Unusually for Carr, this book begins with a prologue set after the events in the main story. Jeff Marle is speaking to an unnamed detective. It must have been clear to readers who were paying attention that Bencolin is not involved – already the mysterious man seems more human and vulnerable than Bencolin.
What is not unusual for a Jeff Marle narrated novel is the plethora of clues Carr slings your way in the opening section. These function as a tease for the exciting events to come, but also as an intellectual taunt.
As Ronald Knox puts it in his Decalogue,

“The skill of the detective author consists in being able to produce his clues and flourish them defiantly in our faces: ‘There!’ he says, ‘what do you make of that?’ and we make nothing.”

As usual, I did “make nothing” of the clues that were handed to me on a plate. And the flourishing here is particularly bold.

After that we’re straight back to the events teased in the prologue. Jeff has not visited the Quayle family since before his years in Europe, and much has changed. The narrative does a wonderful job of building up the sense that everything is slightly wrong at the Quayles. Retired Judge Quayle and his daughter Mary barely restrain their paranoia and refuse to admit openly that anything is wrong. The descriptions are infused with Jeff’s sense of lost innocence as he judges a house and family that he remembers fondly from his youth. Are the differences because he has changed, or the family? Of course the setting – a fancy house on the outskirts of a Pennsylvania town – is just like the one Carr himself grew up in. He was writing from life here, and the imagery is certainly vivid.

The beginning reaches its climax when the old judge collapses mid-argument – poisoned. He barely survives, but now Jeff is dragged in to the crisis surrounding the family, viewed as a trusted but impartial observer – who happens to have worked with Henri Bencolin. Of course, Jeff is not able to prevent another poisoning, and the real police show up (for some reason Jeff still gets to pal around with them anyway).

The book is thematically well-constructed. The central theme is, of course, poison – literally and figuratively. In the literal sense, there is more than one poison at work in the Quayle household. Figuratively, poison has become entrenched in the family since the time Jeff last saw them; the members argue at the drop of a hat, the mother and father are both estranged from each other and from their children, and the once proud house has fallen into disrepair. Only the man who married into the family really seems to be on everyone’s side. The presence of a strong theme definitely feels like a development in Carr’s writing, though I’m not sure I’ve read another book of his that treats theme as seriously as this does – possibly He Who Whispers also falls into this category.

Despite all the darkness, there is some humour here, which had only been shown in the briefest glimmers in Castle Skull previously. Oddly enough it works quite well – Carr doesn’t overdo it or make it too ridiculous, and he wrings some great mood changes out of sudden transitions between scares and chuckles. The laughs allow us the feeling of safety that usually comes with having a Great Detective around managing things. As the book heads towards the end the humour lessens, increasing the tension and drama as there is no light relief. The humour often comes along with certain characters, particularly the eccentric Patrick Rossiter who appears half-way through the book.

Sadly the introduction of this character does mark the point where the plot begins to get out of hand (not necessarily due to Pat). When you start with high tension, attempted murder, and jumping at shadows, there is not much room to increase the pressure, and things do start to get hysterical. There are also enough plot threads running that things start to become a mess. At the conclusion, what should be important and meaningful twists are swept aside by another one from a different direction, following too soon one after the other. Twists work best, I think, when we have room to take in their full implications. Carr has tried to save plenty of twists for the ending, and as a result their impact is diluted.

The other thing that gets lost at the half-way point are the characters. While he sets them up nicely at the start, he forgets to do anything with them; they have barely anything to them apart from a personality trait and a speaking style. And it’s no wonder, because aside from Jeff Marle and a family of suspects, there is also the county detective and the coroner, as well as an unofficial investigator. There’s just no room for anything outside of a few catchphrases and predictable responses. The best-developed characters are the victims, and when, come the end, we get some shocking revelations about certain characters, they scarcely seemed believable: how can it be that only one or two people have inner lives and everyone else has nothing at all?

Now, the solution was actually good from a plotting standpoint. I had definitely been misdirected nicely away from the truth – though I was honestly pretty overwhelmed by all the subplots. There are some great instances of scenes that take on a different cast when the solution is revealed. But as I said, the solution begins to strain plausibility. I also wondered if the book could do with another edit. Characters were mentioned as being in places when I was sure they were supposed to be somewhere else; the reasons for characters knowing a certain thing weren’t explained. One character simply disappears from the book entirely. Their whereabouts are questioned near the end and they still don’t show up.

The overall impression is of a book with a good plan and a good opening that went awry somewhere along the way. The fact that the whole thing takes place within a single mansion paradoxically makes it harder to keep track of everyone and everything that is crammed in there. Naturally there is plenty of Carr’s skill on show; Pat Rossiter’s confusing and amusing behaviour works well here and soon finds its home in future books with Carr’s stalwart detective Gideon Fell. The atmosphere of the crumbling mansion is excellent, and the thematic throughline helps keep the book together even through the overdone plot twists.
I’d love to see an American Mystery Classics reprint of this one; it may be a neglected oddball entry in the Carr canon, but it still deserves to be read.

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