Death and the Professor: A Golden Age Mystery Read online

  E & M.A. Radford

  Death and the Professor

  “Tell me, did he commit suicide, or was he killed in his room; and if so how a murderer killed and vanished leaving no trace within a minute?”

  The Dilettantes Club is a gathering of five savants who dine once a fortnight in Soho, and debate any problem besetting mankind. One evening, into this distinguished company, there intrudes a Professor of Logic and Philosophy, an odd little man. The Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard is one of the Dilettantes, and a baffling problem of criminal investigation is debated. The little Professor is able to point the finger at those who currently are eluding the police net. A series of intriguing impossible crimes unfold, until . . .

  “Another treat for addicts. Once again they succeed in holding the reader’s interest by combining an ingenious plot with a collection of really convincing characters.” Manchester Evening Chronicle

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page/About the Book

  Contents

  Introduction by Nigel Moss

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  About the Author

  Copyright

  INTRODUCTION

  Doctor Harry Manson is a neglected figure, unjustly so, amongst Golden Age crime fiction detectives. The creation of husband and wife authors Edwin and Mona Radford, who wrote as E. & M.A. Radford, Manson was their leading series detective featuring in 35 of 38 mystery novels published between 1944 and 1972. He held dual roles as a senior police detective at Scotland Yard and Head of its Crime Forensics Research Laboratory. In 2019 Dean Street Press republished three early novels from the Doctor Manson series—Murder Jigsaw (1944), Murder Isn’t Cricket (1946), and Who Killed Dick Whittington? (1947)—titles selected for their strong plots, clever detection and evocative settings. They are examples of Manson at his best, portraying the appealing combination of powerful intellect and reasoning with creative scientific methods of investigation, while never losing awareness and sensitivity concerning the human predicaments encountered.

  Having introduced the Radfords to a new readership, Dean Street Press have now released a further three titles, each quite different in approach and style, written during the authors’ middle period but retaining the traditions of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. They include two Manson novels: The Heel of Achilles (1950), an inverted murder mystery; and Death of a Frightened Editor (1959), a baffling murder by poisoning on a London-to-Brighton train. The third, Death and the Professor (1961), is a non-series title featuring an array of impossible crime puzzles and locked room murders solved by the formidable mind of logician Professor Marcus Stubbs.

  The Radfords sought to combine in Doctor Manson a leading police detective and scientific investigator in the same mould as R. Austin Freeman’s Dr John Thorndyke, whom Edwin Radford keenly admired. T.J. Binyon, in his study of fictional detectives Murder Will Out (1989), maintains that the Radfords were protesting against the idea that in Golden Age crime fiction science is always the preserve of the amateur detective, and were seeking to be different. In the preface to the first Manson novel Inspector Manson’s Success (1944), they announced: “We have had the audacity to present here the Almost Incredible: a detective story in which the scientific deduction by a police officer uncovers the crime and the criminal entirely without the aid of any outside assistance!”

  The first two Manson novels, Inspector Manson’s Success and Murder Jigsaw (both 1944), contain introductory prefaces which acquaint the reader with Doctor Manson in some detail. He is a man of many talents and qualifications: aged in his early 50s and a Cambridge MA (both attributes shared by Edwin Radford at the time), Manson is a Doctor of Science, Doctor of Laws, non-practising barrister and author of several standard works on medical jurisprudence (of which he is a Professor) and criminal pathology. Slightly over 6 feet in height, although he does not look it owing to the stoop of his shoulders, habitual in a scholar and scientist. He has interesting features and characteristics: a long face, with a broad and abnormally high forehead; grey eyes wide set, though lying deep in their sockets, which “have a habit of just passing over a person on introduction; but when that person chances to turn in the direction of the Inspector, he is disconcerted to find that the eyes have returned to his face and are seemingly engaged on long and careful scrutiny. There is left the impression that one’s face is being photographed on the Inspector’s mind.” Manson’s hands are often the first thing a stranger will notice. “The long delicate fingers are exceedingly restless—twisting and turning on anything which lies handy to them. While he stands, chatting, they are liable to stray to a waistcoat pocket and emerge with a tiny magnifying glass or a micrometer to occupy their energy.”

  During his long career at Scotland Yard, Manson rises from Chief Detective-Inspector to the rank of Commander. Reporting directly to Sir Edward Allen, the Assistant Commissioner, Manson is ably assisted by his Yard colleagues—Sergeant Merry, a science graduate and Deputy Lab Head, and Superintendent Jones and Detective-Inspector Kenway of the CID. Jones is weighty and ponderous, given to grunts and short staccato sentences, and with a habit of lapsing into American ’tec slang in moments of stress; but a stolid, determined detective and reliable fact searcher with an impressive memory. He often serves as a humorous foil to Manson and the Assistant Commissioner. By contrast, Kenway is volatile and imaginative. Together, Jones and Kenway make a powerful combination and an effective resource for the Doctor. In later books, Inspector Holroyd features as Manson’s regular assistant. Holroyd is the lead detective in the non-series title The Six Men (1958), a novelisation of the earlier British detective film of the same name released in 1951 and based on an original story idea and scenario developed by the Radfords. Their only other non-series police detective, Superintendent Carmichael, appeared in just two novels: Look in at Murder (1956, with Manson) and Married to Murder (1959).

  The first eight novels, all Manson series, were published by Andrew Melrose between 1944 to 1950. The early titles were slim volumes produced in accordance with authorised War Economy Standards. Many featured a distinctive motif on the front cover of the dust wrapper—a small white circle showing Manson’s head superimposed against that of Sherlock Holmes (in black silhouette), with the title ‘a Manson Mystery’. In these early novels, the Radfords made much of their practice of providing readers with all the facts and clues necessary to give them a fair opportunity of solving the mystery puzzles by deduction. T
hey interspersed the investigations with ‘Challenges to the Reader’, a trope closely associated with leading Golden Age crime authors John Dickson Carr and Ellery Queen. In Murder Isn’t Cricket they claimed: “We have never ‘pulled anything out of the bag’ at the last minute—a fact upon which three distinguished reviewers of books have commented and have commended.” Favourable critical reviews of their early titles were received from Ralph Straus (Sunday Times) and George W. Bishop (Daily Telegraph), as well as novelist Elizabeth Bowen. The Radfords were held in sufficiently high regard by Sutherland Scott, in his study of the mystery novel Blood in their Ink (1953), to be highlighted alongside such distinguished Golden Age authors as Miles Burton, Richard Hull, Milward Kennedy and Vernon Loder.

  After 1950 there was a gap of six years before the Radfords’ next book. Mona’s mother died in 1953; she had been living with them at the time. Starting in 1956, with a new publisher John Long (like Melrose, another Hutchinson company), the Radfords released two Manson titles in successive years: Look in at Murder (1956) and Death on the Broads (1957). In 1958 they moved to the publisher Robert Hale, a prominent supplier to the public libraries. They began with The Six Men (1958), before returning to Manson with Death of a Frightened Editor (1959). Thereafter, Manson was to feature in all but two of their remaining 25 crime novels, all published by Hale; the exceptions being Married to Murder (1959) and Death and the Professor (1961). Curiously, a revised and abridged version of the third Manson series novel Crime Pays No Dividends (1945) was later released under the new title Death of a Peculiar Rabbit (1969).

  Edwin Isaac Radford (1891-1973) and Mona Augusta Radford (1894-1990) were married in Aldershot in 1939. Born in West Bromwich, Edwin had spent his working life entirely in journalism, latterly in London’s Fleet Street where he held various editorial roles, culminating as Arts Editor-in-Chief and Columnist for the Daily Mirror in 1937. Mona was the daughter of Irish poet and actor James Clarence Mangan and his actress wife Lily Johnson. Since childhood she had toured with her mother and performed on stage under the name ‘Mona Magnet’, and later was for many years a popular leading lady appearing in musical-comedies, revues and pantomime (including ‘Dick Whittington’) until her retirement from the stage. She first met Edwin while performing in Nottingham, where he was working as a local newspaper journalist. Mona also authored numerous short plays and sketches for the stage, in addition to writing verse, particularly for children.

  An article in Books & Bookmen magazine (1959) recounts how Edwin and Mona, already in their early 50s, became detective fiction writers by accident. During one of Edwin’s periodic attacks of lumbago, Mona trudged through snow and slush from their village home to a library for Dr Thorndyke detective stories by R. Austin Freeman, of which he was an avid reader. Unfortunately, Edwin had already read the three books with which she returned! Incensed at his grumbles, Mona retaliated with “Well for heaven’s sake, why don’t you write one instead of always reading them?”—and placed a writing pad and pencil on his bed. Within a month, Edwin had written six lengthy short stories, and with Mona’s help in revising the MS, submitted them to a leading publisher. The recommendation came back that each of the stories had the potential to make an excellent full-length novel. The first short story was duly turned into a novel, which was promptly accepted for publication. Thereafter, their practice was to work together on writing novels—first in longhand, then typed and read through by each of them, and revised as necessary. The plot was usually developed by Mona and added to by Edwin during the writing. According to Edwin, the formula was: “She kills them off, and I find out how she done it.” Mona would also act the characters and dialogue as outlined by Edwin for him to observe first-hand and then capture in the text.

  As husband-and-wife novelists, the Radfords were in the company of other Golden Age crime writing couples—G.D.H. (Douglas) and Margaret Cole in the UK, and Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning, John and Emery Bonett, Audrey and Wiliam Roos (Kelley Roos), and Frances and Richard Lockridge in the USA. Their crime novels proved popular on the Continent and were published in translation in the major European languages. However, the US market eluded them and none of the Radford books was ever published in the USA. Aside from crime fiction, the Radfords collaborated on authoring a wide range of other works, most notably Crowther’s Encyclopaedia of Phrases and Origins, Encyclopaedia of Superstitions (a standard work on folklore), and a Dictionary of Allusions. Edwin was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a member of both the Authors’ Club and the Savage Club.

  The Radfords proved to be an enduring writing team, working into their 80s. Both were also enthusiastic amateur artists in oils and water colours. They travelled extensively, and invariably spent the winter months writing in the warmer climes of Southern Europe. An article by Edwin in John Creasey’s Mystery Bedside Book (1960) recounts his involvement in the late 1920s with an English society periodical for the winter set on the French Riviera, where he had socialised with such famous writers as Baroness Orczy, William Le Queux and E. Phillips Oppenheim. He recollects Oppenheim dictating up to three novels at once! The Radfords spent their final years living in Worthing.

  Death and the Professor

  The Radfords were innovators. They frequently devised original methods of committing murder, for example in It’s Murder to Live (1947) and John Kyeling Died (1949). In their unusual, one-off work Death and the Professor, the entire book is based around the Dilettantes Club, an exclusive London dining club, and the varied crime cases which are solved during discussions among its members, thanks to the insights of the eponymous Professor, Marcus Stubbs. For this mid-period title, published in 1961 by Robert Hale, the authors rest their principal series detective Doctor Manson, and introduce Professor Stubbs who makes his sole appearance as the protagonist. But Manson’s CID colleagues Detective-Inspector Kenway and Superintendent Jones feature in reports on police investigations. Moreover, Sir Edward Allen, Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard (to whom Manson reports), plays a key role in the book as one of the Club members, and his professional abilities and prowess shine through in the finale.

  The Dilettantes Club is made up of a handful of leading savants, including Sir Edward, drawn from medicine, science and academia. Initially five members, they are joined at the outset of the book by Professor Stubbs, a former Professor of Logic at Bonn University, and the holder of a doctorate in philosophy from the Sorbonne. Stubbs has memorable characteristics: he is an elderly, thin man with a goblin-like head, shock of grey hair, thick lensed heavy spectacles, aged dress suit, a snuff taker, pedantic in his manner of speech with a frequent stammer, and generally possessing a hesitant, mild-mannered persona. Aspects of his appearance and demeanour are similar to those of Jacques Futrelle’s earlier fictional creation Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen (also a logician), better known to mystery readers as “The Thinking Machine”. The Club meets fortnightly in a private dining room of Moroni’s restaurant in Soho. The authors lovingly detail the lavish gourmet dinners and fine wines consumed before the members get down to the more serious business of the evening, discussing crime problems around the dining table over coffee, liqueurs and cigars.

  The book comprises eight stand-alone short stories. The writing style suggests they may originally have been conceived for serialisation. Seven of the eight stories are a mix of impossible crimes and locked room mystery stories; the remaining story is a cleverly plotted ‘eternal triangle’ murder. The authors’ enjoyment of the popular locked room mystery sub-genre is evident, with a variety of baffling cases including death by shooting in a locked guest house room; an induced heart attack in a locked railway carriage; and strangulation in a guarded flat. The Radfords wrote two other impossible crime novels: Who Killed Dick Whittington? (1947) and Death of a Frightened Editor (1959), both reissued by Dean Street Press. Doctor Manson also discusses a theoretical locked room murder scenario in The Heel of Achilles (1950).

  The eight stories are presented individually to the Club memb
ers for debate by the Assistant Commissioner, Sir Edward Allen; they feature brain-teasing problems of criminal investigations that have baffled the police. In one instance it is the Professor who raises the case to prevent what he suspects to be a grave miscarriage of justice. But the Professor does not normally initiate discussion; his habit is to be the last member to offer any contribution, after first analysing all the facts and discussions. With his eyes closed and head shrunk between the shoulders, the members are never sure whether the Professor is awake or asleep. But on finally entering the fray, he follows an apparent process of reasoning based on strict logic, often quite elaborate and demonstrating an impressive attention to detail. The Professor evaluates and sifts the evidence, plugging gaps in the existing police investigation findings, and concludes by successfully pointing the finger at those who are evading justice. His summations often prove embarrassing for the police. But in a surprising denouement the authors introduce a masterful final twist, and Sir Edward has the last laugh.

  Upon publication of Death and the Professor, the Manchester Evening Chronicle wrote: “Another treat for addicts. Once again they (the authors) succeed in holding the reader’s interest by combining an ingenious plot with a collection of really convincing characters”. The eye-catching dust wrapper of the Robert Hale first edition features a street scene (probably London) with a life-like picture of the Professor wearing black formal attire and the dark figure of an over-sized skeleton, similarly dressed, looming behind him. This new edition by Dean Street Press, almost sixty years later, will be particularly welcomed by the many collectors and fans of impossible crimes and locked room mysteries for whom the book has been difficult to locate. The varied problems in the book’s stories occupy a full page of Robert Adey’s leading reference work Locked Room Murders (1991).