The Sleeping Sphinx (1947)

1947 Hamish Hamilton blurb (from the second edition, 1948):

When Major Sir Donald Holden returned to the house in Regent's Park where he expected to find all the people he liked best, he knew that things would be changed. He had been away from his friends for seven years and there were reasons why he had been blotted out of their lives. He returned to find Thorley Marsh, his closest friend, in the arms of a nineteen-year-old girl, and to hear that a death had occurred from what the doctor insisted were natural causes. But Donald Holden feared that the death was not a natural one, a fear that was enhanced when the dead refused to rest quietly and tormented the living.

Holden had come back to seek the girl he loved. Instead, he found himself in a situation in which one or the other of the two persons he liked best must be lying cruelly and vindictively, or must be mad. There seemed to be no other possible choice. Confronted by this problem, by the story of a dangerous game in which everyone wore the masks of executed murderers, by evidence that someone had walked through an impenetrable stone wall and left no footprints in the enclosed sand, Holden felt that think and struggle though he might, the mystery would overpower him.

Then Dr. Gideon Fell appeared on this scene of terror and heartbreak. Little by little, with Dr. Fell's keen mind probing the facts and fancies, with Dr. Fell's strength a refuge for the frightened, floundering people, the problem was solved.

John Dickson Carr, writing with his usual superb skill, has produced another mystery which should delight his old fans and win him many new ones.

My review:

"Here is a sleeping sphinx. She is dreaming of the Parabrahm, of the universe and the destiny of man. She is part human, as representing the higher principle, and part beast, as representing the lower. She also symbolises the two selves: the outer self which all the world may see, and the inner self which may be known to few."

Sir Donald Holden, war hero, returns from the war—but he is legally dead. At once, we are plunged into the familiar Carrian world of the topsy-turvy.

In love with Celia Devereux, Holden expects to find her sane and healthy—his only fear is that she might be married. Instead, he finds that tragedy has struck. Her sister, Margot Marsh, has died of a cerebral haemorrhage—but Celia believes that Margot's husband, Thorley Marsh, drove his wife to take her own life through his wife-beating. Marsh, on the other hand, is fully convinced (or pretends to be), and has spread the word around, that Celia is mad. It is into this emotional situation that Holden steps. The matter is further complicated with news of Marsh's affair with a local landowner's daughter—this much to the horror of her likeable young fiancé; and with irrefutable proof of Celia's madness. It is not until these complicated strands have been established, that Dr. Gideon Fell enters the scene. The plot accelerates, taking in a memorable impossible occurrence: the locked vault containing Margot's coffin—sealed by Dr. Fell himself, with the ring of the sleeping sphinx—is disturbed, the coffins "flung" about—yet the door is sealed and no footprints are evident on the sandy floor. A distraught tale of ghosts stepping Ruddigore-like out of their frames; and a dingy fortune-teller's office are also involved, before Fell unmasks the killer. The solution relies on the annals of crime so beloved of Carr and Anthony Berkeley, and on sexual psychology.

The book is the last example of classic Carr—only two more novels (In Spite of Thunder and The Witch of the Low-Tide) would be at this level in terms of the formal detective story. Instead, he would degenerate into third-rate historicals and tired stories making fun of Dr. Fell’s weight. Only two problems with the book: the protracted disclosure of Celia's ghost story, and the awkward phraseology of one of the clues.

Note similarities to The Peacock Feather Murders in the setting at a murder party; and In Spite of Thunder in the solution.

To the Bibliography

To the Carr Page

To the Grandest Game in the World

E-mail