The Nones of Perry Mason 68

Note: In the Roman calendar, the Kalends, Nones, and Ides were three special days that marked the month's counting period. In a hat tip to those tough old Romans (may their example inspire our endurance), on the first, fifth or seventh, and the fifteen of every month, I will run an article about Erle Stanley Gardner's contributions to the mystery genre (Perry Mason is mostly Late Stoic). Fact is, so many articles are in the can, I figure why not release more often? Saving them doesn't accrue interest and it's not like I'm exempt from the universal experience of humankind.

Bats Fly at Dusk – ESG writing as A.A. Fair

This story from 1942 kicks off when a blind man hires PI Bertha Cool in a complex case. It involves a hit and run on a young secretary, her employer that met an untimely demise, the division of the inheritance of his estate among his staff and a venal nephew, nervous insurance companies, and an impersonation by a cruel roommate.

Bertha's nitty-gritty concern with her question “How much moolah is in it for me” distracts her from identifying the pith of the case. Though her realism is the best thing about her, she misses the intuition of her partner Donald Lam (serving in the Navy) and his ability to home in on the essential. Her police force nemesis, Sgt. Sellars, puts in a worthy turn in which he is not as astute as Perry Mason’s worthy antagonist Lt. Tragg but not nearly as dumb as Sgt. Holcomb.

Gardner turns stereotypes on their head, making Lam the intuitive and sympathetic one while Bertha is the hard-charging one getting down to brass tacks. Though Bertha does all the legwork, she is bested by the absent Donald Lam who solves the case through brainpower alone. She is also snookered by Sgt. Sellars who gives her an unwanted kiss.

Gardner makes a point, however: Bertha Cool is decidedly not the gruff softie that hides her kindly soul under a cross shell. Bertha is in fact obnoxious, profane, and greedy. Her impulses must be anticipated by secretary Elsie Brand so she can warn Bertha to dial it down. Her partiality for going to strong-arm tactics from the get-go has to be countered by Donald Lam, who knows that compassion and tact with witnesses will get Cool and Lam closer to the solution sooner.

Most readers may miss the "real" detective Donald Lam. Long-time readers of the series will miss the interplay of the two “Cool without Lam” novels (the other is Cats Prowl at Night). hilarious when Bertha and Donald each on in conflict with each other, clients, and the cops.

Gardner’s stories nearly never indicate when they are taking place, because he thought dating content would hurt sales. But in this outing he mentions exact dates in 1942. Giving a feel for the wartime era in California, Gardner points out how dim-out regulations forced people to use blue flashlights, which gave off a weird light. The new regs also compelled drivers to drive as slow as 15 mph to decrease the risks of night driving with dimmed headlights. No wonder blackouts caused so many accidents, increased the incidence of crime, and lowered home front morale.

Alan Grant #6

The Singing Sands – Josephine Tey

Tey didn’t follow the usual rules and conventions of mystery writers during Golden Era of whodunnits from 1920 to 1950. For one, her series hero is not an aristocrat and he ends up in hospitals fairly often.

This mystery, released in 1952, is the last one starring the series hero Yard Inspector Alan Grant. Down with anxiety and depression, Inspector Grant of Scotland Yard goes on vacation to visit cousins in Scotland to recover himself. Understandably, he wants to get over the panic attacks that occur when he finds himself in an enclosed space like a bedroom, train compartment, or in the cabin of an auto. His superior is utterly unsympathetic, wondering why Grant can’t just shake it off, an attitude people with mental health issues must deal with today.

On the train to Scotland, he is a witness when the conductor discovers dead man, apparently the victim of a drunken fall. Tey’s focus is not on the departed one, but on Grant's inner thought processes, his motivations and his fears. That makes him, compared to characters such as Poirot and other thinking machines, a character distinctive and human.

Thanks to that dead man in the train, he recovers from his strained state of mind by investigating the death, getting a clue in the poetry that the young victim wrote on the margin of a newspaper. With the aid of fishing excursions with a six-year-old cousin, a professional Scotch patriot, as well as a friend of the dead man, Grant manages to shed light on a murder that had been considered an accident.

This also belongs to the class of detective novels that doubles as a travel narrative; Patricia Moyes springs to mind, setting her stories in rural England, Amsterdam, and Geneva. Tey has Grant take a side-trip to the Hebrides archipelago, specifically Cladda, a fictional island with miles of deserted beaches with the Atlantic slamming into it. 

While there, Grant gets no further with his investigation but he relaxes enough to cure himself of his anxiety with long walks and philosophical ruminating. The atmosphere is rendered vividly, besides advocating the restorative powers of travel, especially to places where where’s nothing to do in the classic vacation sense.  Oddly, on the other hand, Tey looks down on Scottish identity and independence; born Elizabeth MacKintosh in Inverness, she seems to have been a staunch Unionist.

Tey may have been dying when she was working on this novel. The manuscript was found in her papers after she passed away in 1952. So we don’t know if it was in its final form. Suffice to say, the ending breaks so many conventions that even mystery fans looking for something different will be dissatisfied with the ending. Still I recommend it to Tey fans, especially if they liked her unusual novels like immortal The Daughter of Time or well-regarded Miss Pym Disposes or Brat Farrar.