Clunk's Claimant (1937)
In America as The Twittering Bird Mystery.
1937 Doubleday Doran blurb:
H.C. Bailey, certain to be included among the first four or five ranking mystery story writers of our day, has written in this book another full-length novel centring about that unique character, Joshua Clunk, hypocritical, peppermint-sucking, Bible-quoting lawyer whose shrewdness and ingenuity have convinced the harried Sergeant Bell that he is in league with the devil.
Old Platt, estate agent of William Lade of the Grange, was found murdered by an alkaloid poisoning, near the eel traps. Also, strange things were happening at the Grange, in which Joshua took a personal interest for reasons of his own. He felt that in all justice he should look further into the Lade family history. He learned, among other things, about thorn apples, tricks with decanters, and bushes that had been moved. Armed with a certain tangible piece of evidence he began to take steps. Nothing illegal, of course, but nevertheless definite enough to infuriate Sergeant Bell of Scotland Yard. In fact a bitter controversy which might have been titled “Clunk vs. Scotland Yard” grew up when the second murder occurred, and almost exploded on the occurrence of the third.
Joshua was, however, a magnanimous man at heart and insisted on doing the Yard’s work for it. He pointed out the strange effect a song could have on a man and the even stranger effect a twittering bird could produce. And in the end he forced the Yard to apprehend a murderer who might otherwise have escaped. This is one of the most superb stories H.C. Bailey has ever written.
My review:
An interesting novel, more interesting for Clunk than for detection. The murder of the estate agent, and the crimes that follow, are poorly solved, with too few concrete clues. The book's strength lies in its presentation of the shady Josh Clunk, here more monstrous than ever before. Although he brings about the resolution to the mystery, and is therefore in the position of the detective, the reader suspects from the beginning that he is indirectly responsible for the various murders—yet is taken aback by Clunk's weeping and praying following the second death. One is never sure how to take Clunk, and so, in addition to the whodunit aspect of the story, the reader is given the original and highly attractive challenge of working out what the detective is up to. Although given to singing Methodist hymns, his hypocrisy is such that "the devil wouldn't know how to make hell till Josh went down and showed him," for his activities are so labyrinthine and intricate that Machiavelli and Iago seem like children by comparison. The monstrous way in which he orchestrates the entire complicated and thoroughly mystifying tangle of real-estate shenanigans, false séances, French claimants, long-buried secrets, blackmail, and murder by daturine for his own profit is amazing and brilliant, more than making up for the weak detection.