Dress Down Sunday: Death in the Stocks by Georgette Heyer


published 1935


LOOKING AT WHAT GOES ON UNDER THE CLOTHES




Death in the Stocks



The Inspector pressed the bell again, and was about to press it a third time when the door was opened to them by a girl with a head of burnished copper curls, and very large and brilliant dark eyes. She was wearing a man’s dressing-gown of expensive-looking brocade, which was several sizes too large for her…

She strolled ahead of them through a door at the end of the hall into a pleasant kitchen with a tiled floor, a homely-looking dresser, and a breakfast of eggs and coffee and toast spread at one end of the large table. An electric cooker stood at one end of the room, and a small electric brazier had been attached by a long flex to the light fixture, and was switched on for the purpose of drying a linen skirt which was hung over a chair-back in front of it. The Inspector, pausing on the threshold, cast a swift, trained glance round the room. His gaze rested for a moment on the damp skirt, and travelled to the girl…

[After some discussion, they ask her to come to the police station]

‘Oh, well!’ said Antonia. ‘After all, I do want to know who did kill Arnold. I’ve often said I’d like to, but I never did, somehow. Do you mind if I put on my skirt, or would you like me just as I am?’ The Inspector said he would prefer her to put on her skirt.

commentary: So why is the skirt being washed? Obviously because it is blood-stained - but there may be a perfectly reasonable explanation. It’s the perfect scene for me because I do like a woman in a man’s pyjamas or dressing roomDeth in the Stocks 2 (consider Claudette Colbert in Palm Beach Story, and the TH White book, Death at Pemberley, which I used CC to illustrate). [Picture to the right is actually from It Happened One Night, see correction in comments!]

Later Antonia will dress in another great blog favourite (for example here) after having a bath:
reappearing in the studio a quarter of an hour later in beach pyjamas, which became her very well, but offended Murgatroyd [old family retainer], who told her she ought to be ashamed of herself, on a Sunday and all.
And another great blog feature has always been the irresistible fascination of hanging out the washing (see here for one of my most popular posts ever).

Over the past few years I have been reading my way through Georgette Heyer’s detective stories (and an occasional Regency romance): happily for me Tracy K over at Bitter Tea and Mystery has just been reading this one, so I picked it up. The last one I read was Footsteps in the Dark, Heyer’s first, and it was terrible – dull, banal and generic, none of Heyer’s with and cleverness and characterization, so much so I didn’t bother to blog on it. Death in the Stocks  is at the opposite end of the spectrum: I liked it almost as much as all-time favourite Envious Casca (also known these days as A Christmas Party).

One of the excellent features of Heyer’s on-the-surface-routine GA crime stories is that there is none of that stiff stuff about ‘none of us can have done it’, nobody keeps quiet for shame or honour, everyone is terribly busy speculating who might be the murderer, and admitting their own motives, and then suggesting who might be arrested. It is refreshing and often very funny. One suspect here gets into philosophical arguments with the policeman about whether he might be second- or third-guessing the Superintendent, who says ‘you should consider whether perhaps I may not suspect you of assuming a greater degree of annoyance than you really feel, on purpose to throw dust in my eyes.’ It could go on forever…

The opening of the book – man found dead, yes in the stocks, on the village green near his country cottage – might lead you to expect a rural mystery: but most of the action takes place in London, with the atmosphere of young people living in a slightly disreputable studio, or unsmart lodgings, beautifully done. There are some excellent scenes of the friends and foes sitting around together eating and drinking and arguing and swapping bon mots – I thought Heyer did the atmosphere of a hot London evening in a cheap flat wonderfully well.

There is a complicated family story in this one (I kept forgetting that the dead man was half-brother of the young suspects, he seemed much more like an uncle or stepfather figure), and the line of inheritance seems unnecessarily labyrinthine, but I don’t think it matters much, you don’t have to follow that. I did guess who the murderer was, but probably not for the right reasons. As I so often say, I enjoyed the book for the jokes and for the picture of life. Violet has silver nail varnish, everyone quotes from Hamlet, Giles has ‘a voice quivering with amusement’ (very Regency romance), and it is seen as unthinkable that the respectable Antonia would visit a house where her half-brother is entertaining a lady of easy virtue. (to be fair, she does exactly that, but others find it hard to credit). All tremendous fun.

The top picture is from the Library of Congress, one of my favourite ever blog pictures: not probably looking much like Antonia, but any excuse to bring it out... 














Comments

  1. I do like Heyer's wit, Moira. And there's something quite dramatic, in its way, about a man found dead in the stocks. I know what you mean, too, about the washing. It's very human, if I can put it that way. And there are all sorts of ways an author can use a scene like that...

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    1. I think she was quite clever at setting up visual scenes, Margot, and they certainly drew this reader in...

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  2. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT!

    (That is, pajamas are not from not Palm Beach Story, a great and fabulously-clothed movie in its own right.) And that would be a good mystery novel title, wouldn't it? While being not exactly on point for the movie.
    nbm

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    1. Oh my goodness, the wrong picture! I do know the difference really. I looked at CC in her Palm Beach outfit (the one she makes into a skirt, blouse and turban) and then moved to the one next to it. I love her, she is one of my all-time favourite actresses.

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    2. The studio understood just how good Claudette looked in oversized PJs. And I need to confess that I had forgotten about the PBS outfit episode, so I did not deserve to be right -- though those stripies of Clark's are pretty memorable. And finally, I am reading DEATH IN THE STOCKS and very much enjoying it, though (1) it is highly genre-predictable and (2) I do think they are spending too little time on the question the Superintendent eventually asks: Why put him in the stocks?

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    3. It is a very enjoyable book, but honestly as a crime novel - well. I don't think the stocks are really explained. I think she just had the idea of a body on the village green, in the stocks, and decided it would make a good setup.

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  3. I thoroughly enjoy GH's murder mysteries. I don't think her plotting is as good as the big name GA writers but there is something much more human about her characters - they aren't just plot devices. And as always she is funny too.

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    1. Exactly my thoughts! And it means you can safely read them again, because it's not really about the solution.

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    2. Her husband usually did the plotting, though I recollect correctly she did it in this one.

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    3. I wonder sometimes - 'her husband did the plotting' always sounds to me like publisher talk, or a throwaway comment taken as gospel. The crime stories are very similar in some ways to the Regency romances, you can see the same tropes in them, and I don't think the barrister husband sat down to invent 30 plus historical plotlines.

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  4. I hardly dare admit this,because it sounds a little snobby, but I have never read anything by Georgette Heyer - not the detective stories, or the historical fiction. I don't think I would know where to begin.

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    1. They are much better than they sometimes given credit for. I started in my teens when my entire form at school were reading them - while also reading many more 'literary' authors. And I have stood firm to her ever since, despite reading a lot of other things! Mind you I don't think I would have liked her much in real life, and she probably wouldn't have had much time for me either...

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  5. I am glad you liked this one as much as I did, Moira. And thanks for the mention. I am so glad I finally got back to reading the Heyer mysteries. I had not expected to enjoy them so much. I have the next three Superintendent Hannasyde books to read and then the first Inspector Hemingway, before I have to go looking for more.

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    1. I'm always surprised by how many crime books she wrote - I remember I used to search for them in my local library when I'd read all the romances. and thank you for the push to read this one next - we very much agreed in our verdicts on it.

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  6. Hope this doesn't duplicate; had a problem posting my comment so am trying again. Just wanted to say that man's face is very like the Danaïde by Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuși - here's a link to the Tate image: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/constantin-brancusi-800. So stylised and oval. Loved those screwball CC comedies.

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    1. It absolutely is, thanks Simon - a lovely satisfying shape. And yes, the films were (and still are) a joy...

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  7. DEATH IN THE STOCKS is the only Georgette Heyer novel I've ever read. And it really was pretty enjoyable.

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    1. Try another! My ongoing recommendation is Envious Casca...

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  8. This was one of the first Heyer I read. I remember the characters better than the mystery or the solution. I suppose that says something about Heyer's strengths as an author for me. I will try Envious Casca next.

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    1. Yes, I think it is the characters who are memorable in her crime books, rather than the stratagems. Hope you enjoy Casca.

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