Classic Whodunnit from the Golden Era. I don’t
read mysteries from 1920s often. The writing is too stiff, the plots formulaic,
the racism casual, the reveal too protracted. Born November 5 in 1900 was Philip
MacDonald, British-born writer of faction and screenplays, best known for
thrillers.
The Rasp - Philip
MacDonald
It was in the year of 1924 - a year not without its mystery
milestones like Poirot
Investigates - that a certain Philip MacDonald, a name now remembered
only in the fringes of whodunnit fandom, first introduced to the reading public
his series character, Colonel Anthony Gethryn. The tale, slender in length but
labyrinthine in design, was the inaugural entry in a series that would, in
time, see its protagonist softened and reshaped by the author’s pen. But here,
in this first appearance, Gethryn is a creature of arrogance and loftiness, a
man of government - though what precise department or duty he serves is left as
vague as an ICE agent’s home address.
The plot is a tangled skein. A baronet of wealth and
consequence is discovered most brutally murdered in his study - beaten, no
less, as if by the hand of some vengeful god. No clue is apparent to the eye of
the common man. But enter Gethryn, with his cold logic and sharper instincts,
and the mystery begins to uncurl - though not without strain upon the reader’s
credulity. The solution, when it comes, is far-fetched, and yet I confess I
turned the pages with a kind of skeptical fascination.
In a moment of bravado, Gethryn concocts a tale to
ensnare the killer - a tale involving doppelgängers, illegitimate heirs, and
the switching of corpses. Alas, this fiction, bordering on parody of the
nascent genre, proves more thrilling than the truth, which, when revealed, is
disappointingly ordinary. One cannot help but wish the lie had been the
reality.
The characters, I regret to say, don’t rise above
caricature. Gethryn himself is not a man to inspire liking, and his sudden,
unconvincing infatuation with a murder suspect - Miss Lucia, whose whiteness of
complexion is described with such obsessive frequency that a hardcore reader
begins to suspect the author of a peculiar bee in the bonnet - does little to
endear him.
For a moment his eyes closed.
Behind the lids there arose a picture of her face – a picture strangely more
clear than any given by actual sight.
“You,” said Lucia, “ought to be
asleep. Yes, you ought! Not tiring yourself out to make conversation for a
hysterical woman that can’t keep her emotions under control.”
“The closing of the eyes,”
Anthony said, opening them, “merely indicates that the great detective is what
we call thrashing out a knotty problem. He always closes his eyes you know. He
couldn’t do anything with ’em open.”
She smiled. “I’m afraid I don’t
believe you, you know. I think you’ve simply done so much to-day that you’re
simply tired out.”
“Really, I assure you, no. We
never sleep until a case is finished. Never.”
Their romance, such as it is, unfolds with all the
subtlety of a tightly-lace corset.
Elsewhere, we find Mr. Spencer Hastings, Gethryn’s
friend, mooning over his secretary, whom he refers to as “that little white
darling” - a phrase that might have passed unnoticed in 1924 but now strikes
the post-modern ear with a clang. Indeed, the book is marred by the casual
bigotries of its time. Anti-Semitic remarks are made without irony or rebuke,
and a Jewish character is portrayed with all the offensive tropes of the era.
It is a stain upon the narrative that no amount of literary merit can quite erase.
And yet, MacDonald writes with a certain fluency. His
prose is never dull and his pacing is brisk. The country house setting, the
locked-room mystery, the parade of suspects - all are handled with competence,
if not brilliance, considering how early in the Golden Era of Whodunnits it was
released. The final chapter, sad to report, is a ponderous affair: in the
Dover edition I read sixty pages of explanation served only to belabor what
the reader was told during the reveal.
In sum, this first case of Colonel Gethryn is a curiosity
- flawed, dated, and at times distasteful, yet not without its charms. It is a
relic of its age, and like many such relics, it is best approached with
caution, context, and a generous measure of patience on the part of reading
gluttons – me, us – who are interested the development of the whodunnit.
