Punshon, ER - The Bittermeads Mystery (1922)

Move over, Colin Revell! Stand aside, Paul Beck! The Boneheaded Detectives Club has another recruit!

Robert Dunsmore is not a professional investigator but the scion of an aristocratic English family. When murder attempts are made on heirs to the family title, he begins by growing a beard and calling himself Robert Dunn. Thus impenetrably disguised, he makes his way to Bittermeads House, home of the sinister Deede Dawson.

Conicidentally, Dunn arrives at the house at the same time as a burglar. There's lucky for you! Appropriating his tools, he sends the man packing -- there is nothing wrong with him physically -- and effects an entrance. In a packing crate in the attic he finds the body of Charlie Wright, a previous investigator, and is on his way to the police when Dawson intercepts him and bails him up.

Dunn's first reaction to this tense moment is introduce himself to Dawson as Charlie Wright. This doesn't go over too well, so he decides to be Robert Dunn instead, which resolves all Dawson's fears. Truly, these two are worthy opponents! Correctly assessing Dunn's intellectual capacity, Dawson offers him a post as gardener and odd-job man, which Dunn promptly accepts.

The plot then languishes for a couple of weeks while Deede sets chess problems and chews the furniture in melodramatic anguish, and Dunn moons around the house and falls in love with Ella, Deede's stepdaughter. Ella has been under the same roof as a thief and murderer for several years and is beginning to have vague suspicions about him. She's clearly a perfect match for Robert. A mere continental would have used this time to confront Dawson, have it out with Ella, and search their rooms, but Dunn's natural Anglo-Saxon reticence combines with his suspicions of Ella to render him virtually paralytic. Meanwhile another man is killed, but nobody seems to mind very much. Especially the police, who attribute this and everything else to poachers. ("Big embezzlement down at Spredgley's Bank? Aye, powerful cunnin', these poachers be.")

Finally the prospect of burglarizing his ancestral home arouses Dunn to action. He confides the whole plot to his cousin Walter, and sets off on foot to keep a mysterious rendezvous arranged by Dawson. A note from Ella tells him that all is discovered, and only Dunn's powerful physique saves the day. He arrives at the meeting-place early and surprises the mastermind behind Dawson, who is - No! - Walter! Who would have thought that the heir to the family fortune would be the one killing off the family? The ways of the human heart are truly mysterious! But Walter escapes, and Dunn, a born athlete, sets off cross-country back to Bittermeads to have it out with Dawson.

He finds Dawson in the attic. "Where is Ella?" he demands, forgetting in his passion to actually look for her. Dawson smilingly suggests they shoot holes in an old wardrobe, and Dunn, his sporting instincts aroused, is on the point of agreeing when he spies Ella's dress within. Dawson is defenestrated and Walter poisons himself, ensuring no shred of intelligence remains within the Dunsmore gene pool. Robert inherits the title, shaves off his beard and marries Ella. A new generation of mutton-headed aristocrats is assured, making possible the Socialist poll victory of 1923.

The Bittermeads Mystery has its moments. The arrival of the mysterious Mr. Dunn is quite engrossing, and the wardrobe scene would play well at the Adelphi. It is in the dreary thickets of exposition that it loses its way. Like so many books of the period, it also reminds us how ghastly it must have been to be financially dependent, and to have your whole future resting on the whims of someone who could be cruel, capricious, or simply as thick as two short planks.

Like Robert Dunsmore.

Oh, well...

Jon.

The Bittermeads Mystery is available from Project Gutenberg.

The Bittermeads Mystery gets off to a lively start with protagonist Robert Dunn eluding pursuit after a donnybrook (or should I say a Dunnybrook?) with a man he was following through a wood.

Dunn continues his nocturnal activities by sloping along to Bittermeads, the titular house, where he finds a burglary in progress. Seizing the day, or rather night, Dunn knocks the burglar out and after exchanging clothing with the unconscious man (subsequently concealed on the village common opposite the house) he enters the dwelling hoping to be discovered. An unusual ambition, you may say, but since a burglar is a shady sort he hopes to be invited to join the murky band associated with Bittermeads. His reasoning is he will not be turned him over to the police as the residents don't want attention drawn to the house. In this way he hopes to find out what has happened to his old chum Charley Wright, who was romantically involved with Ella Cayley, the daughter of the house, but has disappeared. He has another reason for his interest in joining the enemy camp, but it is not revealed until some way into the narrative.

The only people at home are Ella and her ailing mother and after tying Ella up and promising not to disturb her mother, Dunn explores the house -- only to find the murdered Charley in a packing case in an attic.

Ella's stepfather, Deede Dawson, returns home and nabs Dunn but decides to employ him as chauffeur and gardener -- not an action one would expect of an honest man. Dunn's first task is to finish nailing down the lid of the packing case without revealing he knows what is in it. But then Ella takes the packing case away in a car, thus removing the only evidence he can produce to launch a police investigation.

Then there is another murder as the plot thickens up in satisfactory fashion.

My verdict: The two matters Dunn is investigating have no immediate apparent link but ultimately are shown to be intertwined. Although the close reader may well deduce a certain hidden identity and the name of the person masterminding the mayhem, it will likely not be until fairly late in the book. The action gallops along and we have an unusual look at the romantic agony of a male protagonist as well as his internal musings as the plot develops. Although it is a fast, light read there are noir underpinnings and the whole is resolved with a satisfactory comeuppance for the egregious villain of the piece.

Etext: http://arthursclassicnovels.com/arthurs/detective/btrmm10.html

Mary R: http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/