The Witchcraft Club was at half attendance the evening that club secretary Marcus Brockman was murdered. Numbering thirteen total, only six members enjoy a satisfying dinner at Benito's before traveling to their private quarters for drinks and the reading of a paper on Oriental superstitions. One member, Sir Edric Conway, travels from the main room to a darkened, smaller room only to discover a body lying in a pool of blood. As Conway is the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, he takes a professional interest, and discreetly asks Dr. Robert Milston to view the unfortunate man. Conway hands the investigation (of which he is a suspect) over to Inspector Arnold, a competent but unimaginative officer, and encourages Arnold to consult Desmond Merrion, who feels quite comfortable with fanciful speculation.
The victim, it turns out, was a successful partner in a business that manufactures and markets Neurolith pills, which claim rather questionably to calm the nervous system. Mr. Diprose was the wonder drug's creator and Mr. Brockman was the speculator and salesman for the brand. Was it a falling out between business partners that ended with Brockman getting his throat cut in the club? Or had he crossed another member whom he had tried to blackmail? Arnold finds some curious clues: Brockman's solicitor was asked to call the club the night of the murder; an unidentified set of fingerprints on a glass was superimposed over the prints of Conway, who had visited the club rooms hours before the dinner; and, as an unlucky patrolman discovers, the decanter of rum (Brockman's preferred drink) was laced with deadly conine. With Arnold's evidence to guide him, Merrion sets a trap that forces the killer to reveal his guilt.
Death at the Club (U.S. title The Clue of the Fourteen Keys, a nod to the number of suspects with access to the scene of the crime) is an agreeable little mystery, although its writing, plotting, and characterization offer little to raise it above the realm of the competent detective yarn. I manage to read intermittently the stories of Cecil John Street, who published dozens and dozens of novels under the names John Rhode and Miles Burton, picking one up after a hiatus of months and sometimes years. When I do, I'm reminded of a few reliably recognizable features. First, Rhode is (usually) scrupulously fair in his fair play plotting, often to the point that the reader can easily get ahead of the investigating detective. So it's interesting here, in Club, that the general why is obvious – Brockman is a scoundrel – but the who is unknown until the final-chapter reveal only because the author leaves the reader in the dark about a character's prior history that provides the motive. It's not an approach that satisfies, but it certainly keeps one guessing until the nicely sustained penultimate chapter, when the trap is sprung.
Next, a sampling of the Rhode/Burton titles shows the work of a writer who placed puzzle first, while literary elements like mood and style and characterization received a lower priority. I make this claim as I think about opportunities that Street never pursues. Thirteen members of a Witchcraft Club is a tantalizing prospect, but there is never, ever a moment when the occult is even fleetingly explored. No character has a comment about pagan blood sacrifice – poor Brockman's throat was slit ear to ear, after all – no description is presented of any spooky memorabilia within the club (could not the police dust skulls for fingerprints?), no mention of supernatural suspicion or voodoo vengeance to explain the violent death, even in passing. Of course, the author's interest lies in the puzzle and clue collecting, but the omission is notable, as is the fact that all club members are also respected representatives of society, including a police commissioner, a doctor, a barrister, a businessman, and an academic. The group could be changed to The Philately Club with almost no story editing required.
Finally, while I enjoy the Rhode and Burton books, the ones I have read rely on suspect and witness interviews for the bulk of the book, and complicating plot developments are sometimes few and far between. (There seems to be quite a lot of Merrion's conversational theorizing and Arnold's arguments to fit his prescribed view of the facts.) In contrast, consider how Agatha Christie propels her stories. Christie enjoys her interview scenes, but her interviewees often have a tone – combative or wistful or bitter or circuitous – that encourages a dramatic tension between characters. She also knows that stakes must be raised and the pot must continue to boil, which is why so often a nosey parlormaid meets her maker around page 140 in a Christie story. In Death at the Club, we do have a suspect who flees, but it is really only in the neatly staged conclusion, where Sir Edric observes the murderer in action, that the tension rises. Then again, the focus is mystery; suspense, when it is used, is ancillary.
Death at the Club (U.S. title The Clue of the Fourteen Keys, a nod to the number of suspects with access to the scene of the crime) is an agreeable little mystery, although its writing, plotting, and characterization offer little to raise it above the realm of the competent detective yarn. I manage to read intermittently the stories of Cecil John Street, who published dozens and dozens of novels under the names John Rhode and Miles Burton, picking one up after a hiatus of months and sometimes years. When I do, I'm reminded of a few reliably recognizable features. First, Rhode is (usually) scrupulously fair in his fair play plotting, often to the point that the reader can easily get ahead of the investigating detective. So it's interesting here, in Club, that the general why is obvious – Brockman is a scoundrel – but the who is unknown until the final-chapter reveal only because the author leaves the reader in the dark about a character's prior history that provides the motive. It's not an approach that satisfies, but it certainly keeps one guessing until the nicely sustained penultimate chapter, when the trap is sprung.
Next, a sampling of the Rhode/Burton titles shows the work of a writer who placed puzzle first, while literary elements like mood and style and characterization received a lower priority. I make this claim as I think about opportunities that Street never pursues. Thirteen members of a Witchcraft Club is a tantalizing prospect, but there is never, ever a moment when the occult is even fleetingly explored. No character has a comment about pagan blood sacrifice – poor Brockman's throat was slit ear to ear, after all – no description is presented of any spooky memorabilia within the club (could not the police dust skulls for fingerprints?), no mention of supernatural suspicion or voodoo vengeance to explain the violent death, even in passing. Of course, the author's interest lies in the puzzle and clue collecting, but the omission is notable, as is the fact that all club members are also respected representatives of society, including a police commissioner, a doctor, a barrister, a businessman, and an academic. The group could be changed to The Philately Club with almost no story editing required.
Finally, while I enjoy the Rhode and Burton books, the ones I have read rely on suspect and witness interviews for the bulk of the book, and complicating plot developments are sometimes few and far between. (There seems to be quite a lot of Merrion's conversational theorizing and Arnold's arguments to fit his prescribed view of the facts.) In contrast, consider how Agatha Christie propels her stories. Christie enjoys her interview scenes, but her interviewees often have a tone – combative or wistful or bitter or circuitous – that encourages a dramatic tension between characters. She also knows that stakes must be raised and the pot must continue to boil, which is why so often a nosey parlormaid meets her maker around page 140 in a Christie story. In Death at the Club, we do have a suspect who flees, but it is really only in the neatly staged conclusion, where Sir Edric observes the murderer in action, that the tension rises. Then again, the focus is mystery; suspense, when it is used, is ancillary.
In their Catalogue of Crime, the reliably critical critics Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor call Club "one of Burton's best in his early Death series." It’s certainly a clear-headed and enjoyable puzzle story, even if it doesn’t offer anything truly memorable or distinct to distinguish it. I end by sharing one of my favorite narrative comments, which is amusing both for its use as a fair-play footnote and for its confident tone of certainty:
"The possibility that a hired assassin might have been employed could be dismissed. Hired assassins had gone out of fashion in recent years."
"The possibility that a hired assassin might have been employed could be dismissed. Hired assassins had gone out of fashion in recent years."
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