The Nine Wrong Answers by John Dickson Carr

published 1952

 

JJ over at Invisible Event was reading this late last year, and his review made me pick it up after a long gap. I had absolutely no recollection of it, but I was highly tempted by the plot setup of impersonation. A young man in New York, Bill Dawson – a typical Carr hero – is persuaded to stand in for another young man in order to claim an inheritance. There is a horrible uncle who has to be appeased, with strong warning that there might be something dangerous going on. After 24 action-filled hours in New York, Dawson heads back to London to get going on the Brat Farrar business. That Josephine Tey book, the uber-text of impersonation, was published three years earlier in 1949 – and was one of the starting points for my recent series of posts on the whole genre of impersonation in literature.

 

However it must be said that this particular version of pretending-to-be-another is not the key plot element it promised to be – other aspects take over, although every now and again Carr suddenly remembers it and makes some comment about different names.

The USP, and the meaning of the title, is that throughout the book the author drops footnotes about ‘wrong answers’ – he guesses what a smart crime fiction fan might be thinking and puts them right. So to give a flavour, the first one reads ‘The astute reader will already be wondering whether the preceding scene was not a corporate conspiracy directed at bill Dawson himself, who was intended to overhear the conversation. This idea is completely wrong. Discard answer number one.’

It is quite a charming and unusual trope, and very cleverly done.

Apparently, nearly everyone nowadays reads an abridged version, where 15% of the text has been cut out. (JJ actually thought the book should have been shortened a lot more, and he may have a point.)

No idea what was missing although I could have a guess: there were occasional strange sentences, and I never really got a sense of who the people were in the diner in the opening pages eg the woman in the grey dress – might that have been explained in the original?  What were Bill’s mysterious errands on his first day in London?  Also there is something about stolen papers and a nude photograph which I could only find mentioned once, no explanation. In true Carr style there are a number of salacious comments about nudes, real and painted, and suggestions of sexual activity. There is also a discomfiting air of sadism (physical and mental) about some of the big moments in the book – not something Carr is usually guilty of, and not something I enjoyed.

 

I had a different problem with one scene. Bill is in Boots the chemists (late-night drugstore, US readers) in Piccadilly in central London at one minute to ten in the evening, and realizes he should be in a BBC studio. He jumps a taxi, and heads for Broadcasting House. That’s in Portland Place and more than a mile away: straight up Regent St, but not a quiet time for traffic. He then speaks to the receptionist, and runs up 8 flights of stairs to the studio, stopping to take off and put on a shoe and to engage in considerable cat-and mouse with a stalker. He walks into the studio and has a bit of a chat with the crew. And the studio clock says 10 past 10. As there is something off about this whole scene, I thought this was a tremendous clue (they are fooling him about the time?) but it’s not – it’s just an impossibility. I enjoyed the description of the different elements of broadcasting, though it all seemed unresolved, and the character of Cheever is never clear. What was he up to with the fake script?

Anyway, much more important to this particular blog – what about the young woman studio technician dressed in ‘a white shirt and khaki shorts’? Even amongst bohemians doing a late-night broadcast in June I think this would not be possible at the BBC in the 1950s (or 1960s or 1970s at that – blogfriend Lucy Fisher may have an opinion?) Shorts were strictly off-duty and seaside. The picture – from the National Library of Wales – of radio operatives of the era is much more likely, a sturdy cardigan and a nice striped skirt.

 I worked at the BBC in the 1970s, and wouldn’t have dreamt of wearing shorts, unthinkable. A few years later in a different organization, expensive designer culottes, knee-length, were acceptable but quite daring…

Other clothes, scattered through this post – Joy wears a ‘sensible but costly tailored suit’ with a leopard brooch on the lapel. Marjorie wears a black silk shirt and pearls (from Clover vintage tumbler). The two women turn up in evening dresses one of which is said to be much nicer than the other, but nothing is described to support that. (Clover vintage tumbler again)

I enjoyed The Nine Wrong Answers very much, although it was quite a restless book, people rushing around to many different locations, while still having some longueurs. The clever notes did rule out suspicions of one character early on, which I thought was a shame, but the eventual solution came as a satisfying surprise. Not perfect, but a good read.