The Encluesiast

You may wish to read my previous post on this collection, which provides an overview of the collection and re-introduces my four categories of solution.

Before we proceed, I encourage the reader to review the Spoiler Index here and follow its instructions. In this post, I draw many connections to clues from other works, which I refer to by their index numbers.

CATEGORY 3

Crispin’s Category-3 stories border on Category-1 because the knowledge required in order to realize that something’s awry is sometimes akin to a trivia fact. Nonetheless, these are not Category-1 stories, because one has to realize why the conditions described in the story are out of keeping with that fact.

SPOILERS BEGIN HERE

“Death and Aunt Fancy”: The telltale clue is that the woman who is supposedly Aunt Fancy wouldn’t have been able to speak softly over the sound of the radio if she was genuinely using a hearing aid. Another wonderful clue that one is only likely to notice upon rereading the story (since Crispin doesn’t draw attention to this) is when the supposed Aunt Fancy (actually Miss Preedy) says:

“George—Mr. Gotobed,” she whispered, “you mustn’t leave me. I don’t know why she’s doing this.” Her eyes shifted. “I’m frightened,” she said. “Don’t go away, will you? Stay the night. Please, please don’t go a—”

The shift from “George” to “Mr. Gotobed” is another sign that she’s the companion (reverting to the polite form of address that is natural for her position, rather than the familiar form that her feigned role would require).

The central plot mechanic here is reminiscent of 10521 ROT13: “Gur Pbzcnavba” sebz Gur Guvegrra Ceboyrzf, va juvpu n jbzna fjvgpurf cynprf jvgu ure bja pbzcnavba va n zbarl-znxvat fpurzr.

“A Case in Camera”: The photo would have been blurry due to running machinery. I don’t feel that Crispin executed this idea as well as he could have. The telltale clue is presented too blatantly: “It was unusually sharp and clear, showing Whittington at his desk with the desk clock very properly registering ten minutes to eleven.” (That word “unusually” is particularly unsubtle and makes the solution itself too “sharp and clear.”) It would have been more artful if Crispin had let the reader infer that the photo was sharp and clear by having Pollitt or Humbleby notice a detail in the photo that they wouldn’t be able to see.

Additionally, Crispin doesn’t tell us in advance the questions that Humbleby asks. That is, we know where it’s probably going, but we’re not quite given enough information to solve it. Ends with a nice bit of dark humor. Pollitt is happy that they didn’t prosecute Whittington, because they might have lost, whereas they won the case of him eventually killing his accomplice. (This is the same sort of unhappy ending Crispin seemingly has in mind in the story “A Shot in the Dark.”)

TomCat of the blog Beneath the Stains of Time suggests that this plot device “was wasted on a written story – because it would’ve been a nifty trick for TV.” I’m inclined to agree. On TV, both clues—that the room is shaky because of the machinery and that the photo is not blurry enough—could have been communicated purely visually.

“Blood Sport”: This story and “Dog in the Night-Time” (the next story I will discuss) provide examples of “negative clues”—that is, situations where the absence (rather than presence) of some phenomenon is the telltale sign. In this case, the negative clue is the absence of “sweat” in the gun barrel, as we’re told when Humbleby looks down the gun barrel and “cheerfully” says, “Clean as a new pin.” Presumably he is “cheerful” because he immediately knows that he has stumbled upon the solution.

There is a great “doth protest too much” moment from the culprit (who impregnated the victim) when he describes the victim as “Not bad looking in a trashy sort of way.” This is a touch that becomes striking when one rereads the story. There is irony in Humbleby’s response to the motive (“Oh, Lord,” said Humbleby in genuine dismay. “Not that again. The number of times—”), since Crispin re-uses this motive in “The House by the River,” which I wish preceded this story in the collection, as it’s the better of the two. (This was not possible because the stories are ordered according to when they were published.)

“The Mischief Done”: The key fact here is that a diamond’s luminescence requires exposure to light. The most pleasing part of the story is the bit of meta-commentary on the telling of it:

“Our next consideration must be Asa’s brother Ben.”

“Isn’t this narrative becoming rather mannered, Humbleby?” said Fen restively. “And by the way, is it going to turn out that there’s some question of paste’s having been substituted for the real thing?”

“No, it isn’t. That doesn’t arise at all.”

“I see. Well, when is something going to happen?”

“In a moment, in a moment […]”

“Dog in the Night-Time”: The title of this story is, of course, a reference to 14719 ROT13: gur Fureybpx Ubyzr fgbel “Fvyire Oynmr.” That story contains one of the pioneering examples of a “negative clue.” Crispin’s title tells the knowledgeable reader to search for such a clue and then Fen himself says the title phrase. Unfortunately, because the story is so compressed, there isn’t really any time for misdirection. Here is the stretch of consecutive lines introducing the clue and then indirectly pointing it out:

Also it was cold in there: while Uncle Harry fumbled with the safe, Ann turned on the big electric fire and stood warming her hands at it. Presently, Fen, who had been peering at the marks left by their feet on the dusty floor, lifted his head and sniffed.

“Is there something burning?” he asked suspiciously.

They all sniffed. “I can’t smell anything,’ said Ann. “Nor me,” said Humbleby. “Nor me,” said Uncle Harry, pausing in his labor: and added ruefully, “But then, it’s years since I was able to smell anything.”

Fen shrugged. “My mistake,” he said. Though as a matter of fact it had not been a mistake, since he himself had not been able to smell anything burning, either. His eye caught Humbleby’s. “Dog,” he confided solemnly, “in the night-time.”

So, Crispin tells the reader that Ann turns on the fire, and in the next sentence has Fen start sniffing for the smell that isn’t there. There’s no time for the reader to come to their own realization that a telltale smell is missing. This is a rare moment of Crispin being artless. He could have given a space of a paragraph or so and then told us something like “The only scent in the air was X,” leaving us to realize that the clue is that the only scent should be X alone, but rather X accompanied by the smell of burning.

By the way, this is the second of two stories in the collection in which someone uses a powder puffer to add dust to a room, but doesn’t execute this correctly. I’ll address the other one (“Gladstone’s Candlestick”) in my next post.

“Wolf!”: Here, the object in the wrong position is the telephone receiver, which was replaced on the cradle. I would say that this is one of the four most classic variants on “wrong position” category-3 clues, the other three being: a door being shut when it should be open, a light being on when it should be off, or glass being on the wrong side of a broken window. (The last of these tends not to be used in more serious detective fiction, as it’s too obvious.)

This would be a pretty mundane handling of this clue type if Crispin simply described the replaced receiver when reviewing the scene of the crime. Instead, Crispin makes the reader infer that the receiver must have been replaced before Mortimer got to the scene. Unfortunately, this inference may be impossible for today’s readers because, much like another story in this collection (“A Country to Sell,” which I will discuss in my next post), it relies on knowledge of how the old telephone system used to work: if person X calls person Y and doesn’t hang up, even if Y tries to hang up, the call is still active, and Y can’t call anyone else. (I wonder if any thriller writer has had a character use this as a trick to disable someone’s phone?) But for a reader of the time, this is surely a rather clever way of handling this.

CATEGORY 4

“The Two Sisters”:  It is somewhat frequent in mysteries that the disabled person turns out to be the culprit, as given away by the fact that only a person with their particular disability would make the mistake that they did.

An example from a famous author is 14559 ROT13: gur Urephyr Cbvebg fgbel “Gur Pubpbyngr Obk,” va juvpu bayl Znqnzr Qéebhyneq unf cbbe rabhtu rlrfvtug gb fjvgpu gur obk yvqf ol zvfgnxr. My (much more obscure) favorite example of this trope is 10205 ROT13: Nagubal Obhpure’f “Oynpx Zheqre,” va juvpu bayl n oyvaq zna jbhyq nffhzr gung gur Anmv fjnfgvxn vf gur fnzr nf gur genqvgvbany Vaqvna bar. Crispin is thus to be credited for including two stories that hinge on an able-bodied person misunderstanding what it’s like to have a particular disability (in this case, deafness), thus revealing that they are a hearing person who has switched identities with someone deaf.

I’m glad that Crispin got this right, because 13572 ROT13: Orffvr’f vtabenapr bs ubj qrns crbcyr rkcrevrapr ivoengvbaf vf npghnyyl n znwbe cybg ubyr va gur fbyhgvba gb gur Pbyhzob rcvfbqr “Gur Zbfg Qnatrebhf Zngpu” (bar bs gur jbefg bs gur pynffvp Pbyhzob rcvfbqrf), nf gur qrns tenaqznfgre pbhyq unir rnfvyl qrgrpgrq gung gur znpuvar ghearq bss.

The telltale clue could have been much better-executed, however. My recollection of this story was that Crispin actually described the crash that Bessie pretended not to hear. But in fact, he writes: 

This was ajar; and just inside it, on the polished floor, lay a small, light-weight, wholly lethal Persian mat. Wyndham noted the first fact but not, unfortunately for him, the second. His entrance consequently took the form of a long, graceless skid—during which he just had time to take in the fact that the housekeeper, with her back to him, was impassively dusting the hall-stand.

This is a wonderful piece of description, style-wise (a perfect specimen of Crispin prose), but doesn’t give a full enough description of the crash resulting from the skid, which the true Mrs. Blench should have been able to feel.

“Windhover Cottage”: There is a whole sub-genre of gotcha devoted to culprits being clearly familiar with the spatial layout of places they’ve supposedly never been to before. 14825 ROT13: Va snpg, Pevfcva hfrq gur zber fgnaqneq inevnag uvzfrys va Gur Pnfr bs gur Tvyqrq Syl jura Jneare’f pynvz abg gb xabj uvf jnl nebhaq pnzchf ng nyy vf oryvrq ol uvf snzvyvnevgl jvgu gur jrfg pbheglneq. Within that is the sub-sub-genre of drivers knowing about turns that they shouldn’t. (As proof that this trope is alive in the 21st century, 13162 ROT13: xabjvat nobhg ebnq jbex vf gur znva pyhr vqragvslvat gur zheqrere va gur “erny-yvsr” unys bs Gur Zntcvr Zheqref.) What’s worth noting here is how Crispin deploys the trope. Here’s the relevant passage:

He glanced quickly at [Wendy] as he said it, but she kept her eyes fixed steadily on the level stretch of road ahead. “A fine thing,” she murmured. “A fine thing…” She changed gear, not gently. “And there was I, imagining—”

“We turn right here,” Robartes interrupted her. She braked hurriedly, and with no more than inches to spare they scraped into a side turning which the trees had hidden, and began to climb a steep, unexpected hill. “…And there was I,” Wendy resumed bitterly, “imagining he was the sort of guy that can be faithful for six weeks or so. Well, so I was wrong…

A less subtle author would have had her simply make the correct turn without guidance. Here, at first blush, it appears that Wendy didn’t know about the turn. (She is genre-savvy enough to avoid that trap.) What one has to realize is that “the level stretch of road ahead” described in the previous paragraph does not provide a sound pretext for changing gears. The change could only have been motivated by knowing that she was approaching a turn. So, all the play-acting of nearly missing the turn was for naught.

“The House by the River”: This is one of the highlights of the collection. It lacks Crispin’s usual wit, but more than makes up for it with the subtle weaving in and out of superintendent’s perspective, the reflections on age, the general air of melancholy, and the understated final line. From a solution perspective, I’ll note that it’s one of the best examples of the “homophone trick.” (Jim Noy of the blog The Invisible Event calls this, “probably one of [his] ten favourite clues in the whole of the Golden Age.”) There are two words or phrases that sound the same; any innocent person would have parsed the sound as X, but the culprit correctly parsed it as the correct meaning Y. Another, more contrived example is 13461 ROT13: “na neebj syvtug” if “n aneebj syvtug” zvk-hc va “Gur Pnfr bs Phcvq’f Neebj” sebz Raplpybcrqvn Oebja Fbyirf Gurz Nyy. Perhaps my favorite example of this is 10934 ROT13: va Gur Zlfgrel bs gur Crnpbpx’f Rlr, Onaavfgre xabjvat gung “Xree” vf abg fcryyrq “Pnee,” juvpu vf gur yrnfg pbagevirq bs gurfr.

To make the “rowed”/“rode” trick work in this story, Crispin needs to establish: (a) that Gregson habitually rows, (b) that Gregson’s horse arrived after when the chief constable claimed to be in the area. The order in which he does these things is interesting. The first fact is buried in this paragraph:

Across the river, a figure, unidentifiable in the failing light, was emerging from the stables, was trudging through the yard. It was Gregson, obviously: Gregson the retired Indian Civil Servant, Gregson the tenant of the farmhouse, Gregson the widower, Gregson the pathetic, Gregson the bore: Gregson who had no doubt been fussing in the stables over the horse he had bought that morning… Glumly the superintendent watched him until he disappeared from view. In a few weeks’ time the superintendent, too, would be retiring.

The pivot to the superintendent’s pathos in the final two sentences is presumably to prevent one’s mind from catching that “bought that morning” is an important fact. It has to be balanced out by when the chief constable supposedly returned home. Here’s how this information is relayed:

The sound of a car roused him, and he returned to the house. “Here we are, sir,” he said with a cheerfulness he was far from feeling, as he helped the chief constable out of the driving-seat. “Conference go off all right?”

“Hello, Tom.” The chief constable was thin and old, and his complexion looked bleached. “The conference? Oh, the usual thing, you know: too many speeches and too few resolutions. Ruddy awful hotel, too.”

“What time did you leave Town?”

“Two o’clock.”

“Well, that’s not bad going… I’ve had a packet this afternoon, sir. Do you want a bath or a meal or something first, or shall I—”

“No, I’d rather stretch my legs. Let’s stroll down to the river.”

The crucial fact is tossed off as if it’s part of simply establishing whether the chief constable is likely to be tired or hungry. It’s not meant to register as a data-point in a case being made against the chief constable. Here’s our culprit making his blunder:

“About two o’clock Gregson rode over here to look you up, hoping you’d be back—”

“So he’s bought himself a horse at last, has he? He’s been talking about it for long enough… Yes, sorry, Tom. Go on.”

The way this is phrased makes it clear that Gregson never told the chief constable that he had finally bought the horse. The reader is not yet, however, in the position to see that this is a problem. After all, the superintendent just said the word “rode,” right?

It’s only a few paragraphs later that we’re told this:

They had reached the river-bank, and were standing beside a tree half of whose roots had been laid bare by the water’s steady erosion. Midges hovered above their heads. On the far bank, the dinghy in which Gregson had been accustomed to scull himself across on his visits to the chief constable bumped lazily against its mooring-post, and in the kitchen window of the farmhouse a light went on…

The clue is joined with some rather nice bits of description to give it a bit of disguise. And the word choice is quite excellent. Obviously, Crispin can’t say that it’s a rowboat, as that brings the word “rowed” too easily to mind. Explicitly mentioning oars is perhaps also too unsubtle. But he can’t just say that it’s a boat, or it could be something not operated by rowing. So, he uses the verb “scull.” And of course, the whole phrase “accustomed to scull himself across” is what firmly establishes that the constable should have known better.

One irony. This is the second case in the collection where the culprit is a policeman who kills a girl because he impregnated her. When the chief constable is told that this was the motive, we are told that his “head was hunched down between his shoulders as he stared in front of him into the gathering dusk” (the toll of guilt perhaps?) and then he says “A very well-worn track,” echoing the sentiments of his fellow policeman-turned-murderer. “Well-worn” even within the annals of Crispin’s own fiction!