Moray Dalton: trapeze artistes and a private zoo

Death in the Dark by Moray Dalton

published 1938

 

 

This very enjoyable book was recommended to me because of this intriguing (and very Clothes in Books) detail: the young heroine has an aunt who is in business:

She bought dresses, coats, furs from ladies’ maids and sometimes from the ladies themselves in the morning to sell again in the evening to shop girls and factory hands. She had a flair for clothes though she never wore anything smarter than a shapeless woollen jumper and a sagging tweed skirt herself, and soon she was picking and choosing to suit her regular customers. The blue panné velvet that had cost fifty guineas and been first worn at a Hunt Ball was the very thing for little Jessie Higgins, who earned her living as a professional dancing partner at a fourth rate night club. Auntie Apples, who knew Jessie had a child to keep, let her have the frock for fifteen shillings.

 

 

She is called Auntie Apples for reasons that are not clear to me – Curt Evans in his intro says she sent apples to her German husband when he was interned during World War I, but all it says in the text is that she sent parcels. Anyway.

The first half of the book is excellent. There is a family trapeze act, travelling the music hall circuit. One of them, David, is accused of a complicated murder – a strange story of a rich older man who invites artistes to visit him in his house. David panics and lies, and is convicted of murder and will hang.

His sister Judy is firmly convinced of his innocence, and sets out to investigate. Auntie Apples is her backup and helps where she can, though the dance-dress business is very peripheral:

It was the time when the girls going home from the factory were apt to drop in to find out if Auntie Apples had any more dance frocks in stock. It was the second evening after their return from Holton that she sold the green and silver brocade. “It’s a lovely material, and it fits you as if it had been made for you, and the lady—a lady of title, but I don’t name names—only wore it the once. She spilt a little coffee on it, see. It doesn’t show a bit.”

“How much?” This customer, a barmaid at the King’s Head, was always flush of money. “Three guineas,” said Mrs. Sturmer firmly. “Cripes!” “It cost ninety.” “It’s too much.” But she looked longingly at her reflection in the long glass fixed to the door of the tiny fitting-room. “All right.”

More of that would have been welcome (but possibly only to me). Also, the trapeze act disappears when one of the main participants goes to Death Row – not surprising, but a shame.

Judy receives a letter from someone who also has an interest in the case, and arranges to meet him at London Zoo – reassured by his choice of location:

“If he’d chosen the Mappin Terraces he might have pushed me into the bear pits, but he can’t do much to me in the lion house.”

Now, as an experienced crime book reader, I had wondered if this was going to be the romantic interest for Judy, and I looked forward to meeting C. Fleming. Judy and I were both in for a surprise. [Anyone reading Dalton’s books in order won’t be surprised, as I will explain in a later post]

Her enquiries take her in search of the relations and heirs of the dead man (which perhaps the police might have thought of too). And that is a most extraordinary location in Somerset: a miserable, down-at-heel house – Sard Manor – which has a menagerie or private zoo in its grounds. She takes a job there as a maid. The house is full of awful people and there is no money, and all those wild animals  - unsurprisingly they have a lot of problems keeping staff. It is the most godforsaken place, and Judy bravely tries to find out what is going on. She is rather dashing, adventurous, kind, and not easily put off – a splendid heroine.

At Sard Manor, the wolves woke you in the night and you heard the boards creaking, if you listened long enough, under what might be a stealthy footstep...

But then – Judy loses her important role, and a male policeman takes over. She is completely retired for the second half, and we are not entirely sure what has happened to her. My take on it was that women dominate at first, and the book loses its urgency when they lose out to the men: a sad disappointment when Dalton was herself a woman.

It picks up at the end – I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that at a late point all the animals are let loose and people are trapped and in considerable danger. It is obvious early on who is the villain,

“This final touch is quite in character. If he wasn’t such a damnably cruel, cold-blooded brute I’d say he deserved to get away.” And later “He seems to be a resourceful person,”

 

and Dalton herself reveals it quite early, but she still manages a rousing and rollicking ending with the wild beasts.

How many of the animals are likely to be dangerous, Bowles?” “It’s hard to say. The wolves might not attack you, but then again they might. One of the bears is harmless enough, but the other’s very spiteful. You see, they won’t understand, and they’ll be frightened and suspicious, and that’s when they turn on you. And then, of course, there’s Selim. I half hoped he’d draw the line there, but no. I had to pass near his cage as I was legging it over here and I saw it was empty. You don’t see anything down there in the shrubberies, do you?” They all peered down into the thick, dark tangle of privet and yew and laurel that grew up to within a few feet of the house. “I can’t be sure,” said Collier at last, “but he must have been close behind you, Bowles, when you came in. That roar sounded near enough.”

I don’t think it’s a spoiler to report the headlines in the next day’s paper:

“Amazing Scenes in a Private Zoo.

“Tiger at large in Somerset.

“Chief Constable and Police on Safari.

Battle of wild animals in English Park.” 

It is a good solid story. But there is a loose end – early on Judy is considerably helped by the stage  manager of the theatre where the events originated, and there is this:

Judy’s tweed coat had been through more than one winter, her gloves had been mended, and the bravura with which she wore her beret tilted at the latest angle did not deceive the experienced eye of Ben Levy. And she wasn’t even pretty by some standards. But he liked her. He liked her a thousand times better than the glamorous females who sometimes raised hell in his office. On the trapeze she was no match for him, he could only look up and gasp at the incredible nonchalant grace of her. But on earth she seemed touchingly helpless, like a swallow unable to use its long wings without the air to lift them.

(lovely writing). But poor Ben – who is the only person who truly helps her early on – is just abandoned, disappears wholly from the book. A pity.

But still, all in all a most enjoyable book – take a bow, again, Dean St Press.

Dance dresses from NYPL

The trapeze act poster from Wikimedia Commons

The trapeze artiste is Mable Jordan of the Flying Jordans, NYPL.

The illo with animals is actually an early view of the Bronx Zoo in New York, but I thought had a look of a private zoo. NYPL.