Department Store Murders - these are dangerous places

 

The Corpse with Sticky Fingers by George Bagby

published 1952

 

Model for Murder by Peter Campion

published 1955

 

 

At Christmas our group of Golden Age detection fans do a Secret Santa, where we send each other GA books to bring joy and cheer. This is particularly delightful as we all agree that it is very hard for our families to buy us GA books (insufficient expert knowledge) – though I must here mention again my clever son who bought me a Lange Lewis book after checking that I had blogged on some of hers, but not this one.

My Secret Santa in 2021 sent me the Bagby book and I was delighted – I love any book set in a department store, and this one also has plenty of excellent clothes in it.

The setup is that a corpse has been found in one of the big street windows of a major NY store – what could be better? It’s part of a series featuring Inspector Schmidt (Schmitty) who is accompanied on his investigations by the first person narrator – who I gather is meant to be ‘George Bagby’ ie the author, a crime writer, though this wasn’t crystal clear, and seemed a very strange conceit which added little to the book.

The Inspector ploughs on, questioning the extremely flamboyant staff of the store, trying to find out who the dead man is, who changed his clothes, what is that about valuable jewels… And why does the second corpse have sticky fingers. The answer to that question is very interesting…

The first half of the book was tremendous. The logistics of making a really good store window were explained: In this case the window displays were small rooms which could be lowered into the basement of the store with levers, so they could be assembled and tweaked, then raised into place. I was fascinated by this, and wonder if this is how other such windows are created, then and now.

There was a lot of bitching among the staff, and some splendid outfits. Including this:

 

[Her suit] was black and it had a little jacket….

‘the tails of the jacket stood away from her at a sharp angle. They had to, since otherwise they could never have cleared her skirts. There was a time when those things were called hoop skirts. I don’t know what they call them now. This particular example, furthermore, had something odd done to it at the bottom, something that lifted it at one side to show a goodly hunk of black-and-white plaid petticoat, that petticoat was made of some noisy kind of silk. As she came toward us this the thing hissed like a snake. You can ask your wife what that material is called. She’ll know.’

-          [Just loving those last two sentences] –

 

She also wore a  hat of sorts. It was black and it could have been that she had swiped it from a bellhop. It was one of those little round boxy things and it sat on the side of her head…

Sadly I haven’t been able to find a photo nearly as dramatic as that, I’m doing the best I can.

 And also sadly the book dwindled a little in the later stretches, and it has attitudes which I am primly going to say were of their time, and not acceptable now. But I very much enjoyed the picture of the NY department store, the busy basement full of customers, and the feuding staff.

– and then I found another one on my shelf, no idea if someone sent it to me or recommended it. It is Model for Murder by Peter Campion – set in London a few years after the Bagby. And it also starts with a corpse in the window.

This is an excellent dramatic opening – the corpse is arranged on a chair, and eventually it tilts and falls and breaks through the plateglass window: it sounds unlikely, but is a good moment. (Interestingly, a passerby thinks it is an IRA bomb – this is 1955). It’s a nicely short book, big on 50s London atmosphere and on characters. There is a private investigator linking up with Scotland Yard, people who conceal things for no good reason, facts which are withheld. But enjoyable moments, such as this sentence: ‘But don’t think she had turned into some sort of superior tart. She hadn’t.’ And a nice atmospheric walk through Soho. It all would have been ideal for a Brit b/w movie of the era. This picture is of Soho in the 1950s.

 

In fact I will read just about any book with a dept store setting (crime or not)

There have been a few on the blog - honestly, I surprised even myself by how many there were. What a feast of books.

The French Powder Mystery by Ellery Queen (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com) – this one may be closest to those above, murder in the window – and here I get into further discussion about drugs and the book dept there Ludicrous plot items, particular reference to drugs (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com)

And another Ellery Queen: Xmas Crime – Is Santa Guilty? (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com)

Dress Down Sunday: Death Wears a White Gardenia by Zelda Popkin (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com)

Tuesday Night Club: Helen’s Month (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com) – the book is Murder A La Mode by Eleanore Kelly Sellars

Dress Down Sunday: Sales and stockings (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com)

Dress Down Sunday: Brooklyn by Colm Toibin (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com)

–         both  about Brooklyn by Colm Toibin, whose heroine works in a dept store

Yet Another Department Store…. (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com) going upmarket here with Emil Zola, and I translated the excerpt from the French myself…

Babbacombe’s by Susan Scarlett / Noel Streatfeild (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com)

International Women’s Day–Women’s Fiction Rules (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com) – department store in Australia, Women in Black by Madeleine St John

Bond Street Story by Norman Collins (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com) – an absolute classic of the genre. Another entry looked at the staff Christmas party: Xmas Parties: You SHALL go to the (Staff) Ball…. (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com) and at Xmas working Xmas Books: Department Store Christmas work (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com)

A Talent for Murder by Anna Mary Wells (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com) – revolved round a Fifth Ave dept store, but I express my disappointment that there isn’t much about it in the book

--- and many of these entries have splendid pictures relating to dept stores of the past.

And a final big thank you to my 2021 Secret Santa, who I happen to know is Bev Hankins of  the marvellous My Reader’s Block blog (we’re all such detective fans we tend to be quite good at sleuthing down our benefactors…)

Young men dressing a mannequin – NYPL, Lord and Taylors

Bonwit teller, window advertising the musical Oklahoma, also NYPL.