The year 1932 was a banner year for cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee, better known for their pen name, Ellery Queen. After writing a couple of novels and short stories, the cousins made the decision to really buckle down and turn mystery writing into a career. That year saw the publication of The Greek Coffin Mystery and The Egyptian Cross Mystery under the Queen name, and the subject of today’s review, The Tragedy of X, published under the pen name of Barnaby Ross. (The sequel was published the same year.)
The Tragedy of X opens with Inspector Thumm and District Attorney Bruno making their way to a house that could serve as the setting for the next Yukito Ayatsuji: “The Hamlet,” a castle populated by old servants with Shakespearean names and the hunchback Quacey, “the world’s premier make-up man.” And the lord of the castle is Drury Lane, a renowned actor who solved “the Cramer case.” Thumm and Bruno want his help in resolving “the Longstreet Murder.”
Harley Longstreet was a Wall Street broker, a swaggering bully who thought little of others. His birthday party was less a gathering of friends and more a barrelful of targets for Longstreet to shove around. The festivities were set to continue at another location, meaning that a gaggle of people crowd onto a streetcar. But on the way, Longstreet reached into his pocket, only to jerk it out. Something had pricked him. Minutes later, he died. The weapon proved to be a ball of nicotine-coated needles. Circumstances demonstrated that the only time the ball could have been planted was after the party boarded the car, but who was it?
There’s Longstreet’s fiancée, Cherry Browne, a “musical comedy actress.” There’s Michael Collins, a government man who’s convinced that Longstreet gave him a bad tip. The police really like Longstreet’s business partner, John DeWitt, who’s the frequent target of Longstreet’s bullying and possibly blackmail. Not to mention that Longstreet likely had an affair with his second wife and made a pass at his daughter. There’s motive for both women, and for the daughter’s boyfriend, Kit Lord, who laid Longstreet out with a punch. But the best efforts of the New York police are for naught, and the case hits a dead end.
Drury Lane astonishes his visitors when he says he already has a good guess about who the killer is, but demurs to identify Mr. X on the grounds of lack of proof. Mr. X has no interest in waiting for the denouement, however, and hurls a possible witness off a New York ferry. DeWitt is inexplicably on the scene and refuses to explain why, making him suspect number one is the eyes of the police, but Drury Lane—and the reader—are certain that Mr. X still lurks in the shadows…
It was only near the end that I realized that this was my first full Ellery Queen novel. I’d read a handful of radio plays and short stories, as well as The Tragedy of Errors years ago, but that was a (meaty) outline. For an introduction, it was good. Tragedy of X is a solid novel. It is a bit slow-paced; the Queen cousins lack Agatha Christie’s smooth prose and dialogue, and we really don’t see too much of the non-DeWitt suspects after the initial murder. It feels like we lurch from one murder scene to the next without much connecting them. It didn’t bother me too much, but I was aware of how much time it was taking to finish each section. And it’s not much of a “tragedy.” I can kind of see what the Queen cousins were going for here (ROT13: gur cybg vf rffragvnyyl n Funxrfcrnerna eriratr fgbel gbyq sebz gur cbvag bs ivrj bs gur vairfgvtngbef jub gel naq snvy gb fgbc gur zrybqenzngvp naq znfgre znavchyngbe ivyynva sebz rknpgvat uvf iratrnapr), but it didn’t come off like that for me because I wasn’t really connected to the characters. (ROT13: Naq jr qba’g urne nalguvat sebz gur xvyyre nsgre uvf neerfg. Jr qba’g rira trg dhbgrf sebz uvf pbasrffvba, Guhzz naq Oehab whfg fhzznevmr vg!)
I enjoyed the mystery though. Ho-Ling is a huge Queen fan who praises the novels as the height of logical detection; you’re granted all the clues and can follow along with the detective to the truth. And here, you can. Lane is right, you can solve the crime from the initial account of the investigation. I picked up on some of the same things he did and very well could have gotten it for myself. I do think the police would have hit on the key fact eventually, but I accepted it here. While there isn’t a big epic chain of logical deduction at the end, I did enjoy Lane’s explanation, especially the reason for why the killer had to leave behind a piece of evidence that directly incriminated them. Lane methodically demolishes every other choice the killer could have made, so by the end you’re nodding your head in agreement: The killer really did have to do that.
This book also marks the first (novel) appearance of that Queen staple, the dying message. The third victim crosses his middle finger and forefinger in “the protection-sign against the evil eye.” The final explanation of what this message means is played more as a nice final line to the book, but again, you can figure out what this message means, it’s just unlikely since the key information is only briefly given. But it is there.
So overall, I liked this book. While I can’t say that, if I’d read it with no context, I’d want to rush right out and get more, when reading it knowing that this is Ellery Queen, and that there’s more and better to come…well, I’m looking forward to it. Recommended.
Other Reviews: The Case Files of Ho-Ling, The Green Capsule, In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel, The Invisible Event, and Dead Yesterday.
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