The English boys' or girls' preparatory school has proven to be an irresistible setting for Golden Age and contemporary writers of murder mysteries. Some authors were career educators, and were able to bring to life the conflicts large and small found when a group of adolescents (and their often equally childlike instructors) is forced to share a closed community. As a result, many writer/teachers have used their on-campus observations and understanding of the milieu to create some memorable campus-set detective stories, including Michael Innes's The Weight of the Evidence (1944), Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes (1946), and Gladys Mitchell's Tom Brown's Body (1949), to name a few.
The début title in Nicholas Blake's series featuring the eccentric detective Nigel Strangeways can be added to this list. Blake was the pseudonym of Cecil Day-Lewis, an Irish-born writer who worked as a schoolteacher in Scotland and, in 1968, was named Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. Fortunately, Day-Lewis chose to supplement his income by writing mystery fiction, and 1935's A Question of Proof is the book that introduces readers to his unassuming but quirky sleuth. I will let Michael Evans, a character in Proof who has become the prime suspect in the murder of an unlikable student, offer his description of Strangeways:
"Could not stick two years [at Oxford College], the spectacle of so many quite decent youths being got at and ruined for life was too much for him. Heard that at Cambridge the hearties were still heartier and the intelligentsia even less intelligent, so decided to dispense with any further education… Traveled about for a bit, learning languages. Then settled down for a bit to investigate crime; said it was the only career left which offered scope to good manners and scientific curiosity. He's been very successful; made pots of money. He did all the stuff in the Duchess of Esk's diamonds affair and several high-hat blackmail cases which have figured less prominently in the press."
"But what's he like?"
"Like? Oh, like one of the less successful busts of T.E. Shaw. A Nordic type. He's rather faddy, by the way; his protective mechanism developed them, I daresay. But you must have water perpetually on the boil; he drinks tea at all hours of the day. And he can't sleep unless he has an enormous weight on his bed. If you don't give him enough blankets for three, you'll find that he has torn the carpets up or the curtains down."
What's curious to me is that Nigel Strangeways comes across as rather a default eccentric in these mysteries; perhaps he is odd because the genre expects it. His "fads" are laid on the thickest in this début novel, but they are a collection of habits and don't better define the character's personality, which for me has always been more tabula rasa (or contemplative sponge) than memorably garrulous. Unlike, say, Hercule Poirot's fussy, precise mannerisms or Mrs. Beatrice Lestrange Bradley's physical and verbal assaults on those around her, Strangeways' behavior is not really in active service of his role as detective, nor does it physicalize his mental processes; it is peculiar to sleep under multiple blankets, but the fact doesn't really change or inform his introspective approach to investigating a crime.
There's another benefit to staging a murder mystery at a school, and it has to do both with a ready stable of on-hand suspects and the excellent narrative move of bringing chaos and disruption to a locale that operates on the regimentation of strict order and control. When Sudeley Hall student Wemyss disappears during a Sports Day exhibition and turns up dead, buried in a haystack in which Michael Evans was canoodling with the headmaster's wife, the tragic event threatens the reputation of the school and casts suspicion on the gossiping schoolmasters. Strangeways is called in to help clear his friend's name, but he is also seen as a mechanism to restore order to the troubled school by identifying the culprit. This he eventually does, but he is frustrated by a lack of empirical evidence – hence the title – and the killer is given enough rope to strike a second time.
There is a lot to appreciate in A Question of Proof, including lively comic descriptions and characterizations, literary and historical allusions, smart observations about British public school practices and quirks, and (perhaps most importantly) a mystery puzzle plot that stays busy and draws in several suspects before the detective reveals his final-chapter solution. Whether the reader feels that Blake has provided a fair-play puzzle experience will depend largely on how satisfied one is with the stated motive of the murderer. To his credit, the author makes sure all loose ends are tied up and explanations of the red herrings are provided.
There is a lot to appreciate in A Question of Proof, including lively comic descriptions and characterizations, literary and historical allusions, smart observations about British public school practices and quirks, and (perhaps most importantly) a mystery puzzle plot that stays busy and draws in several suspects before the detective reveals his final-chapter solution. Whether the reader feels that Blake has provided a fair-play puzzle experience will depend largely on how satisfied one is with the stated motive of the murderer. To his credit, the author makes sure all loose ends are tied up and explanations of the red herrings are provided.
While not the very best of the series, Day-Lewis/Blake nevertheless delivers an impressive first mystery and a worthy introduction of his capable, but always a little clinical and distant, detective. For me, the best Nigel Strangeways novels appear in the first half of his publishing output, and his creator should be celebrated for his enthusiasm for experimenting with style and structure within the series. Personal favorites include 1938's The Beast Must Die, a suspenseful version of the inverted-mystery tale, The Smiler with the Knife (1939), in which Nigel's wife Georgia is caught up in wartime espionage and intrigue, and Minute for Murder (1947), a clever meditation on the act of eliminating suspects.
Nick Fuller over at The Grandest Game in the World has also examined A Question of Proof (I would expect nothing less!) and has collected contemporary reviews of the book on his site.
Nick Fuller over at The Grandest Game in the World has also examined A Question of Proof (I would expect nothing less!) and has collected contemporary reviews of the book on his site.
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