Continental Crimes
Continental Crimes
Edited and Introduced
by Martin Edwards
Poisoned Pen Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2017
Introduction and notes copyright © 2017 Martin Edwards
Published by Poisoned Pen Press in association with the British Library
First Ebook Edition 2017
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2017934129
ISBN: 9781464207495 Ebook
‘The Room in the Tower’ reproduced by permission of David Higham Associates on behalf of the Estate of J. Jefferson Farjeon.
‘Have You Got Everything You Want?’ reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. © Agatha Christie Ltd 1934.
‘The Packet-Boat Murder’ reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London, on behalf of the Estate of Josephine Bell. Copyright © The Estate of Josephine Bell, 1961.
‘Villa Almirante’ reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London, on behalf of the Beneficiaries of the Literary Estate of Michael Gilbert. Copyright © Michael Gilbert, 1959.
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions and would be pleased to be notified of any corrections to be incorporated in reprints or future editions.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
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Contents
Continental Crimes
Copyright
Contents
Introduction
The New Catacomb
A Bracelet at Bruges
The Secret Garden
The Secret of the Magnifique
Petit-Jean
The Lover of St Lys
Popeau Intervenes
The Perfect Murder
The Room in the Tower
The Ten-Franc Counter
Have You Got Everything You Want?
The Long Dinner
The Packet-Boat Murder
Villa Almirante
More from this Author
Contact Us
Introduction
At first sight, a book which collects classic British crime stories set on the continent of Europe may seem an unlikely enterprise. It is often assumed that detective novelists like Agatha Christie, who established their reputations during the Golden Age of Murder between the world wars, tended to be rather narrow and parochial in their outlook. Colin Watson said in his amusing book Snobbery with Violence (1971) that their books’ central appeal to readers was a ‘familiar homeliness’. He argued that the typical setting for their mysteries was ‘a cross between a village and a commuters’ dormitory in the South of England…It would have a well-attended church, an inn with reasonable accommodation for itinerant detective-inspectors…and shops—including a chemist’s where weed-killer and hair-dye might conveniently be bought.’
Although writers did often set their stories against such a background, a great many—and Christie herself was a prominent example—were much more adventurous than Watson suggested. The truth is that crime writers had long understood that foreign settings fascinated their readers. People who had little or no prospect of ever being able to afford to travel extensively took pleasure in experiencing something of the appeal of exotic locales while devouring a good mystery. This was so even in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. For example, B.C. Skottowe’s intriguing and unusual mystery Sudden Death (1886) is set in part in Homburg, while A.E.W. Mason created a popular French detective, Inspector Hanaud, who first appeared in At the Villa Rose (1910), and made his final bow as late as 1946 in The House in Lordship Lane, the only book in the series set in England.
The crime writing career of Freeman Wills Crofts got off to a cracking start with the publication in 1920 of his first novel, The Cask. The story opens with a startling discovery at a London dock, but Inspector Burnley’s investigation soon takes him across the Channel, and much of the book details his collaboration with his French counterpart Lefarge as the police forces of London and Paris strive to bring a ruthless murderer to justice. Christie’s debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, appeared in the same year as The Cask; it introduced Hercule Poirot, a retired Belgian policeman with a genius for detection. At first the book made less of an impression than Crofts’ novel, although eventually it earned a large and devoted readership. Poirot returned in The Murder on the Links (1923), in which a millionaire’s desperate plea causes the detective to travel to France, where almost the whole of the story is set. Unfortunately, he arrives too late to prevent the man’s murder, and the local police officer, Giraud, treats the elderly Belgian with condescension. Crofts’ interest lay in describing how meticulous police work enabled justice to be done, whereas Christie’s focus was on concocting a baffling whodunit mystery to be solved with the aid of Poirot’s genius. Even though neither author specialised in atmospherics, in each book, the French background enhanced the appeal of a cleverly conceived mystery.
Countless Golden Age detective novels and short stories made good use of settings in continental Europe. They included an excellent story by Christopher Bush about a serial killer called ‘Marius’ who is determined to keep one step ahead of the police. In The Perfect Murder Case (1929), the early scenes are set in London, but the action switches to France, and a dramatic confrontation at the climax of the novel takes place on a French island. Sir Basil Thomson, whose varied career included a spell as head of the CID, employed continental settings in several of his books about Richardson, a policeman who starts out as a constable and enjoys an astonishingly rapid rise to the top of Scotland Yard; The Corpse of the Dead Diplomat (1935), also known as Richardson Goes Abroad, is set almost entirely in France, and the reliable Sergeant Cooper makes good use of his linguistic skills in the course of his investigation.
Sometimes, real life events on the Continent complicated attempts by authors to capture foreign settings authentically. Freeman Wills Crofts, having undertaken a Mediterranean cruise himself, hit on the idea of writing a book which featured a very similar cruise. By the time Found Floating (1937) saw the light of day, however, circumstances had changed: the Spanish Civil War had begun. Crofts’ ship’s itinerary had included a stop at Cadiz, and he had to include a prefatory note explaining that the trip taken in the story by William Carrington and his family also pre-dated the conflict.
Christie, a seasoned traveller, whose second husband, Max Mallowan, was an archaeologist whom she met in the Middle East, continued to make economical yet telling use of overseas locations. They supplied the background for many of her most impressive novels, including Murder on the Orient Express (1934) and Death on the Nile (1937), as well as one or two of her worst, notably The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) and a thriller written late in her career, Passenger to Frankfurt (1970). Even Miss Marple, so closely associated with village life, found herself on the other side of the Atlantic in A Caribbean Mystery (1964). It is fair to say that the character types in Christie’s books set overseas scarcely vary from those set in England, but it is a mistake to see this solely as a sign o
f her limitations as a writer; rather, it reflects a key element in the enduring global appeal of her work—she recognised that human nature is much the same all the world over.
After the Second World War, overseas travel became more affordable, and many more people took the opportunity to holiday abroad. This trend was reflected in crime fiction. Writers such as John Bude, whose first four books were set in attractive English locations, namely Cornwall, the Lake District, the Sussex Downs, and Cheltenham, moved with the times by venturing overseas on trips that combined enjoyable holidays with research for his books; his post-war titles included Murder on Montparnasse (1949), Death on the Riviera (1952), and A Telegram from Le Touquet (1956).
In more recent times, many more books by foreign writers have been translated into English, and ‘Scandi-Noir’ has become especially popular. But British writers have continued to produce notable work set on the continent—examples include the Aurelio Zen books written by the late Michael Dibdin and set in Italy, Martin Walker’s series about the French cop Bruno, and Robert Wilson’s novels set in Spain and Portugal.
As the world grows smaller, more and more crime fans are seizing the chance to see for themselves the scenes of crime in their favourite continental mysteries, whether written by Britons or local authors. This collection of stories about crime on the Continent, which includes contributions from some of the genre’s greatest names as well as several who are much less renowned, may suggest a few more destinations for an enjoyable visit.
Martin Edwards
www.martinedwardsbooks.com
The New Catacomb
Arthur Conan Doyle
When one reads the wide-ranging fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930), it does not take a Sherlock Holmes to deduce that he saw a great deal of the world. As one of his biographers, Michael Coren, said, travel ‘always rejuvenated [him]. He enjoyed the different assumptions and attitudes that he found abroad and the new challenges he encountered.’ Sherlock may have felt most at home in foggy, gas-lit London, but even he ventured across the Channel in ‘The Final Problem’, apparently meeting his death at the Reichenbach Falls. Doyle had visited the scene of Holmes’ fateful encounter with Professor Moriarty a few years earlier, after speaking at a conference in Lucerne, and making his way to Lucerne via Meiringen and the Falls.
Doyle visited Italy several times, and the country provided the backdrop for this example of his taste for the macabre. Written at a time when Holmes had not yet returned from the dead, and Doyle was trying his hand at various types of fiction, this dark little story first appeared, improbably enough, in The ‘Sunlight’ Year-Book in 1898, a compendium produced by Lever Brothers, the manufacturers of ‘Sunlight’ soap, under the title ‘Burger’s Secret’.
***
‘Look here, Burger,’ said Kennedy, ‘I do wish that you would confide in me.’
The two famous students of Roman remains sat together in Kennedy’s comfortable room overlooking the Corso. The night was cold, and they had both pulled up their chairs to the unsatisfactory Italian stove which threw out a zone of stuffiness rather than of warmth. Outside under the bright winter stars lay the modern Rome, the long, double chain of the electric lamps, the brilliantly lighted cafés, the rushing carriages, and the dense throng upon the footpaths. But inside, in the sumptuous chamber of the rich young English archæologist, there was only old Rome to be seen. Cracked and timeworn friezes hung upon the walls, grey old busts of senators and soldiers with their fighting heads and their hard, cruel faces peered out from the corners. On the centre table, amidst a litter of inscriptions, fragments, and ornaments, there stood the famous reconstruction by Kennedy of the Baths of Caracalla, which excited such interest and admiration when it was exhibited in Berlin. Amphoræ hung from the ceiling, and a litter of curiosities strewed the rich red Turkey carpet. And of them all there was not one which was not of the most unimpeachable authenticity, and of the utmost rarity and value; for Kennedy, though little more than thirty, had a European reputation in this particular branch of research, and was, moreover, provided with that long purse which either proves to be a fatal handicap to the student’s energies, or, if his mind is still true to its purpose, gives him an enormous advantage in the race for fame. Kennedy had often been seduced by whim and pleasure from his studies, but his mind was an incisive one, capable of long and concentrated efforts which ended in sharp reactions of sensuous languor. His handsome face, with its high, white forehead, its aggressive nose, and its somewhat loose and sensual mouth, was a fair index of the compromise between strength and weakness in his nature.
Of a very different type was his companion, Julius Burger. He came of a curious blend, a German father and an Italian mother, with the robust qualities of the North mingling strangely with the softer graces of the South. Blue Teutonic eyes lightened his sun-browned face, and above them rose a square, massive forehead, with a fringe of close yellow curls lying round it. His strong, firm jaw was clean-shaven, and his companion had frequently remarked how much it suggested those old Roman busts which peered out from the shadows in the corners of his chamber. Under its bluff German strength there lay always a suggestion of Italian subtlety, but the smile was so honest, and the eyes so frank, that one understood that this was only an indication of his ancestry, with no actual bearing upon his character. In age and in reputation, he was on the same level as his English companion, but his life and his work had both been far more arduous. Twelve years before, he had come as a poor student to Rome, and had lived ever since upon some small endowment for research which had been awarded to him by the University of Bonn. Painfully, slowly, and doggedly, with extraordinary tenacity and single-mindedness, he had climbed from rung to rung of the ladder of fame, until now he was a member of the Berlin Academy, and there was every reason to believe that he would shortly be promoted to the Chair of the greatest of German Universities. But the singleness of purpose which had brought him to the same high level as the rich and brilliant Englishman, had caused him in everything outside their work to stand infinitely below him. He had never found a pause in his studies in which to cultivate the social graces. It was only when he spoke of his own subject that his face was filled with life and soul. At other times he was silent and embarrassed, too conscious of his own limitations in larger subjects, and impatient of that small talk which is the conventional refuge of those who have no thoughts to express.
And yet for some years there had been an acquaintanceship which appeared to be slowly ripening into a friendship between these two very different rivals. The base and origin of this lay in the fact that in their own studies each was the only one of the younger men who had knowledge and enthusiasm enough to properly appreciate the other. Their common interests and pursuits had brought them together, and each had been attracted by the other’s knowledge. And then gradually something had been added to this. Kennedy had been amused by the frankness and simplicity of his rival, while Burger in turn had been fascinated by the brilliancy and vivacity which had made Kennedy such a favourite in Roman society. I say ‘had,’ because just at the moment the young Englishman was somewhat under a cloud. A love-affair, the details of which had never quite come out, had indicated a heartlessness and callousness upon his part which shocked many of his friends. But in the bachelor circles of students and artists in which he preferred to move there is no very rigid code of honour in such matters, and though a head might be shaken or a pair of shoulders shrugged over the flight of two and the return of one, the general sentiment was probably one of curiosity and perhaps of envy rather than of reprobation.
‘Look here, Burger,’ said Kennedy, looking hard at the placid face of his companion, ‘I do wish that you would confide in me.’
As he spoke he waved his hand in the direction of a rug which lay upon the floor. On the rug stood a long, shallow fruit-basket of the light wicker-work which is used in the Campagna, and this was heaped with a litter of objects, inscribed tiles, broke
n inscriptions, cracked mosaics, torn papyri, rusty metal ornaments, which to the uninitiated might have seemed to have come straight from a dustman’s bin, but which a specialist would have speedily recognised as unique of their kind. The pile of odds and ends in the flat wicker-work basket supplied exactly one of those missing links of social development which are of such interest to the student. It was the German who had brought them in, and the Englishman’s eyes were hungry as he looked at them.
‘I won’t interfere with your treasure-trove, but I should very much like to hear about it,’ he continued, while Burger very deliberately lit a cigar. ‘It is evidently a discovery of the first importance. These inscriptions will make a sensation throughout Europe.’
‘For every one here there are a million there!’ said the German. ‘There are so many that a dozen savants might spend a lifetime over them, and build up a reputation as solid as the Castle of St Angelo.’
Kennedy sat thinking with his fine forehead wrinkled and his fingers playing with his long, fair moustache.
‘You have given yourself away, Burger!’ said he at last. ‘Your words can only apply to one thing. You have discovered a new catacomb.’
‘I had no doubt that you had already come to that conclusion from an examination of these objects.’
‘Well, they certainly appeared to indicate it, but your last remarks make it certain. There is no place except a catacomb which could contain so vast a store of relics as you describe.’
‘Quite so. There is no mystery about that. I have discovered a new catacomb.’
‘Where?’
‘Ah, that is my secret, my dear Kennedy. Suffice it that it is so situated that there is not one chance in a million of anyone else coming upon it. Its date is different from that of any known catacomb, and it has been reserved for the burial of the highest Christians, so that the remains and the relics are quite different from anything which has ever been seen before. If I was not aware of your knowledge and of your energy, my friend, I would not hesitate, under the pledge of secrecy, to tell you everything about it. But as it is I think that I must certainly prepare my own report of the matter before I expose myself to such formidable competition.’