Freeman, R Austin - The Cat's Eye (1923)

Thorndyke at His Best and Worst by Wyatt James

The Mystery of 31, New Inn (1905?) and The Cat's Eye (1923) are two mystery novels by R. Austin Freeman with Dr. Thorndyke as the detective.

Freeman is noted for pioneering 'scientific' detection, that is, forensic examination of the clues, and is really superb in doing that, although many readers complain that Thorndyke's encylopedic knowledge in all areas ranging from biology to archeology does not 'play fair' because the information is not known generally and hence does not lend itself to deduction on the reader's part. This is not quite fair as a criticism, since Freeman at least lets you know that something is afoot when Dr. T. starts sniffing around on some obscure trail, so you can rightly suspect that the solution depends on identification of some local form of pond life or whatever -- you don't really have to know what. His formula for presenting a mystery is consistent, and as with Sherlock Holmes adds interest for the aficionado of the author -- you know what to expect: a first - person narrative by a young lawyer or doctor (a sort of smart Watson) who has some association with Thorndyke, a damsel in distress (often) with whom the narrator falls in love, a bizarre opening to the case involving some mysterious events such as a murder, a theft, or something inexplicable involving an eccentric character. Thorndyke then listens to the narration and picks on some obscure clue, usually enlisting the aid of his manservant/lab - assistant Polton ('crinkly like a walnut') who devises strange and ingenious apparatuses for analyzing data. Expect something esoteric in the solution, involving deductions that Thorndyke is always cagily unrevealing about, usually with the excuse that 'suspicion is not proven fact and should not be spoken about until the facts are interpreted properly.'

(The House of Stratus, who published the edition I just read, has an annoying habit of omitting copyright dates, possibly because the book is already in the public domain. By internal evidence, this book came out soon after The Red Thumb Mark, a very early Thorndyke, and is pre - WWI. According to E.F. Bleiler, 31 New Inn was serialized first, then later revised to add references to the latter.)

Of the Dr. Thorndyke mysteries, these do no measure up to the classics, such as The Eye of Osiris, The Stoneware Monkey, Mr Pottermack's Oversight, or The Penrose Mystery, but they are interesting in their own right. To start with the worst (Cat's Eye), it must be pointed out that there is very little 'fair' detection in it, and the villains are rather obvious once motivations are established, or revealed actually, as this is more of a thriller than a detective story. Worse, it has a bad practice that Freeman often indulged in, a rather mawkish love story with barely a hint of any sexual nature, full of prim and proper dialogue and the typical misunderstandings one finds in a romance novel. S.S. Van Dine could very well have been thinking of Freeman when he wrote as one of his Rules of Detection that there should be no Romantic Interest beyond the necessity of the plot. But apart from the weak plot, the major fault of the book is that it shows Thorndyke in his most close - mouthed mode, not revealing anything beyond hinting to the frustration of the narrator (and the reader) that 'you have seen all the evidence, work it out for yourself.' For example, he immediately figures out that a charm made from an animal bone is from the neck vertebra of an echidna, or 'porcupine anteater' (that means ultimately that the prime suspect must have an Australian connection). A redeeming feature, however, is a methodology for faking fingerprint evidence, and also an effective and atmospheric setting on Hampstead Heath. There is also a nice legend, backed up by ancient documents, in The Hound of the Baskervilles manner, regarding an amulet and the Jacobite Rebellion. ('I have no exclusive information. You are in possession of all the facts that are known to me.' 'That is not strictly true, you know, Thorndyke, ' I objected. 'We share the mere observed facts of this case, I admit; but you have a body of general knowledge which I have not, and which gives many of these observed facts a significance that is hidden from me. However, we will let that pass. You are the investigating wizard, I am only a sort of familiar demon.')

There are also some classic asides in Freeman's usual manner, having little to do with the story but very diverting for the reader: “The modern London suburb seems to have an inherent incapacity for attaining a decent old age. City streets and those of country towns contrive to gather from the passing years some quality of mellowness that does but add to their charm. But with the suburbs it is otherwise. Whatever charm they have appertains to their garish youth and shares its ephemeral character. Cities and towns grow venerable with age, the suburb merely grows shabby.” The prose, as usual, is dry as dust and very precise, almost pedantic, but the observation is excellent. When Freeman does this, his commentary can either be applicable to any time, or in many cases even more interesting in that it is dated to the period in which he wrote.

At his worst, however, he can indulge in irredeemable cuteness as in the following: “In the minds of many of us, including myself, there appears to be a natural association between the ideas of tea and tobacco. Whether it is that both substances are exotic products, adopted from alien races, or that each is connected with a confirmed and accepted drug habit, I am not quite clear. But there seems to be no doubt that the association exists and that the realization of the one idea begets an imperative impulse to realise the other. In conformity with which natural law, when the tea - things had been, by the joint efforts of Miss Blake and her brother, removed to the curtained repository - where also dwelt a gas ring and a kettle - I proceeded complacently to bring forth my pipe and the bulging tobacco - pouch and to transfer some of the contents of the latter to the former.” Oh, la - di - da, please spare us!

But it is as a short - story writer rather than as a novelist, that Freeman really shines. (The novels tend to be padded with extranea.) In particular, he devised what is called the 'inverted detective story', where you are shown the crime in Part I, then Thorndyke's solution in Part II - an interesting, if limited, approach to mystery writing. Freeman actually only wrote a few stories in this vein, mostly collected in The Singing Bone. He started out as an Edwardian detective story writer, but reached his peak in what is considered the Golden Age of Detection, in his middle age (but even then, in the 1920s - 1930s, was considered rather old - fashioned, in spite of the praise of Raymond Chandler, who disliked English 'cosies', detective stories that did not take place on Mean Streets). A detective story fan will either love or hate most of his works - it's all a matter of taste.

Wyatt James

A later book with some relationship to The Red Thumb Mark is The Cat's Eye (1923). This book also seems pretty uninspired to me. It combines an easily guessed mystery plot, ideas from The Red Thumb Mark, some damsel-in-distress thriller elements and a labored hidden treasure story.

Mike Grost

Dr Jervis being away advising on a case in New York, Robert Anstey, KC, narrates the mystery of The Cat’s Eye as the complicated affair unfolds.

Anstey is crossing Hampstead Heath one night when, just after a man runs past him, he hears a woman crying for help in the other direction. He finds her in time to see her knocked down and her attacker get away.

The mysterious woman has been stabbed and Anstey carries her to a nearby house to seek aid. Just as he arrives, he hears the terrified housekeeper Mrs Benham calling the police, for her master Andrew Drayton has been murdered in his small private museum of inscribed objects -- lace bobbins, ornaments, jewelry, and the like.

The dead man is the brother of Sir Lawrence Drayton, a neighbour of Anstey’s in the Temple as well as an acquaintance of John Thorndyke, who is brought in to investigate while the police pursue their own enquiries. Anstey has acted as Thorndyke’s leading counsel for years and, in order to provide him with useful evidence, takes -- illegally, one would think -- two pieces of fingerprinted broken glass away from the crime scene.

The injured woman, Winifred Blake, is an artist who lives with her younger brother and would-be architect Percy in (you have guessed it) Jacob Street. Miss Blake is interested in inscribed jewels and had visited Drayton that evening to look at his collection, having read a magazine article about it. She had hardly entered the house when he was shot in another room, and in foolishly trying to follow a man escaping from the scene was herself assaulted. Evidence shows two criminals were involved and that certain items of jewelry have been stolen.

The plot then thickens into a rich stew whose ingredients include Biblical verses with no apparent relation to each other, a good luck charm made from a porcupine ant-eater bone, a strand of blue hair, spectacles which allow the wearer to see what is happening behind him, and a mystery within a mystery.

My verdict: A particularly rich plot featuring a dash of romance, with clues realised to be in plain sight once the reader knows the solution. The novel includes some interesting asides, such as an explanation of how Scotland Yard’s Habitual Criminals Registry compares hundreds of fingerprint records kept on cards when seeking matches to a particular set of dabs. The preface mentions a particular incident, identical to one that happened in real life, was already in a chapter written some time before the actual event occurred.

Etext

Mary R

B

One of Freeman’s most romantic tales, involving a pendant the possession of which is supposed to prove ownership of the family estates, and which has been lost since the Jacobite rebellion, and the discovery of which, by means of an enigmatic series of Bible verses inscribed in a locket, leads to the triumphant restoration of the heir.  This strand of romanticism is completely alien to Crofts and Wade, but is present in Street and Sayers, and probably comes from Doyle (“The Musgrave Ritual”).

For the rest, this is good standard Thorndyke, with excellent detection at the crime scene, including a reconstruction of the crime from fingerprints and footprints; some fascinating tests for arsenic (Reinsch’s and Marsh’s)—Freeman seems to think that poisoned chocolates are a novel device (Prologue); and the identification of a suspect as an Australian by an echidna bone mascot (echidnas are ‘peculiar to Tasmania and Australia’).

As is often the case with Freeman, this isn’t structured as a straightforward detective story with a closed circle of suspects.  Instead, the book opens with the murder, committed by two men; the criminals attempt to conceal crimes, and, in so doing, give themselves away (didn’t Sayers complain about this?), by trying to kill the heroine (twice) and Thorndyke and Anstey in a lethal chamber, in which they themselves are caught, like Grimesby Roylott.

The solution is much less elaborate than Freeman at his best.  The main criminal is a villainous Australian—this is one of those Realist stories where the villain is obvious from the middle, and is the only real suspect.  There aren’t any real surprises—***it’s obvious that one of the criminals is really a woman in disguise.***  Note one of Freeman’s favourite devices: the murderer kills his first victim, steals his identity, and passes off the body as his own.

·        The ancestor of early John Rhodes like The Ellerby Case.

·        One of Freeman’s charming Edwardian romances—Ch. 17.

·        Historical treasure hunt, and some good C18th pastiche.  Cryptic message to treasure found in Sayers (“Uncle Meleager’s Will”, The Nine Tailors), Bailey (“The German Song”, “The Violet Farm”, The Bishop’s Crime), Street (The Bloody Tower), Connington (The Dangerfield Talisman), Carr (Hag’s Nook), Christie (“The Missing Will”, “The Clergyman’s Daughter”, “Strange Jest”) and Penny (Policeman’s Evidence).  Obvious ancestor: Doyle’s “Musgrave Ritual”.

·        Forged fingerprints: The Red Thumbmark.

·        Legitimacy of heir: Dr. Thorndyke Intervenes.

·        Heroine is an artist; victim is a jewel collector.  C.f. sculptors / wax modellers in D’Arblay Mystery and Stoneware Monkey.

·        Miss Blake lives in Jacob Street—setting of Stoneware Monkey and (of course) Jacob Street Mystery.

·        P. 99: Miss Blake used to board with Polton’s sister, and Anstey knows victim’s brother.  Although London is huge, everybody is somehow connected—goes back to Dickens?

Nick Fuller.