Pretty Sinister Books

THE STORY: Dudley Wolff accidentally kills a mysterious man who was attempting to blackmail him. His wife suggest they cover up the crime and bury the body in an abandoned cemetery not far from their Wolff estate. With the help of Dr. Haggard and Albert Dunning, a mousy aide, Wolff gets rid of the body. But soon he is being haunted by visions of the same man in black. Kay Wolff, Dudley's daughter, gets involved and calls on Merlini to prove if the ghost is real or a fake. Ghostly visions and poltergeist activity lead to murder, a locked room mystery, and several other mysterious events all wrapped up in a grand secret about the true identity of the sinister blackmailing man in black and the reason he visited Wolff in the first place.

THE CHARACTERS: No Coffin for a Corpse (1942) is the fourth and final Merlini detective novel. Despite its reputation among diehard locked room fans for being the worst of the four books I found it to be exciting, engaging and intriguing in its abundance of action filled scenes, puzzling events, including a couple of Rawson's signature impossible crimes and miracle problems. Harte, our narrator reporter/playwright, is at the heart of the story with several adventure sequences involving him alone. The illustration on the Dell Mapback version depicts a deathtrap that Harte must escape from underwater during the novel's climax.

A subplot involves Ross trying and failing to get Wollf's consent to marry Kay, Wolff's daughter. Wolff owns the newspaper where Ross works and he threatens Ross with termination he if doesn't leave Lay alone.  There is also the threat of Kay being disinherited.  All of these elements pile up and make Ross and Kay to have motives for murder.

The most interesting characters are found in the supporting cast. Handyman on the Wolff estate, Scotty Douglas, strangely disappears after the burial of the dead blackmailer then just as oddly re-appears. He proves some interesting eyewitness accounts of what actually happened the day of the eerie moonlit graveyard shenanigans. Phillips, is the Wolff butler, who is obsessed with detective novels and has the spooky habit of turning up at the most inopportune moments always when Merlini least expects him. Francis Galt, a psychic whose paranormal research is being funded by wealthy Dudley Wolff, seems to have a hand in the ghostly manifestation. Like Phillips Galt has all too coincidental timing, conveniently popping up just after the manifestations and visions occur.

In a nifty surprise scene that I feel compelled to reveal Don Diavolo, Rawson's other magician detective character, makes a cameo appearance! He is seen rehearsing a stage illusion for a show that Merlini is producing and trying to get last minute funding for. The trick he performs foreshadows the climactic underwater escape that Ross Harte pulls off much later in the book.

INNOVATIONS: Most intriguing about No Coffin for the Corpse is that it starts off as an inverted mystery.  A death occurs, apparently an accident, and we know there is a conspiracy to cover up the crime. When the ghost appears most readers will jump to the conclusion that the blackmailer is really alive, but Rawson does a fine job at making you believe that the death was real and that someone else is trying to make it appear that the corpse came to life. The actual murder problem, the novel's genuine whodunit element, does not occur until well past the first half of the book.  I had no idea who the murder victim would be; a handful of candidates were possible. When the murder does occur I found I had pegged the wrong person as victim.

The reveal of the true identity of the blackmailer is one of the most original parts of the story.  Rawson pulls off a triple twist and a false reveal all at once. I didn't find this a fault. In fact it made me laugh out loud. It was just another example of fooling the reader, but one that may anger others or have them rolling their eyes. Really, most of what will infuriate some rigid traditionalists while reading this complex, trick-laden, and twisty plot are exactly the kinds of inverting of conventions that I enjoy and long for.

The solution to the locked room impossibility is probably a plot trick that will trigger most readers to cry "Foul!" I thought it was the only natural and realistic solution to the problem as the author presented it. While not ingenious or clever it certainly was simple. Rather obvious even! But Rawson has the characters become distracted by what happened to Ross in the same room prior to the discovery of the victim and the other body (he was knocked unconscious, quickly bound, and tossed out the window into the waters of Long Island Sound far below) was handled very well.  I found myself more focussed on why Ross was attacked and thrown into the ocean rather than trying to figure out why there were two people found in the locked room. Even veteran readers can get caught up in the nimble hands of a master manipulator like Clayton Rawson.

I found myself drawing parallels to similar plot devices and motifs in much better known novels. My notes have things like "It's the Deathtrap gambit!" and "I'm getting a Death on the Nile vibe here but who's the other involved?"  Lots of my guesswork and figuring out proved faulty. So Rawson won me over again. When I read mystery novels like this sometimes I more pleased to be wrong, to have been rightly and fairly fooled than to be satisfied by being ever-so-clever in having the correct solution and pointing my finger at the real culprit.

1st US edition (Putnam, 1942)  DJ illustration shows the first ghost manifestation as witnessed by Merlini and Harte inside the Wolff mansion

THINGS I LEARNED:  Ross Harte tries to trick someone into talking to him and pretends to be calling from Orson Welles office then stops short of impersonating a woman saying, "But I was no Julian Eltinge."  Eltinge was a well known actor who began in theater and then made several silent movies. In the early 20th century he gained fame playing female roles, often starring in plays especially created for him in which he played a male character who must dress as a woman within the construct of the story. At one time he was one of the highest paid male actors in the world.  Eltinge was one of the first megastars who marketed himself tirelessly -- he owned his own magazine, very popular with its mostly women subscribers, promoted a line of cosmetics, designed women's clothes, even had a cigar branded with his name. His ultimate achievement was having a theater built in his honor. The Eltinge 42nd St. Theater lasted from 1914 until 1942 when it was shut down for morality violations and turned into a movie theater. Although Eltinge never performed in the theater named for him it is notable for being the home of The Ninth Guest (Aug - Oct 1930), the Broadway play version of Gwen Bristow & Bruce Manning's detective thriller The Invisible Host.  For more info on this fascinating individual visit Them.com, this Newsweek article or the Julian Eltinge tribute page.
 
Wolff has a photoelectric cell security system installed in the windows of his home. I thought this was a type of invention that came decades after the WW2 era. Clearly I was very wrong. Merlini shows off his knowledge of how photoelectric cells work by preventing the loud alarms going off with a simple trick that requires nothing more than a flashlight.

ATMOSPHERE: Misdirection, theatrical techniques, acting and impersonation all play a role in the story.  In fact, this is one of the few Merlini detective novels that could with some minor adaptation (and elimination of extraneous outdoor action sequences) easily be transferred to the stage. So much of the mystery and illusions require isolated settings, proper lighting and a claustrophobic atmosphere that can be heightened by the confines of a stage and an eager and willing audience.

In preparation for my upcoming "In GAD We Trust" podcast with JJ (of The Invisible Event) on stage magic, theatrical devices and misdirection in GAD fiction I thought I'd finish up the series of Great Merlini mysteries which shamefully have been on my shelves for over twenty years and still remain unread. I did not get along with Death from a Top Hat (1938) when I read it decades ago, but I did very much enjoy all of the Don Diavolo stories Rawson wrote as "Stuart Towne" which I gobbled up within days and wished there were more. Since I was approaching this read from an older and wiser perspective and also because I was specifically looking at tricks and misdirection I did enjoy The Footprints on the Ceiling (1939) almost as much as the Don Diavolo novellas. There are still elements of the Great Merlini novels that irritate the hell out of me and I'll talk about those in the podcast, but here's my basic impression of the book along with "Things I Learned" (as you will with any of Rawson's mystery stories and novels) that seem to make up about 75% of the book.

This is one of the many mysteries between 1900 and 1940 dealing with spiritualism debunking and the trickery and gadgetry that was (and probably still is) employed by fake mediums and phony psychics.  Two characters from Death from a Top Hat re-appear in Footprints on the Ceiling in an altogether different light and play much larger roles in the novel.

Merlini is going to host a new radio show on NBC called "The Ghost Hour" and his pal Colonel Watrous asks him to come to Skelton Island where their former associate from Death from a Top Hat Madame Eva Rappourt is hosting a seance for agoraphobic Linda Skelton obsessed with psychic phenomena and the drug induced trances she thinks will help cure her of her mental illness. Watrous is beginning to think that Madame Rappourt, whose powers he previously extolled in a book called Modern Mediums, is in fact one of the most clever frauds he ever encountered. Merlini and his playwright friend Ross Harte (our narrator) travel to Skelton Island armed with skepticism and infrared cameras hoping to catch the medium in the act of an elaborate charade and expose her with the photographs they plan to take while the seance is conducted in the dark.

Of course something goes wrong the minute they arrive on the island.  On route to the seance Merlini tells Harte about the legend of a pirate who supposedly haunts the island.  The two men see lights in an abandoned house on the north end of the island and rush to investigate. There they find the rigid dead body of Linda Skelton who has apparently been poisoned with cyanide. How and why did an agoraphobic who never left the main house end up so far away? And who killed her?

The story is one of the most complicated plots I've read of any era, let alone the Golden Age.  It's filled to the brim with baffling incidents that all seem to be impossible. A fire that no one could have started, the transporting of Linda's body to the haunted house, a bullet that seems to have traveled around a corner at 45 degree angle, a seemingly encoded message found on a typewriter ribbon, a nude body found in a locked hotel room, and of course the titular marks found on the ceiling at the scene of Linda Skelton's death. Magic, misdirection, acrobatics and clever gadgets all play a part in the solution of the various mysteries and murders.

There are many mini-lectures in this murder mystery reminding me of one of the issues I had with Death from a Top Hat. Rawson is one of the writers who likes to fill his books with arcane information and minutiae and go on at length. It was like reading a 1930s version of an X-Files script. But at least in the TV show those lectures were brief. We get overly detailed lectures on caisson disease ("the bends") and the precautions needed in decompression to prevent that condition; the diagnosis, causes and treatment of agoraphobia; three pages listing shipwrecks and lost treasures and the 1939 dollar values placed on those treasures ranging between 8 to 100 million; and three other things I'll discuss in the Things I Learned section. Had these lengthy lectures been condensed or removed the book could easily be 25 - 75 pages shorter. OH! and there are Van Dine-like footnotes, too!

The cast of characters consists of so many rascals, evidence tinkerers, vengeful would-be murderers, that at one point it almost seems like a parody of Murder on the Orient Express (1934). As a consequence of the convoluted shenanigans of this shifty devious group, in addition to unmasking the somewhat surprising murderer, everyone is arrested for some offense and hauled away by the police. The many pronouncements of this teeming mass of miscreants and their misdeeds makes for a long trawl through the final chapters consisting of three -- count 'em three -- summing-up explanations unnecessarily peppered with tangential commentary and sarcastic quips from Merlini. It goes on interminably and the many readers will no doubt find themselves agreeing with the impatient and irascible Inspector Gavigan who keeps demanding that Merlini get to the point faster.

Original map of Skelton Island used as frontispiece in US 1st edition (Click to enlarge for to see all the detail)

THINGS I LEARNED:  Simon Lake (1866-1945) was a mechanical engineer and inventor who specialized in designing and building submarines and salvage equipment for the burgeoning underwater construction industry and salvage and recovery businesses.  He is mentioned in passing and provides a major clue to a fine detail in a portion of the solution. For more on Lake's ingenious work visit this website.

This is more of a refresher for me rather than something wholly new, but Ross Harte launches into monologue mode in the chapter titled "Thirty Deadly Poisons" with a litany of toxic chemicals. He reminds us that photography is one of the most poisonous professions of the pre-World War 2 era and could prove hazardous to one's health if not fatal.

I learned of an unusual dermatological side effect of the use of silver nitrate in medicine called argyria. It's an irreversible condition in which the silver turns one's skin blue-gray. Merlini talks of the Blue Men (and sometimes women) who suffered from this horror and tells Harte and Dr. Gail many of these people joined circus sideshows in order to make a living and escape shame and embarrassment in "normal" civilization.

Even with the long lectures, the complicated plot and several subplots, and Merlini's insufferable ego and sarcasm it cannot be denied that Rawson has made the book exciting and action filled. The opening chapters read more like an adventure novel than a murder mystery. Footprints on the Ceiling mixes haunted house legends, pirate lore, the search for lost treasure, deep sea diving techniques and new inventions, con artists and fraudulent spiritualism, and circus performers in a dizzying plot of inventive murders and ingenious criminality. Rawson almost succeeds in making his second novel a brilliant addition to American mysteries of the Golden Age. His penchant for show off esoterica so reminiscent of the Philo Vance and Ellery Queen novels and the innumerable instances of shunning the fair play techniques of his colleagues, however, keep this mystery novel from being a true masterpiece. As it stands it can only be thought of as a clever and entertaining diversion.