Walling, RAJ - The Cat and the Corpse aka The Corpse in the Green Pyjamas

Walling's The Corpse in the Green Pyjamas (1935) repeats almost all of these Bentley influences catalogued in The Dinner Party at Bardolph's, although there is no Bentley-like interest in alibis here. But somehow, it is a much livelier book. For one thing, instead of a conventional English country house, it takes place in a castle. This building, and the unusual Island House occupied by another family, show the Golden Age interest in architecture to advantage. Much of Walling's plot turns on hearing. He is interested in directions of sounds, and the ability of people to hear things through the walls of the castle. Such perceptions are integrated with his description of the castle architecture, and are often used to give it tactile reality. Listening is a basic mode for his detective. He is always trying to learn things through hearing.

For another, the plot takes several surprising turns. This is especially true of the first five chapters. After this, the police show up, and the plot is simply hashed over endlessly, till the solution is revealed in the finale (Chapter 12). This solution is logical, and surprisingly simple. In fact, what the reader thinks is the result of vast conspiracies, often turns out to be a simple thing. John Dickson Carr did a similar effect in "Cabin B-13", of reducing the complex to a simple explanation.

Most of Walling's characters are quite sympathetic. Except for the murder victim himself, a young rotter, they tend to be pleasant people. Aside from the aristocratic family that owns the castle, most work for a living, and could be described as middle class. Even the banker and the famous singer are self made men. Tolefree himself is a working private detective, something of a rarity in the British mystery novel of the era. He is an unpretentious, low key character, polite in the Trent tradition. He is depicted as a business person, and one shown interacting with the other middle class business people of the novel on a basis of equality. His relationships with the others start right at the beginning of the novel, and are a part of the warp and woof of the plot from its outset. His "drab" office, with its clerk and regular business hours, also underlines his detective's middle class status. His Watson, a salesman named Farrar, is also brought into the plot when one of the characters hires him for a business transaction. The little biography of Walling in the book similarly emphasizes his professional activity. It describes his career as a journalist in Plymouth, England, and describes his mystery writing as a direct outgrowth of his second career as the Magistrate of Plymouth.

The characters in Walling's book often communicate through letters. This makes each letter writer a temporary "narrator", and gives Walling's book the flavor of such 19th Century writers as Wilkie Collins. These letters are often concerned with business themselves, extending the network of business relationships in the book. The characters of the book show refreshing good sense. Few of them show the arrogance or obsessiveness that grip many Golden Age characters of other writers. As members of the middle class, they are used to working within limitations, and responding resiliently to adversity and obstacles. Mrs. Stratton, in particular, responds far more intelligently and flexibly that one might expect. Her behavior in such a sensible manner causes the author to respect her; had she gotten on a society lady high horse he would have viewed her with contempt. At the other end of the social spectrum, the servants also show a business like seriousness about their work, and get treated with respect for it by Walling. For example, they make appointments with the castle guests to do valet work, just the way the middle class characters in the novel make appointments to transact business. Walling treats them as far more intelligent and perceptive than most British authors of the 1930's do.

Color imagery only shows up in Walling when he is describing men's clothes. These usually suggest the role these men play in society: blue sophisticated clothes for the popular singer, green flashy duds for the cheap society crook, brown for the observant young footman. Walling always tends to see people through their job.

There are few nature descriptions in the book, and little interest in the sea or the natural areas in the British countryside, unlike other 1930's authors as H.C. Bailey or John Rhode.

Charles N. Williamson and Alice Williamson's "The Adventure of the Jacobean House", from The Scarlet Runner (1905), also anticipates R.A.J. Walling's The Corpse in the Green Pyjamas. Both stories involve a detective who checks into an old, architecturally complex building, and who does much sleuthing in the middle of the night while checking out strange passages in the building.

Walling was already near 60 when he began writing detective fiction. Unlike the largely young authors of the Golden Age, he is more oriented to his older characters. They come across as "normal", his viewpoint characters, the ones most richly drawn. The young people tend to be seen as either supportive or as problems to the older characters. This is clearly an older person's point of view on society. At the least, it offers a refreshing change from all the Bright Young Things in other Golden Age novels.

Mike Grost