninspiring drive, though as they got nearer Croydon things improved. Here it was not raining, though it was cloudy and threatening to commence at any moment.
At last the aerodrome! Behind the buildings fronting the road Rose could see sheds, a tall square tower, a green field and a glimpse of planes. They swung in through a narrow gate and pulled up at the porch of a large building. Everyone got out. The passengers sorted themselves into groups and passed in through the porch to a large hall. There the passports were returned and they were shepherded by officials to a second door leading out on to the drome.
Now the great moment had come! Here in front of them was the aeroplane. Rose had eyes for nothing else as in a thin stream the passengers emerged on to the concrete on which the great machine was standing, some thirty or forty yards from the building. How huge it looked! Unwieldy too, thought Rose, gazing at the criss-cross struts connecting its wings and its long, slightly curved body. Not in the least like a bird, but still like something she had seen. What was it? She remembered: it was a dragonfly. It was just a huge dragonfly with a specially long head, which projected far forward before the wings like an enormous snout. And those four lumps were its motors, two on each wing, set into the front edge of the wing and each with its great propeller twirling in front of it. And there was its name, painted on its head: H, E, N, G, I, S, T; HENGIST. Hengist and Horsa; she had heard of them, though she wasn’t quite certain who they were.
But there was really no time to look at the strange machine. Halfway between the wings and the tail a door was open in its side, with a flight of steps leading up to it, and before Rose knew where she was, she was climbing up after her father. A step through the doorway and she was in the cabin.
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