1937 U.K. Cover My second title to celebrate the year 1937 with Past Offences is also Leo Bruce’s second title to feature his amiable people’s policeman, Sergeant Beef. As provincial and solid as his name, Beef likes nothing more than a good game of competitive darts, preferably with a glass of beer standing nearby.
The previous year’s Case for Three Detectives is a minor classic of the satiric mystery genre, pitting the unassuming (and, by contrast, coarse) Beef against three caricatures of Brilliant Literary Sleuths, only to show them all up by the end. Case without a Corpse treads some of the same ground, but with somewhat diminishing returns.
The previous year’s Case for Three Detectives is a minor classic of the satiric mystery genre, pitting the unassuming (and, by contrast, coarse) Beef against three caricatures of Brilliant Literary Sleuths, only to show them all up by the end. Case without a Corpse treads some of the same ground, but with somewhat diminishing returns.
The story’s clever premise proves to be its best feature: one blustery evening during a game of darts, a young man named Rogers enters the pub, gets the sergeant’s attention by stating, “I’ve come to give myself up. I’ve committed a murder,” and promptly dies after drinking from a bottle containing cyanide of potassium. This leaves Beef in a bit of a predicament. An examination shows fresh blood on Rogers’s sleeve, so the man appeared to have committed (or thought he had committed) a crime. But who is the victim, actual or intended? The answer proves oddly elusive.
There are some candidates, however. Rogers was seen by a witness with a young woman named Stella Smythe on the back of his motorcycle. Rogers had purchased a curious length of clothesline rope prior to the ride, and now the woman cannot be traced. A questionable acquaintance, Fairfax, has also disappeared, and a strange foreigner, perhaps “half-Indian”, had been spotted in the area, seemingly trailing Rogers on that fateful day. A search of the moors only turns up a scrap of burnt paper in the dead man’s handwriting, and the small-town sergeant reluctantly looks to the metropolitan police and the efficient figure of Scotland Yard’s Detective-Inspector Stute for help.
Leo Bruce – the pen name of Rupert Croft-Cooke – clearly enjoys exploring the comical possibilities of mystery fiction, almost equally in plot, character, and prose. Case without a Corpse has its healthy quota of lively, folksy villagers, even with Sergeant Beef excepted. Take this conversation between Stute and Mrs. Walker, the too-talkative owner of Rose Cottage where Stella Smythe had been staying:
There are some candidates, however. Rogers was seen by a witness with a young woman named Stella Smythe on the back of his motorcycle. Rogers had purchased a curious length of clothesline rope prior to the ride, and now the woman cannot be traced. A questionable acquaintance, Fairfax, has also disappeared, and a strange foreigner, perhaps “half-Indian”, had been spotted in the area, seemingly trailing Rogers on that fateful day. A search of the moors only turns up a scrap of burnt paper in the dead man’s handwriting, and the small-town sergeant reluctantly looks to the metropolitan police and the efficient figure of Scotland Yard’s Detective-Inspector Stute for help.
Leo Bruce – the pen name of Rupert Croft-Cooke – clearly enjoys exploring the comical possibilities of mystery fiction, almost equally in plot, character, and prose. Case without a Corpse has its healthy quota of lively, folksy villagers, even with Sergeant Beef excepted. Take this conversation between Stute and Mrs. Walker, the too-talkative owner of Rose Cottage where Stella Smythe had been staying:
“In the meantime, you had heard nothing of what had passed between them?”
“Certainly not. I never listen to other people’s conversation, besides the wall between the tea-room and the kitchen is too thick to hear anything and whenever I went into the room they shut up like deckchairs and waited till I’d shut the door before they went on with what they were saying.”
The story is narrated by an earnest (and often amused) mystery writer named Townsend, who is quite aware of his Watson status. Even more, Bruce folds in a few references to his puzzle-crafting colleagues and the genre itself, as with this exchange between Townsend and the urbane Detective-Inspector:
“Thank you so much,” I said, “for letting me come round with you to-day.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” [Stute] returned with something approaching a smile. “We’re used to that, you know. A crime wouldn’t be a crime nowadays without half a dozen of you literary people hanging about after it. Why only the other day… But perhaps I’d better not tell you about her. She’d put me in her new book. Good night.”
Intriguing to me in a way that perhaps the author had not intended was the contrast between the two detectives here. Stute – I would wager his middle initial is “A” – is presented in a surprisingly sympathetic light, considering that he exists to arrive at an incorrect solution before the stage is cleared for Beef to provide the proper one. Yet Detective-Inspector Stute is admirably competent, and manages to make all of the right steps regarding the gathering of evidence and the interrogation of suspects. While not exactly humble, he is also not conceited or a blindly bound apostle of his modern detection methods. It would be easy to cast him as the fatuous urban rival, contemptuous of Beef and his small-town ways, but Leo Bruce refrains from this, and the book is stronger for the choice.
Even with these strengths of tone and character, also present are weaknesses in plotting that might frustrate a constant reader of classic mysteries. GAD scholar Nicholas Fuller notes that Corpse has “one of those plots which hinge on the victim’s stupidity,” and indeed this is a point that feels particularly unsatisfying, sorely straining (if not entirely breaking) one’s suspension of disbelief.
Even with these strengths of tone and character, also present are weaknesses in plotting that might frustrate a constant reader of classic mysteries. GAD scholar Nicholas Fuller notes that Corpse has “one of those plots which hinge on the victim’s stupidity,” and indeed this is a point that feels particularly unsatisfying, sorely straining (if not entirely breaking) one’s suspension of disbelief.
1937 U.S. Cover The final actions of the hapless Rogers are quite incredible and there is a quaintly naïve subplot involving “drugs smuggling” that fails to convince. When you add in the fact that Beef’s damning evidence is a witness who just happened to overhear a criminal conversation (which is unknown to the reader until the dénouement), the tale feels a bit too wobbly for its own good.
Still, Leo Bruce’s comic touches make this a breezy read, and a curious one at that, with the failed detective pleasantly likeable and the successful sleuth not as well done as his name might imply.
Still, Leo Bruce’s comic touches make this a breezy read, and a curious one at that, with the failed detective pleasantly likeable and the successful sleuth not as well done as his name might imply.
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