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The Grey Room

Page history last edited by Jon 12 years, 8 months ago

Phillpotts, Eden -- The Grey Room (1921)

 

When I read in Agatha Christie's biography that she was influenced as a young writer by a family friend, Eden Phillpotts, I decided to see if I could find a Phillpotts book online to read. I found The Grey Room at www.blackmask.com and dutifully set to work... Three hours later I gave up, a broken man.

 

The book is 67,000 words, but seems like ever so many more, spun out to enormous length by stilted late-Victorian platitudes about life and death, prayer and providence: "Drink the cup to the dregs," he said. "This is our grief, our trial. None feel and know what we feel and know, and your youth is called to bear a burden heavy to be borne. You must stand beside his grave as surely as I must commit him to it." Er, OK, Pop.

 

The plot could be written on the back of a postcard: Sir Walter Lennox has a mansion with a Grey Room, full of old furniture and with a sinister reputation. People who spend the night in the room die, with no signs of violence or distress; first his aunt, then a nurse, later his son-in-law. A detective comes to investigate, spends an hour in the room during the day, and is found dead; the son-in-law's father, a vicar, spends the night in there praying, and is found dead. A team from Scotland Yard take the room apart, find nothing sinister, and spend the night there in gas masks, with no result. Finally an old Italian man reveals all, and modern forensic science solves the problem.

 

I refuse to write SPOILER here; nothing could spoil this stinker. With a build-up like this the secret has to be something pretty special, you would think. Even John Dickson Carr would be hard-pressed to pull a rabbit out of THIS hat. But Phillpotts doesn't turn a hair. Here is the denoument: the bed in the room gives off a strange deadly miasma when heated by a human body. (What about the Scotland Yard men? "Gosh, Chief, we forgot to check the BED..") And the cause, as revealed by forensic science is - well, here is the full explanation. Deep breath now...

 

"A thin, supple wire was found to run between the harmless flock of the mattress and the satin casing," wrote Sir Walter. "Experiments showed that neither the stuffing nor the outer case contained any harmful substance. But the wire, of which fifty miles wound over the upper and lower surfaces of the mattress under its satin upholstery, proved infinitely sensitive to heat, and gave off, or ejected at tremendous speed, an invisible, highly poisonous matter even at a lower temperature than that of a normal human being. Insects placed upon it perished in the course of a few hours, and it destroyed microscopic life and fish and frogs in water at comparatively low temperatures, that caused the living organisms no inconvenience until portions of the wire were introduced. A cat died in eight minutes; a monkey in ten. No pain or discomfort marked the operation of the wire on unconscious creatures. They sank into death as into sudden sleep, and examination revealed no physical effects whatever. The wire is an alloy, and the constituent metals have not yet been determined; but it is not an amalgam, for mercury is absent. The wire contains thallium and helium as the spectroscope shows; but its awful radioactivity and deadly emanation has yet to be explained. The chemical experts have a startling theory. They suspect there is a new element here—probably destined to occupy one of the last unfilled places of the Periodic Table, which chronicles all the elements known to science. Chemical analysis fails to reach the radio-active properties, and for their examination the electroscope and spinthariscope [the WHAT? - Jon] are needful. With these the radio-chemists are at work. The wire melted at a lower temperature than lead, but melting did not destroy its potency. After cooling, the metal retained its properties and was still responsive, as before, to warmth. But experiment shows that in a molten state, the metal of the wire increases in effect, and any living thing brought within a yard of it under this condition succumbs instantly. Its properties cannot be extracted, so far, from the actual composition of the wire. They prove also that the emanation from the warmed wire is exceedingly subtle, tenuous, and volatile. Save under conditions of super-heat, it only operates at two feet and a few inches, and the wire naturally grows cold very quickly. It is almost as light as aluminium. A gas mask does not arrest the poison; indeed, it evidently enters a body through the nearest point offered to it and a safe shield has not yet been discovered. Be sure that a medieval alchemist, searching in vain for elixir vitae, or the philosopher's stone, chanced upon this infernal synthesis and fusion."

 

Four-hundred year old toxic wire created by an alchemist for the Borgias! Well, of course! Obvious when you come to think of it, really. Can I get some flyscreens made of that stuff? And what about the REAL mystery - what on earth possessed someone to scan this in for BlackMask? Three hundred pages, then this. It isn't just cheating the reader; it's high treason. Phillpotts should have been boiled in oil. Zero out of ten.

 

But there is a consolation - it's only when you read a travesty like this that you realise how great the achievements of Christie and her contemporaries were, how much of a revelation to their readers. Hurrah for the pioneers of the Golden Age!

 

Jon.

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