And then there were two: Joyka and I are responding to the final chapters of Dead Men's Morris in this post. Martyn and Catherine may be sharing their thoughts in the days to come, and I will be happy to add their observations in an additional post. This was my first Mitchell Mystery Reading Group event to take place in the month of December, and traveling, visiting families, and the holidays likely do not encourage weekly reading and responses for many.
Still, there are some interesting topics to explore as Gladys Mitchell's Christmastime mystery now jumps forward to Easter (in Chapter 15) and the men prepare for the village's Whitsun Morris dance. Maurice Pratt, we are told, has improved, and the usually taciturn pigman Priest will play the Fool and collect coins from the audience. The final chapter also places both Mrs. Bradley and a second target in jeopardy as the murderer of Fossder and Simith is flushed out.
Joyka writes that "characters are very important to me in a book, second only to use of language. Gladys Mitchell hits all of my buttons. I have to say, however, when she is ready to wind up a story, it moves fast. If you want to know more about Carey, Jenny, Denis and the Ditches you will need to read more books. As for the murderer, don’t expect to know the ultimate outcome. Mrs. Bradley has already moved on!"
All of this is true, and yet the ending of Dead Men's Morris, for me, is somewhat atypical of the author's usual choice of presentation. I refer to the moment that serves as climax, where an attempt at a third murder – rather quixotically telegraphed through multiple clues by the clever but apparently mentally imbalanced villain – is a rare in-the-present scene of suspense and revelation. Many of Gladys Mitchell's stories are concluded with a dialogue debriefing from Mrs. Bradley rather than a situation where the reader is invited to be witness to action and arrest, so the Morris dance mayhem here feels both satisfying and novel. The psychoanalyst still gets the opportunity to talk in the final pages, but she also physically sidesteps an attempt on her own life and thwarts the attack of another in the previous scene. Personally, I like the choice, and it helps allay my earlier complaint (see Post 2) that the reader is kept at a distance from moments of important action, such as the murders of Simith and Fossder.
The killer's personality remains, by the end of the book, rather inscrutable, and we are invited to literally take Mrs. Bradley's psychological profile of the culprit as the unquestioned truth. I keep returning to the tantalizing comment Mitchell once made about not knowing exactly who the murderer will be when she sets out to write, and that her choice of villain may change as the book forms. Interestingly, the physical clues that point – some would argue that they point too obviously – to the murderer's identity here are established in the first chapters, and no other characters fit the bill quite so well. Yet there is a feeling that, narratively, the killer could have been revealed as one of the other male characters and a few of the female characters as well, and the climax would have been just as, or more, effective than the printed one.
Joyka writes that "characters are very important to me in a book, second only to use of language. Gladys Mitchell hits all of my buttons. I have to say, however, when she is ready to wind up a story, it moves fast. If you want to know more about Carey, Jenny, Denis and the Ditches you will need to read more books. As for the murderer, don’t expect to know the ultimate outcome. Mrs. Bradley has already moved on!"
All of this is true, and yet the ending of Dead Men's Morris, for me, is somewhat atypical of the author's usual choice of presentation. I refer to the moment that serves as climax, where an attempt at a third murder – rather quixotically telegraphed through multiple clues by the clever but apparently mentally imbalanced villain – is a rare in-the-present scene of suspense and revelation. Many of Gladys Mitchell's stories are concluded with a dialogue debriefing from Mrs. Bradley rather than a situation where the reader is invited to be witness to action and arrest, so the Morris dance mayhem here feels both satisfying and novel. The psychoanalyst still gets the opportunity to talk in the final pages, but she also physically sidesteps an attempt on her own life and thwarts the attack of another in the previous scene. Personally, I like the choice, and it helps allay my earlier complaint (see Post 2) that the reader is kept at a distance from moments of important action, such as the murders of Simith and Fossder.
The killer's personality remains, by the end of the book, rather inscrutable, and we are invited to literally take Mrs. Bradley's psychological profile of the culprit as the unquestioned truth. I keep returning to the tantalizing comment Mitchell once made about not knowing exactly who the murderer will be when she sets out to write, and that her choice of villain may change as the book forms. Interestingly, the physical clues that point – some would argue that they point too obviously – to the murderer's identity here are established in the first chapters, and no other characters fit the bill quite so well. Yet there is a feeling that, narratively, the killer could have been revealed as one of the other male characters and a few of the female characters as well, and the climax would have been just as, or more, effective than the printed one.
Both of the book's victims, lawyer Fossder and farmer Simith, receive cards before their deaths showing heraldic crests. So it is a tense moment when we see, prior to the dance, both Mrs. Bradley and Priest receiving similar cards. (The image accompanying this paragraph is a scan of the illustrations found on the endpapers of the Michael Joseph edition.) Such a decorative and genealogical plot development is not a surprise, since Gladys Mitchell has always celebrated history and setting in her mystery stories. From the Scottish Border Ballads that feature heavily in 1941's Hangman's Curfew to the Neolithic-era Rollright Stones at the center of 1980's The Whispering Knights, GM loves to incorporate UK history and topography elements, and Morris – with its ritual dance traditions and its Oxfordshire countryside exploration – is a good example of this.
Joyka was not satisfied with the author's use of the crests and their meanings. "The heraldic crests as part of the solution are a mystery to me. They seem a minor clue at best then all of a sudden they assume a major role. Maybe you need to be English to understand what they are and what they mean. I found them a confusing addition." On the other (sinister?) hand, I did not find their meaning problematic, but their use as a calling card to signal the recipient's doom feels unbelievably ornate. This returns us to the earlier point that you either accept Mitchell's sketch of the murderer's psychosis – that he is in the grip of an academically inclined mania – or you do not.
Another observation from Joyka: "My classical literary education sadly pales next to not only Mrs. Bradley, but also Mrs. Templeton, Priest’s landlady. I have no idea which young man pushed a volume of Aristotle’s philosophy down the boar’s throat to escape death. And Mrs. Templeton is a philosopher in her own right, 'Supper first, and gals come later.'"
If additional conversation arrives about Dead Men's Morris in the days to come, I will certainly report it in a separate post. I am grateful that I chose to revisit this story, as it was in some ways more satisfying and thought-provoking than the previous group reading title, 1937's Come Away, Death.
Another observation from Joyka: "My classical literary education sadly pales next to not only Mrs. Bradley, but also Mrs. Templeton, Priest’s landlady. I have no idea which young man pushed a volume of Aristotle’s philosophy down the boar’s throat to escape death. And Mrs. Templeton is a philosopher in her own right, 'Supper first, and gals come later.'"
If additional conversation arrives about Dead Men's Morris in the days to come, I will certainly report it in a separate post. I am grateful that I chose to revisit this story, as it was in some ways more satisfying and thought-provoking than the previous group reading title, 1937's Come Away, Death.
Joyka offers this suggestion for the next reading event: "I think Laurels are Poison (1942) would be a good follow-up book. We meet Jonathan, Deborah, Laura, Kitty and young Alice. And there is a brief Christmas gathering with Carey, Jenny, the Ditches, Denis, Ferdinand, and his wife, Caroline, who has been renamed. I have always thought this book was a pivot point for Gladys Mitchell." I will definitely consider it, and will announce both book choice and reading month once I have settled on them. September or October might prove agreeable, but December will likely be avoided… Happy New Year to all!
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