Margery Allingham (1904–1966)

Summary: When Campion is invited to the second funeral in six months for an old school acquaintance, he finds him drawn into a murder investigation where the murders keep coming.

When Albert Campion finds himself staring at the corpse of a man he thought buried six months ago, he knows something strange is afoot. Only he doesn’t reckon how strange it is and that his involvement has placed him and Lugg in danger. Supposedly this man is Harris, the brother and heir of the man buried six months ago, R. I. “Pig” Peters. But one look is enough to persuade Campion that this is Pig, an old school nemesis. He died from a blow to the head from an urn that fell from a balustrade above the patio where he was sleeping off a hangover on a lounge chair.

Six months ago, he was surprised to be invited to the funeral by means of a strange verse. Another attendee, Whippet had a similar invite. Campion also notices the fiancée of Pig. All these turn up again at the second death (including the notes in which moles feature prominently), occurring at the estate of old friend Leo Pursuivant. After Campion mentions the need for further examination of the body, it goes missing, only to turn up in the river. Then another grisly murder is found, of a man called Hayhoe, stabbed in the neck and hung on a gibbet like a scarecrow. Clearly, a clever and ruthless killer is abroad in the village of Kepesake. An investigator cannot be too careful, as Campion discovers to his regret.

A unique feature is that this is written as a first-person account by Campion, unlike earlier numbers in the series. I thought it a refreshing change of pace. We also gain sympathy for Campion, who struggles to win the affections of Leo’s daughter Janet, and keeps getting on her wrong side. This is a short, briskly-paced story that works up to an edge-of-the-seat conclusion.… (més)

Review: Flowers for the Judge
MARCH 15, 2024 / RTRUBE54 / EDIT

Flowers for the Judge, Margery Allingham. Avarang Books, 2023 (Originally published in 1936).

Summary: Campion is called in when a member of a publishing family disappears, only for him to be found dead in the firm’s vault, with all the evidence pointing toward younger cousin Mike as the murderer.

Twenty years before Tom Barnabas, the nephew of the founder of Barnabas publishing house of London, just vanished one morning, literally seen one moment and gone the next, with no one around. Now, another family member has been missing several days. Paul Brande was expected to meet up with his wife Gina on a Friday night and the family learned of it at a party on Sunday when Gina mentioned it. This was not unusual for Paul, but as a precaution, they ask their family friend for Albert Campion for help.

On Monday, a secretary goes to the vault to get papers for the eldest cousin, John Widdowson, and finds Paul lying dead by the door to the vault. It was discovered that he died of carbon monoxide poisoning. As Campion investigate, he finds a broken ventilator at the rear of the vault, exposed to the garage. A sooty tube is found nearby. A neighbor testifies that she had heard Mike’s car running on Friday evening, when it was established that Paul died.

Attention begins to focus in on Mike, culminating at the coroner’s inquest. We learn that Gina and Paul were in an unhappy marriage and that their appointment on Friday was to discuss a divorce, which Gina could not pursue on her own. Earlier, Paul and Mike had been heard fighting, presumably about Gina, with whom Mike had been very friendly. During the early part of Friday evening, Mike claims that he was out walking, something he usually did not do. Then he returned to warm up his car to go out, interrupted by Gina wanting to go out because Paul had not come home. Also, on Sunday, Mike had gone down to the vault but said nothing about finding Paul’s body, even though it was found by the door of the vault. At the conclusion of the inquest Mike is arrested for the murder.

Campion is not convinced although it appears others have good alibis. His attention focuses on an unpublished manuscript of a play by William Congreve, that forms a substantial part of the firm’s assets. Campion discovers that it is a facsimile. But what of the original? Could its absence be connected to the murder?

And what of the the first man to disappear twenty years ago? He’s not an irrelevant plot detail (though not the murderer).

I think this is one of the best Campions I’ve read so far, including an interesting couple of plot twists at the end, including a dramatic conclusion to Mike’s trial. It is interesting that in least in this story, Campion seems less a quirky presence and more of a detective than in previous stories. A good read!… (més)