Агата Кристи – Ask a Policeman (страница 2)

Anthony Berkeley was one of crime fiction’s leading innovators. His real name was Anthony Berkeley Cox (1893-1971), and he wrote a good many humorous articles for magazines before introducing Roger Sheringham in The Layton Court Mystery, which was at first published anonymously. Writing as Francis Iles, he produced ground-breaking—and deeply cynical—novels about crime, notably Malice Aforethought and Before the Fact; the latter was filmed by Hitchcock as Suspicion. The Sheringham mysteries often feature puzzles with ingenious multiple solutions; the most dazzling example, The Poisoned Chocolates Case, is name-checked by Sayers in this book. Berkeley liked to explore dilemmas about justice, and was intrigued by the idea of the fallible sleuth. So in his work, murderers sometimes escape unpunished, Sheringham does not always come up with the right solution to the mystery, and tricky plot devices are allied to a sharp, ironic wit. To take on the job of writing about Sayers’ hero Lord Peter required some courage, as she was a formidable woman, held in awe by many of her Detection Club colleagues. But Berkeley rose to the challenge, and he captured Wimsey brilliantly, in a chapter that offers one of the finest of all Golden Age parodies as well as a clever solution to the problem Rhode had posed. Gladys Mitchell—who liked Berkeley rather more than Sayers—recalled in her old age that “Anthony’s manipulation of Lord Peter Wimsey caused the massive lady anything but pleasure”, but although in later years, these two strong, and often intimidating personalities came increasingly into conflict, it is hard to believe that Sayers failed to appreciate the flair displayed in Berkeley’s contribution to Ask a Policeman.

At the time this book was written, Sayers was taking the detective story in a new direction. Wimsey had started out as little more than a caricature, albeit a caricature portrayed with affectionate humour. In Whose Body?, published in 1923, we are told that his “long amiable face looked as if it had generated spontaneously from his top hat, as white maggots breed from Gorgonzola”. But once he met and fell in love with Harriet Vane, a detective novelist convicted of murder (was Sir John Samaurez’ first case the inspiration for this idea?), he grew as a character. Sayers’ depiction of his relationship with Harriet set the pattern for succeeding generations of crime writers, who preferred to create serious and believable protagonists with lives that change as the years pass, rather than ‘supermen’ detectives in the mould of Sherlock Holmes. Sayers (1893-1957) was self-consciously intellectual, and in her only non-series novel, The Documents in the Case, co-written with Robert Eustace, musings on the nature of life were integral to the plot. Sayers was dissatisfied with the end product, but her very attempt at such an ambitious undertaking showed that the genre had much more to offer than glorified crossword puzzles. In her chapter for Ask a Policeman, Sayers renders Sheringham effectively, with a neat joke when he overhears two employees of the late Lord Comstock being rude about him, and if the solution she puts forward is not quite as compelling as Berkeley’s, perhaps that underlines her increasing focus on characterisation as opposed to mere puzzle-making.

After the start of the Second World War, however, she turned her attention away from crime writing, focusing on the translation of Dante, and writing about religious subjects. Similarly, Berkeley and Kennedy began to concentrate on reviewing rather than producing novels. But all three of them remained associated with the Detection Club, with Sayers holding the office of President from 1948 until her death.

Agatha Christie, who had participated in the first three Detection Club collaborations, sat this one out. However, it is a real pleasure to be able to include here a delightful essay she wrote about her fellow practitioners—the first time it has appeared in volume form. She wrote it in 1945, at the request of the Ministry of Information, for publication in a Russian magazine. Presumably because she was confident that none of her peers in the Detection Club would come across her comments, she was quite candid.

So it is interesting to see that Christie disapproved of Wimsey’s transformation into a “handsome hero”, and damned Rhode’s prose style with faint praise as “straightforward”, as well as to note her admiration for Anthony Berkeley’s ability to provide first class entertainment. But she also made it clear that the writers she mentioned were those at the top of their profession. Today, though, not only are the books of H.C. Bailey, Rhode, Kennedy and many of their contemporaries forgotten by everyone except a small band of enthusiasts, surprisingly little is known about most of the Detection Club members themselves. I was honoured to be appointed as the first archivist of the Club—although the fact that the official archives are more or less non-existent is somehow typical of this unusual and mysterious institution. Its members—not just the usual suspects in Christie and Sayers, but also A.A. Milne and Baroness Orczy, who in addition to their detective stories were the creators respectively of Winnie-the-Pooh and the Scarlet Pimpernel—played a much more significant part in developing popular culture in the twentieth century than has so far been recognized. Frustratingly, no minutes of meetings appear to have survived, and some of the reminiscences of early members are classics of unreliable narration. So the challenge of discovering more about the early days of the Club, and the lives of its members, is almost as fascinating as many of those Golden Age puzzles

Ask a Policeman is, when all is said and done, a period piece. Kennedy’s solution does not really “play fair” with the reader, but the book is laden with charm as well as humour, and its reappearance is as welcome as it is overdue. Howard Haycraft, a noted American historian of the genre, hailed this book as “a matchless tour de force”, and its success prompted plenty of other writers to parody the classic detective story. But few of them achieved such enjoyable results as the six members of the Detection Club who combined to create this lively entertainment.

PREFACE

DETECTIVE WRITERS IN ENGLAND

BY AGATHA CHRISTIE

WHAT kind of people read detective stories and why? Invariably, I think, the busy people, the workers of the world. Highly placed men in the scientific world, even if they read nothing else, seem to have time for a detective story; perhaps because a detective story is complete relaxation, an escape from the realism of everyday life. It has, too, the tonic value of a puzzle—a challenge to the ingenuity. It sharpens your wits—makes you mentally alert. To follow a detective story closely you need concentration. To spot the criminal needs acumen and good reasoning powers. It has also a sporting interest and is much less expensive than betting on horses or gambling at cards! Its ethical background is usually sound. Very very rarely is the criminal the hero of the book! Society unites to hunt him down, and the reader can have all the fun of the chase without moving from a comfortable armchair.

Before speaking of present day English writers, I must first pay tribute to Conan Doyle, the pioneer of detective writing, with his two great creations Sherlock Holmes and Watson—Watson perhaps the greater creation of the two. Holmes after all has his properties, his violin, his dressing gown, his cocaine etc., whereas Watson has just himself—lovable, obtuse, faithful, maddening, guaranteed to be always wrong, and perpetually in a state of admiration! How badly we all need a Watson in our lives!

Most detective writing since then has been modelled roughly on the same structure. The detective is the “central character”. But there has come to be something too artificial about a “private investigator”. The essence of a detective story is that it shall be “natural” in its setting and characters. My own Hercule Poirot is often somewhat of an embarrassment to me—not in himself, but in the calling of his life. Would anyone go and “consult” him? One feels not. So, more and more, his entry into a murder drama has to be fortuitous. My Miss Marple is more happily placed—an elderly gossipy lady in a small village, who pokes her nose into all that does or does not concern her, and draws deductions based on years of experience of human nature.

At the present day, I should call Margery Allingham one of the foremost writers of detective fiction. Not only does she write excellent English, but her drawing of character is masterly and she has wonderful power in creating atmosphere. You can feel the sinister influences behind the scenes, and her characters live on in your memory long after you have put the book away: the grim autocrat Mrs. Faraday of Police at the Funeral; the kindly and lovable “belle” in Death of a Ghost; Jimmy Sutane, the sad faced dancer with the twinkling feet. They are unusual but real personalities, vividly interesting. And through the books moves “Mr. Campion”, apparently vacuous, actually keenly acute, and with him the faithful Lugg (in whom, alas, I never can quite believe!) The pleasant negative inconsequence of Campion makes a dramatic contrast with the undercurrent of suspicion and fear that grows to a climax—particularly is this so in Flowers for the Judge. Sometimes, one feels, Margery Allingham is inclined to subordinate plot to characters. She is so interested in them that the denouement of the crime sometimes comes rather flatly as inevitable, rather than as a surprising bombshell.