I'm resurrecting this sadly neglected blog in order to join in Simon and Kaggsy's latest Club. And when I looked for Books Published in 1929 (thank you Wikipedia) there was immediately no contest. As I've probably said many times on here, I have loved Margery Allingham's Albert Campion novels since my mother first introduced me to them when I was about twelve and have been reading and re-reading them ever since. If you'd asked me a week ago I'd have told you that I'd read them all, so imagine my surprise when I discovered I'd never read this, the very first of them. And what a revelation it was.
If you're not familiar with this series of novels, Albert Campion is what would be known today as the series detective. But he's a most unusual kind of detective - a private one, certainly, but one willing to take on any kind of challenge from a wide variety of sources - in this novel he's working for His Majesty's Government, but at other times he may be associated with Scotland Yard, or helping an old family with inheritance problems, and more besides. He has acquaintances in the criminal fraternity too, and his manservant, Magersfontein Lugg, is a reformed burglar. The books are better described as mysteries as murder doesn't always feature in them, and Campion himself is a bit of a mystery - careful reading of the series will reveal certain hints, but all we know for sure is that he's the younger son of an aristocratic family and that his real name is Rudolph. It's also often said that as a character he was originally conceived as being a spoof on Dorothy Sayers' Peter Whimsey. In this novel, his first appearance, this does seem very plausible, as he appears bizarrely effete and foolish, given to making silly jokes and apparent non-sequiturs. Underneath this rather effete exterior, though, he is revealed to have a sharp mind and the capacity to take drastic and effective action when needed.
The biggest surprise here, though, is that Campion is only a minor character in the novel. He does play an important part in one episode, but he disappears before the end and he gives no indication that he will turn into the series detective. That job, it seems, was intended by Allingham to be given to Dr George Abbershaw, Home Office pathologist, whose quick wits and good sense not only extricate the rest of the characters from a very dangerous situation but also solve the final mystery - who killed Colonel Coombe? Abbershaw is an attractive character, but apparently Allingham's publishers were so taken with Campion that they insisted he should be given the leading part in subsequent novels. Good thinking on their part!
So what's this novel about? It's a bit of a romp, set in an isolated country mansion called Black Dudley, where a house party is taking place. The guests are a bunch of young society people, male and female. Campion is among them, but it turns out nobody knows who he is or who invited him, so everyone is highly suspicious of him. The guests soon discover they have been infiltrated by members of an international criminal gang, run from who knows where by the mysterious arch villain Simister (who will reappear in subsequent novels). The two men who have found their way to Black Dudley are a German calling himself Dawlish but unmasked by Campion as Eberhard Von Faber, a wholly ruthless and all round nasty piece of work, and his sidekick, the shifty Gideon. During an evening party game, Colonel Coombe, Black Dudley's owner, is murdered, and the crooks reveal that they are searching for some vital papers which have somehow been mislaid in the house. The villains will stop at nothing to recover the papers, and that includes violence and enforced imprisonment of the young guests, none of whom appear to know anything about the lost papers. So there are violent physical fights, shootings, secret passages, imprisonments in impenetrable rooms, a deranged religious maniac maid, attempted arson, a car chase, and the intervention of the local hunt.
I'm not sure whether, if I had read this one first, I'd have been as keen to pursue the rest of the series. It all seems a bit juvenile, and is very firmly a product of its time, though none the worse for that. But as someone so familiar with the later novels, it was fascinating to see Campion in this first incarnation. Over time, of course, he matures, and shows his abilities both as a man of authority and a man of action. I'd be hard pressed to say which of the 20 or so novels was my favourite, but I have a tremendous soft spot for Sweet Danger (1933), partly because it was the first one I ever read, but also because in the novel Campion meets the feisty young Amanda Fitton, who some years later will become his wife. I was also deeply impressed a few years ago by Traitor's Purse (1941), which is more of a psychological thriller and a superb one at that, and often considered the finest book of the series. But I've loved them all, even this rather strange first novel, which I'm delighted to have had the chance to read.
