1958 collection of two novellas. A man convicted of murder summons
those who have wronged him to meet him post-mortem at "The Assize of
the Dying"; and the novelist husband of "Aunt Helen" explains in
detail how he could be murdered, then turns up dead. (Later
republished as by Ellis Peters.)
"The Assize of the Dying" (1954) deals with a celebrity murder
case. Who killed Zoë Trevor, the wealthy and famous actress? Her
neighbour is accused and convicted, and hangs himself in his cell
before it can be done officially; but that same night, the foreman of
the jury goes under a bus. What's really going on?
The protagonist is the judge's niece, so she has a personal interest
in unravelling it. She meets, for what appears to be the obligatory
Pargeter romance, Zoë's cousin and heir from Canada; they start
tracing some inconsistencies, and realise they have one chance to
expose the real killer. But thanks to some shenanigans they blow it,
and someone else goes to that meeting… and dies.
At which point we forget about the tedious young people and follow the
judge himself, as he confirms suspicions and brings matters to a close
in such a way as to avoid scandal. It's all a bit dislocated by the
standards of murder mysteries, with the revelation to the reader given
in a diegetic note that's nearly at the end of the text, but post-war
dislocation is a recurring theme here (as it was in Fallen Into the
Pit), with yesterday's heroes reduced to today's ordinary people.
"Aunt Helen" (1958) is a more psychological piece. Everyone loves
Philip and his beautiful wife Helen, but at the same time everyone had
at least a momentary motive to wish him dead. Bill, his nephew living
with them, wants his inheritance in order to join a scheme in Canada;
Estelle had a thing with Philip back in the day and wants to prove to
herself that she can stll take him away from his wife if she wants to;
then there's Estelle's husband. So when Philip happily tells everyone
how easy it would be to kill him if only the murderer had the nerve,
well…
To me this fails slightly on structural grounds: there's so much
authorial effort spent on establishing that this particular person
couldn't possibly have done it and had no reason to, when they weren't
really in the frame in the first place, that I found myself growing
suspicious. But there's also some fine if dated observation of
personalities and behaviour, and if the obligatory romance is a bit
heavy-handed it's also amusingly invisible to one of the parties in
it.
Neither of these is a real masterpiece of detective fiction like the
earlier Fallen Into the Pit, but the writing is always enjoyable and
they reach a good balance for me between puzzle and people.