Anthony Berkeley Cox (1893-1971) was an eminent member of the British Golden Age, writing primarily under the names Anthony Berkeley and Francis Iles as well as A. Monmouth Platts and A. B. Cox. He wrote about two amateur detectives using the Berkeley name, Roger Sheringham and Mr. Chitterwick. See Mystery Scene’s Holiday Issue #102 for an informative review of Berkeley and his work by crime fiction historian Martin Edwards. Edwards also wrote the introduction to the British Library’s re-issue of Sheringham’s eighth adventure, Murder in the Basement, first published in January 1932 by Collins and scheduled for release in December 2022.
Molly and Reginald Dane, newly married and the proud possessor of a semidetached house in Middlesex, have discovered an item not in their lease: a body buried in the basement. To Chief Inspector Moresby of Scotland Yard falls the largely impossible task of identifying a long-interred corpse. The clearly marked bullet wound on the back of the head explained the cause of death; it was certainly not suicide. But without a name to the victim police are stymied in their search for the killer.
After much floundering and managerial displeasure, a wisp of a hint of a clue takes the good inspector to Roger Sheringham, who filled an interim job at a boarding school the previous year to collect background for an academic mystery. His working draft is the next section of the book, which is a bit awkward as far as reading continuity goes but highly informative to the plot. It gives Inspector Moresby some tangible leads and I thought I could see the resolution of the crime but of course I didn’t. Not one surprise but two occur in the last few pages.
Berkeley had a devious mind or perhaps a wildly creative one; he could think of multiple solutions and couldn’t settle on just one, so he worked them all into the story. I was startled but decided the ending was quite clever if ethically dubious.
Did Berkeley perhaps have something against schoolteachers? None of them appear to advantage here. In fact, they are all dreadful, not the kind anyone would want forming young minds. On the other hand, the newly-wed couple are charming, tipping the movers a pound (£55 in 2022 or about $65) even though the movers painstakingly put all the furniture and boxes in the wrong rooms.
I believe I read other Sheringham books in the distant past but I have no strong recollection of them and now I want to find a few more as well as locate some of Mr. Chitterwick’s adventures. This highly readable if somewhat disjointed title is an excellent addition to what is becoming a formidable collection of classic crime writing from the British Library.