Perhaps better known by its American title Murder at Cambridge, 1933’s Murder at the ‘Varsity is the third mystery novel to be published under the Q. Patrick name. It is a breezy and enjoyable fair-play affair, even as its central puzzle – who shot exaggeratedly Teutonic student Julius Baumann in his room and made it look like suicide? – is not especially confounding. Curtis Evans at The Passing Tramp has sorted out the authorship of the many books written as Q. Patrick, Patrick Quentin, and Jonathan Stagge and marks ‘Varsity as a solo effort by Rickie Webb when he was between writing partners. (Webb wrote the first two with Martha Mott Kelley and would write the next entry, S.S. Murder, with Mary Louise White [Aswell].)
So it seems fitting that this story is narrated by Hilary Fenton, an American male who observes the British college environment with an outsider’s delight akin to an anthropologist. I suspect that Webb was more at home in England than his protagonist here: while the author was born in Somerset and moved to the United States when he was twenty-five, the fictional Fenton is a Yankee abroad. The book boasts a four-page glossary that defines “some of the local colloquialisms and other quasi-technical terms” to bring the uninitiated up to speed. A gyp, we learn from this addendum (although it is also clear in context), is “a male college servant assigned to take care of a certain set of rooms or the rooms on one particular staircase”. And in this story, there is a lot going on in those rooms and on those staircases.
But it is in an ordinary lecture hall that young Fenton first spots his romantic ideal, Camilla Lathrop. He spends the early chapters learning her identity and stage managing another encounter. Fenton also spots her – or thinks he spots her – on the landing outside Baumann’s room on the stormy night of the murder, and it is from a muddled sense of chivalry that Fenton hides evidence that might point to her at the crime scene. He launches his own amateur investigation, all in the name of clearing Camilla, and a second murder at the college builds to a tea party with the Don where one cup is laced with strychnine.
So it seems fitting that this story is narrated by Hilary Fenton, an American male who observes the British college environment with an outsider’s delight akin to an anthropologist. I suspect that Webb was more at home in England than his protagonist here: while the author was born in Somerset and moved to the United States when he was twenty-five, the fictional Fenton is a Yankee abroad. The book boasts a four-page glossary that defines “some of the local colloquialisms and other quasi-technical terms” to bring the uninitiated up to speed. A gyp, we learn from this addendum (although it is also clear in context), is “a male college servant assigned to take care of a certain set of rooms or the rooms on one particular staircase”. And in this story, there is a lot going on in those rooms and on those staircases.
But it is in an ordinary lecture hall that young Fenton first spots his romantic ideal, Camilla Lathrop. He spends the early chapters learning her identity and stage managing another encounter. Fenton also spots her – or thinks he spots her – on the landing outside Baumann’s room on the stormy night of the murder, and it is from a muddled sense of chivalry that Fenton hides evidence that might point to her at the crime scene. He launches his own amateur investigation, all in the name of clearing Camilla, and a second murder at the college builds to a tea party with the Don where one cup is laced with strychnine.
I found the style and pacing of Murder at the ‘Varsity agreeable, although other readers might describe Hilary Fenton’s conversational, even chatty narration and the wooing of his inamorata as elements that detract in a mystery tale. The story is decently paced, and if the college setting (despite its definitions) is not quite as engagingly built as the ant’s-nest world found in the previous year’s Murder at the Women’s City Club, it is a more cohesive experience than the Q. Patrick debut title, Cottage Sinister.
The glossary also informs me that ‘Varsity is “simply an abbreviation of the word University” that has “no athletic or other sinister significance”. This is useful to know, especially when reading a book with an uncertain word in the very title, such as Obelists or Furlong.
The glossary also informs me that ‘Varsity is “simply an abbreviation of the word University” that has “no athletic or other sinister significance”. This is useful to know, especially when reading a book with an uncertain word in the very title, such as Obelists or Furlong.
Creating greater cognitive dissonance for a reader, perhaps, are the sometimes surprising illustrations of characters that might accompany a Golden Age mystery story. I discovered that the U.S. edition by Farrar & Rinehart features this tableau of its cast, an artist’s rendering that was at odds with the characters as I had imagined them. In quarter profile, the exuberant Hilary Fenton looks like a middle-aged village doctor, while rugged athlete Stuart Somerville reminds me of a young Brian Dennehy. To credit the tableau, I will add that there is an implicit clue to the killer in the caricatures, if only you know where to look.
Murder at Cambridge ('rah 'rah 'Varsity) is available in the UK through Ostara Publishing and available as an eBook in the U.S. through Mysterious Press/Open Road Media.
Murder at Cambridge ('rah 'rah 'Varsity) is available in the UK through Ostara Publishing and available as an eBook in the U.S. through Mysterious Press/Open Road Media.
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