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The Deductions of Colonel Gore
Lynn Brock
Rob Reef
This brand new edition of the first novel to feature the officer and gentleman detective Colonel Wickham Gore includes the first ever reprint of the only Colonel Gore novella, Too Much Imagination.Colonel Gore is reunited with old friends at a dinner party to mark his return from service in Africa, but is shocked to discover that one of them has fallen victim to a callous blackmailer. When the antagonist is found dead, Gore finds that civilian life can be as challenging as anything in the army, especially when one of your friends may have become a killer . . . but which one?Once famous in the West End and on Broadway for plays written as ‘Anthony Wharton’, Dublin-born Alexander McAllister had become a publican in Surrey when, as ‘Lynn Brock’, his writing career took off again with the creation of country detective Colonel Wickham Gore. Described by Rose Mcaulay as ‘a very clever writer: a gift for drawing life-like people and a lively sense of dramatic incident’, Brock became a pillar of the Golden Age with his Colonel Gore whodunits and pioneering psychological novels including the lurid Nightmare.This Detective Club classic is introduced by Rob Reef, author of the John Stableford mysteries, and for the first time reprints the only Colonel Gore novella, Too Much Imagination, a country house murder story from a rare 1926 American pulp magazine.
‘THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB is a clearing house for the best detective and mystery stories chosen for you by a select committee of experts. Only the most ingenious crime stories will be published under the THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB imprint. A special distinguishing stamp appears on the wrapper and title page of every THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB book—the Man with the Gun. Always look for the Man with the Gun when buying a Crime book.’
Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1929
Now the Man with the Gun is back in this series of COLLINS CRIME CLUB reprints, and with him the chance to experience the classic books that influenced the Golden Age of crime fiction.
Copyright (#u27eb795b-f308-58e6-9316-a4e44c7b6774)
COLLINS CRIME CLUB
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by
W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1924
Published by The Detective Story Club Ltd 1930
‘Too Much Imagination’ published in Flynn’s magazine 1926
Introduction © Rob Reef 2018
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1930, 2018
Lynn Brock asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008283001
Ebook Edition © November 2018 ISBN: 9780008283018
Version: 2018-08-24
Contents
Cover (#ub3ee8cc7-2248-5518-b74e-5dffc2e9e986)
Title Page (#u700ee0ca-6c5d-5fa8-9a07-5684533ea6a1)
Copyright
Introduction
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Too Much Imagination
Chapter I. Into the Net
Chapter II. Too Much to Swallow
Chapter III. The Note in her Hand
Chapter IV. Gore is Frank
Chapter V. Bloodstained Linen
Chapter VI. Arling Makes a Confession
Chapter VII. Tastes of a Secretary
Chapter VIII. Spain Waxes Vehement
Chapter IX. What Really Happened
Also by Lynn Brock
The Detective Story Club
About the Publisher
INTRODUCTION (#u27eb795b-f308-58e6-9316-a4e44c7b6774)
ALEXANDER PATRICK MCALLISTER’S literary career had had a very promising start. Born in Dublin in 1877 and educated at Clongowes Wood College, he later obtained an Honours Degree at the Royal University and was appointed chief clerk shortly after the inception of the National University of Ireland. His stage plays Irene Wycherly (1906) and At the Barn (1912), both written under the pseudonym Anthony P. Wharton, became great successes both in London and on Broadway.
Following these two hits, McAllister continued to write, but none of his subsequent plays could revive his early fame. He and his wife Cicely moved from London to Guildford, where they were to run a pub called The Jolly Farmer, and at the age of 46 he wrote his first detective novel, The Deductions of Colonel Gore (1924), under the pseudonym Lynn Brock. By this time, his early fame as a playwright had faded and he appears to have turned his hand to crime fiction simply to improve his finances at a time when detective books had begun to outsell all others. Nevertheless, the book was sold to William Collins in the UK and Harper & Brothers in the US, and became so successful that ‘Lynn Brock’ lived on to publish thirteen detective novels, seven of which featured his titular hero-detective Colonel Wickham Gore.
Brock’s complex plots and witty style won the praise of many critics including Dorothy L. Sayers and S. S. Van Dine, and his mysteries were often reprinted and widely translated. Despite their fame, however, the novels slid into obscurity shortly after the end of the Second World War—unjustly, some might suggest. Several recent reviews have criticised his novels as cliché-studded, dull affairs overloaded with Golden Age formulas and stereotypes. These reviews have missed the point: Brock actually played his part in the creation of those classic detective fiction patterns now so familiar and dear to us. He wasn’t a mere imitator of the genre, but rather experimented with existing formulas long before they became formulaic.
Comparison with some of his fellow-writers shows that Brock was an ‘early bird’ in the genre. Colonel Gore took the stage three years before Sherlock Holmes’ last appearance in ‘The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place’; he preceded the debut of S. S. Van Dine’s Philo Vance in The Benson Murder Case by two years, and Anthony Berkeley’s Roger Sheringham in The Layton Court Mystery, John Rhode’s Dr Priestley in The Paddington Mystery and Anthony Wynne’s Dr Hailey in The Mystery of the Evil Eye by one year. All these authors (and many more not mentioned here) established serial detectives in the fashion of the times, and Brock’s Colonel Gore appears to fit into this category remarkably well.
But was he really originally meant to be just another amateur detective with a military background like Philip MacDonald’s Anthony Gethryn, who made his debut in The Rasp the same year as Colonel Gore? It is reasonable to doubt that. Gore lacks too many of the typical characteristics of the traditional hero-detective. He is not a well-to-do super sleuth like Lord Peter Wimsey or Hercule Poirot. He has no profession that could help him solve crimes like the many doctors and scholars in the trade. He has no sidekick and no ally at Scotland Yard and, to cap it all, absolutely no talent for detecting! Gore makes mistakes. Many mistakes. In fact, he finds so many wrong solutions in The Deductions of Colonel Gore that the real solution ends up being the only one that is left.
T. S. Eliot called Gore ‘too stupid’. But he may have missed the parody in the title and the satirical undertones of Gore’s first adventure in his critique. The Deductions of Colonel Gore reminds one of Ronald A. Knox’s The Viaduct Murder (1925), where the four protagonists tumble from one wrong conclusion to the next trying to solve a murder on a golf course. Both books share the same tongue-in-cheek attitude towards the science of deduction and a tendency to spoof the methods of the great Sherlock Holmes. In fact, this similarity of approach suggests that Brock, like Knox, had intended to write a non-series book. Knox introduced a new detective in his next novel, The Three Taps (1927), whereas Brock—perhaps surprised by the success of his debut—elected for the security of continuing to develop his eponymous character. Colonel Gore’s Second Case (1925) shows Brock working to transform Gore into a sustainable serial protagonist, culminating in Gore finding a sidekick and, later in the series, establishing a detective agency in London. But all that is in the future.
Colonel Gore steps into his first adventure having just returned from Africa and looking forward to meeting many of his old friends. The story begins with a perfectly conventional dinner party. However, before the evening is over, ‘blackmail’ and ‘murder’ complete the guest list. These are not the only gruesome elements in the story. T. S. Eliot once mentioned the ‘extremely nasty people’ in Brock’s novels, and it is true that the author evokes a rather dark and pessimistic view of human nature. Nevertheless, The Deductions of Colonel Gore is a rip-roaring and, from today’s point of view, wonderfully old-fashioned mystery. It includes an archaic African murder weapon and a constantly confused detective who changes his mind about the possible culprit with each new clue he uncovers.
It is important to note that Brock’s stories contain some antiquated stereotypes of Jews and Africans. Such stereotypes would be intolerable in fiction written today, but were unfortunately not uncommon in the 1920s when these stories were published, and like similar writings of their era must be considered within their historical context.
The Deductions of Colonel Gore was reissued as Book 31 in Collins’ popular Detective Story Club in July 1930, and was joined by reprints of his second and third cases the following year. This new edition now includes for the first time the only published Colonel Gore short story, ‘Too Much Imagination’, which first appeared in Flynn’s weekly magazine on 30 January 1926. It follows Gore’s (by now more serious) deductions in a country house murder case. Connoisseurs of his adventures will be interested to note that the story appears to be a sketchy draft of Colonel Gore’s Third Case (1927, published in the USA as The Kink)—as well as the playful appearance of the author’s own home, The Jolly Farmer. It was in Guildford that McAllister wrote his first ‘Lynn Brock’ mystery and it is thus not surprising that most of his Colonel Gore adventures are set in or near Surrey.
In 1932, the innovative psychological novel Nightmare began a run of standalone books from Brock, although it was not quite the end for Gore: the Colonel returned after a break of ten years in his swan song, The Stoat: Colonel Gore’s Queerest Case (1940). Three years later, on 6 April 1943, Alexander Patrick McAllister died at the age of 66 at Herrison House, a hospital near the Dorset village of Charminster, ending a literary career very different from the one he had started, but no less successful for all that.
ROB REEF
February 2018
CHAPTER I (#u27eb795b-f308-58e6-9316-a4e44c7b6774)
FOR just a moment following the sound of the door’s closing behind her husband’s entry Mrs Melhuish’s profile remained downbent in abstracted calculation to the bridge-block in her lap. A small forgetfulness, natural enough, perhaps, in a hostess’s last half-hour of anxiety before a duty dinner of importance. Yet, even twelve months ago, Sidney Melhuish remembered with passionate resentment, that absorbed, adorable little face would have flashed round, even in such an anxiety, in eager welcome to his coming. As they noted and weighed the momentary delay, his rather cold eyes hardened. Then, swiftly, they averted themselves. When Mrs Melhuish raised to him an expression of good-humoured perplexity, he was mildly absorbed in his finger-nails.
‘What a nuisance, Sidney. Mr Barrington has just rung up to say that Mrs Barrington can’t possibly come. Frightful earache, poor thing. I’ve been trying to work out my table. Do come and help me.’
Her air of charming, unruffled dismay was candour itself—beyond suspicion. And yet Melhuish was aware that for an instant as she spoke her smiling eyes had repeated once more the question they had asked of his so often of late. But of the hideous, the incredible suspicion that lurked behind it his clean-cut, gravely-smiling face betrayed no slightest hint as he moved behind her chair to inspect the much-altered plan of the dining-table which was drawn on the bridge-block.
For a moment or two they considered it in silence.
‘If I had had even another quarter of an hour’s notice—I know Beatrice Colethorpe would have stopped the gap for me. But even the amiable Beatrice would kick at a dinner-invitation of twenty minutes.’
She turned—Melhuish observed how instantly—as the door of the drawing-room reopened and Clegg announced the first of the evening’s guests.
‘Colonel Gore.’
No moment of feigned abstraction now—no summoning of her forces—no steadying of her nerves to meet his glance. Instead, a quick smile and gesture of vivid, frankest pleasure, in which his poisoned thought detected relief and eager escape from the danger of being alone with him.
Gore’s lean brown face reflected the cordiality of his hostess’s greeting, as she rose and went to meet him with outstretched hand.
‘“Early”, you commanded me. Therefore I have obeyed. Not too literally, I hope.’
Mrs Melhuish laughed as her hand slid into a clasp of fraternal heartiness.
‘Well, as you have kept us waiting for three years, I think we may acquit you of undue precipitation.’ She turned to her husband. ‘This, Sidney, is the one and only Wick.’
Gore’s twinkling gray eyes ran over his host in swift appraisement as they shook hands. In the four days for which he had been installed at the Riverside Hotel he had contrived to learn a good deal about Barbara Melhuish’s husband, and that swift, straight, shrewd glance of his assured him at once that his informants had not been mistaken. A bit frigid, Dr Sidney Melhuish—a bit solemn, perhaps—but one of the right sort. Steady, clean eyes—steady, clean mouth—plenty of jaw and chin. A man that knew his job and knew he knew it. He grinned his charming grin and took the hand of Pickles’s husband in a grip of steel. Thank the Lord, she hadn’t made a mess of it, as so many of the Old Lot had somehow contrived to do.
‘I know you very well by repute, Colonel Gore,’ Melhuish smiled cordially—few men could resist Wick Gore’s grin. ‘Indeed, it is only with the utmost difficulty, I assure you, that I refrain from addressing you as “Wick” straightaway.’
‘Why refrain?’ twinkled Gore. ‘Especially as I may confide to you that I have been in the habit of addressing your wife as “Pickles” since she was able to throw dolls and bottles and things at me out of a perambulator.’
