Margery Allingham (1904-1966) was a prolific author of the Golden Age who did not fade into obscurity as many GAD authors did. So much has been written about her that I will only say that she published 18 novels featuring Albert Campion between 1929 and 1965 and five collections of short stories. Her final novel was completed by her husband Youngman Carter who wrote another one in the series, which was then carried forward by Mike Ripley.

The fourth book in the series is Police at the Funeral (Heineman, 1931). Campion has been asked by a college friend, now practicing law in Cambridge, to assist his fiancé Joyce, who is living with her formidable great-aunt Emily Faraday and other relatives. One of the Faraday household, an unsavory cousin, has disappeared and Joyce is worried. Everyone else thinks he’s on a bender; the fact his bookie sent him a sizable check the day after he went missing makes her think something has happened. Her great-aunt steadfastly refuses to alert the police. Before Campion can take action, the cousin is found murdered.

No longer able to deny the need for the police, the imperious Mrs. Faraday hires Campion to serve as her representative to shield the family, who lives in a bubble of a bygone time. Fortunately Campion’s good friend at Scotland Yard Inspector Stanislaus Oates is assigned to the case. The two of them sort through a complicated situation of a dysfunctional family with Victorian-era values and beliefs that lead to murder.

Albert Campion changes over the course of the series, which might be expected of anyone during a span of 35 years. But in these early books the similarity to Lord Peter Wimsey is marked; Campion is tall, thin, and vacuous. This story makes much of his aristocratic background and his use of an assumed name, references that vanish in later books. His college friend says he cannot imagine why Campion chooses to call himself that, implying Campion is not his given name. Mrs. Faraday calls him Rudolph, not Albert, when she first meets him and says she knows all about him from his grandmother, a statement sure to strike terror in the heart of almost anyone. She goes on to say she has no idea why he’s doing what he’s doing but as long as his brother is upholding the family responsibilities, it doesn’t matter. Clearly, Campion is a younger son of a titled family. Mrs. Faraday often refers to him as “Mr. Campion”, name in quotes. At the end of the book, she says she’s grown accustomed to the name and has decided it suits him. I don’t remember that Allingham ever gives his real name or title away in any of the books.

Besides the fact that Allingham is a significant Golden Age author, the wry humor and the characters are the reasons to read this book. For instance, Campion notes that to the classic trials of fire and water should be added trial by dinner with the Faradays. The meal does sound onerous; Allingham notes that it is Mrs. Beeton’s full formal dinner for April. One edition of Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management offers the following dinner menu for eight during April for a household not observing Lent: clear leafy soup, fillets of sole with cream sauce, pigeons boned and farced, braised leg of lamb, roast pullet, salad, apple amber, garibaldi cream, farced olives, French beans, and new potatoes. This is one of four possible dinner menus for the month, distinguished from family menus, which are less involved. She thoughtfully provides the cooking directions for each dish in another part of the book. The individual costs of each recipe provided me considerable entertainment.

The mystery resolution stretches credulity and the investigation is not particularly methodical, although the presence of the police does enforce a certain amount of structure. But Allingham is required reading for any student of Golden Age crime fiction and this volume is a good place to start. Recommended!