Rumpole of the Bailey on The Murder Wheel

I, Horace Rumpole, had been discussing trials a few weeks ago with visiting Saskatchewan colleague, William A. Selnes, K.C. - barristers love to exchange their experiences within the courtroom - when he mentioned he had recently read Mr. Tom Mead’s account of the infamous Ferris wheel murder. I instantly procured a copy of The Murder Wheel and was reading it late into the night when my wife Hilda commanded me to stop reading and come to bed. As I have learned through the decades of our marriage it is best to do as ordered by She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed.

The next day I had a satisfactory day at the Bailey. I successfully defended Hugh Timson on a burglary charge laid by Inspector George Flint. As with most members of Scotland Yard, Flint is a man of rectitude but not an investigator with imagination. He has always been prone to accepting the word of those who would condemn a man with a criminal record.

I have always emphasized it is critical in trials to study witnesses. I noted in the Timson case, during cross-examination, that the main witness, who was not wearing his glasses, was squinting at me. He confidently asserted to me he needed glasses only for reading and was not wearing them when he saw Timson exit the burgled home. I raised my hand near my head while I asked him if I was wearing my glasses. He equally confidently declared they were upon my nose. When I plucked them from the vest pocket of my waistcoat I heard the jury chuckle and his smile evaporated.

After court I retired to Pommeroy’s Wine Bar with my copy of The Murder Wheel. Over 3 or 4 or 5 glasses of plonk and a series of small cheroots I finished the book. I enjoyed the book.

I was eager to read The Murder Wheel as I had been a young barrister in 1938 when the murders upon the Ferris wheel and in the Pomegranate Theatre took place. I recalled the official dispositions of the murders but had always doubted over the decades what the authorities proclaimed.

Edmund Ibbs, the just qualified solicitor at that time, is and was a good friend. He was helping defend Carla Dean against the murder charge that she had shot and killed her husband, Dominic Dean, while in a Ferris wheel compartment. Indeed, I had been mentoring him.

Mr. Mead aptly describes the youthful Edmund:

“Though a lawyer by trade, Edmund Ibbs was also an enthusiastic amateur magician. Or, to use the appropriate term, an illusionist”. 

Edmund’s favourite quote, too often repeated to me, was from The Master of Manipulation:

The art of magic, he read, lies in the manipulation of perception. Most people will look exactly where you want them to; all you have to do is tell them. It is simply a matter of guiding their attention in the correct direction, so that they are never looking at the trick as it is being worked.

Edmund and I discussed several times the public conception that all barristers are illusionists spinning word tricks. I vehemently disagreed with that canard. I said lawyers dispel the illusions created by witnesses who are selective with the truth in their evidence.

Edmund challenged me that barristers often focus on small, even minute, discrepancies and contradictions in the evidence of a witness seeking to cast doubt on credibility.

I replied with some force, some might say blustering, that it is rare a barrister can succeed by identifying slight errors in evidence.

Mr. Selnes and I, in our conversation this year at Pommeroy’s, also turned to the subject of illusion. We found common ground that barristers must direct juries to concentrate on important evidence and not get caught up in the illusions of minor issues. 

It was our joint conclusion that juries are better at seeing through word illusions than audiences are at piercing stage illusions because of the able assistance of barristers.

Were barristers present in theatres exhorting audiences not to be distracted by the diversions of magicians, illusions would be much more difficult.

Returning to the Ferris wheel murder Edmund consulted me on the defence of Mrs. Dean while we shared glasses of plonk at Pommeroy’s. Even decades ago it was an esteemed establishment.

I implored Edmund to follow my personal principle of never having a client plead guilty. Such an approach demands defence counsel examine, test and reflect on every bit of evidence to avoid distraction.

I believe my advice was the key to young Edmund ultimately solving the Ferris wheel murder though his sound conclusion confounded me.

As to the resolution of murder at the Pomegranate I appreciate the rigorous deductions of Joseph Spector. If he would forsake the Black Pig pub for the charms of Pommeroy’s, I daresay we could spend an enjoyable afternoon discussing illusion.

*****

Mead, Tom - (2023) - Death and the Conjuror and Hercule Poirot Discusses Tom Mead's Sleuths Joseph Spector and George Flint and (2024) -The Murder Wheel

The Murder Wheel by Tom Mead

(47. - 1230.) The Murder Wheel by Tom Mead - A reward of two
thousand pounds is being offered by The Daily Chronicle to the person who can solve the Ferris Wheel murder which has captivated London.

Young solicitor, Edmund Ibbs, is helping defend Carla Dean. She is facing trial, charged with murdering her husband, Dominic Dean, high above the ground in a Ferris wheel compartment.

No one else was in the compartment. The gun used was her husband’s revolver. Powder burns upon the husband demonstrate the revolver was fired at very close range. Her fingerprints alone are upon the revolver. There is no powder residue upon her hands. What explanation is possible beyond Dean shooting her husband? Ibbs is determined to find an alternative.

Two witnesses testify as to a mysterious limping man near the Ferris wheel at the time Dean is shot

Days later, Ibbs is at the Pomegranate Theatre watching the magic of Professor Paolini when a body, wearing armor, falls out of a crate instead of the expected Sir Lancelot. The body is Miklos Varga, the man who operated the Ferris wheel when Dean was shot. No one at the theatre saw Varga placed in the crate. The man moving the crate says only the man portraying Sir Lancelot was in the crate when he was wheeling it.

There is yet another murder in a locked room at the theatre. Ibbs, having been knocked out, finds himself in the room with a body in the corner and a revolver, recently fired, glued to his hand. The deceased is Paolini who was about to tell Ibbs everything about Dean.

Inspector Flint of Scotland Yard calls upon the old conjuror, Joseph Spector, to aid him as the good inspector is a solid man but these locked room crimes bedevil him. Spector is a master at dissecting illusion. With not one, not two but three impossible murders to be solved there is an abundance of illusion. 

I came close on one but never figured out any of the murders.

Mead is a clever author. The story lagged a bit for me in the early going at the theatre but it steadily picked up momentum. I was grateful for the diagrams. It would have been too difficult to keep track of the settings and multiple characters with words alone. I look forward to reading the third in the series.

For the first book in the series I had Hercule Poirot provide his thoughts on the detective skills of Flint and Spector. In my next post Horace Rumpole of the Bailey considers illusion.

****

Mead, Tom - (2023) - Death and the Conjuror and Hercule Poirot Discusses Tom Mead's Sleuths Joseph Spector and George Flint

Bad Boy by Winona Kent

(49. - 1232.) Bad Boy by Winona Kent - In the fall of 2018 Jason Davey / Jason Figgis has returned to London after a tour with his mum’s band, Figgis Green. He is rehearsing with his jazz combo who have a permanent residency at the Blue Devil in Soho. He sums up his approach to music: 

I’m notorious for my everything-goes-audio-fusion. You can do it with food, so why not with music?

As a rehearsal winds down he gets a call from Marcus Merritt who wants him to sign a band program and hire him as a private investigator. Davey has gained some fame for solving mysteries. He is uninterested until Merritt mentions the meeting has to do with the composer Elgar. With his interest tweaked they meet at the top of The Shard. (The soaring spike, “soulless” to some, of a building appears on the front cover.)

I was equally caught up in what kind of mystery could involve Sir Edgar Elgar the long deceased, great modern classical composer.

The book shifts from light to dark in a stunning moment. Marcus hands him a book of band memorabilia and then takes “a run at the window at the southeast corner of the floor” and raises himself up over the open glass wall top. He looks at Jason and lets go falling 800 feet to the ground.

Inside the book is a train ticket and directions to go see Judy in the village of Newlydale. He finds Judy Galpin. She has more directions for him from Marcus. She surprises Davey and myself when she advises Marcus was her ex-husband.

Kent is deft at startling readers.

Judy takes him to Tissington, 20 minutes away, where Davey finds a nice bowl and instructions from Marcus to find the folder containing Elgar’s “original sketches, drafts and revisions to one of his best-known works, the Enigma Variations”. Marcus had stolen the folder and wants Davey to find it and offers a clue:

A courtesan skilled in the culinary arts. Ask for Tricia.

Determining the clue is a cryptic crossword type of clue Davey identifies the answer as Bakewell tart and pudding.

Marcus sends Jason on a journey for a folder containing Elgar’s “original sketches, drafts and revisions to one of his best-known works, the Enigma Variations” .

Marcus had a devious, clever, witty mind. His directions, actually puzzles, lead Jason on in his search, actually a quest, deep into the English countryside and back into the heart of London.

The buildings of Soho which were occupied by those making and selling popular music for over four decades are major characters. They are somewhat forlorn as the music trade has moved on except in the memories of those who once worked and sometimes lived in them. Jason has a vivid recall of the days of glory in Soho.

The light hearted nature of much of the questing contrasts so sharply with the suicide of Marcus and the involvement of the underworld, both English and foreign.

Jason is a bright man. He is a sleuth with whom the reader is comfortable. Once engaged he is a persistent investigator. As with myself the suicide of Marcus left Jason unnerved and unable to shake the image of Marcus sliding away to his death.

Despite the suicide in the back of my mind I enjoyed Jason’s quest, especially the historical music exploration. Kent has an impressive knowledge of popular music going back decades. Equally impressive is her knowledge of Elgar and his music.

I did find the resolution predictable rather than unexpected.

The story is crisply told in 214 pages.

Bad Boy is a good book. I am glad Winona sent me a copy.

The Lords of Time by Eva Garcia Sáenz

(44. - 1227.) The Lords of Time by Eva Garcia Sáenz translated by Nick Caistor - The third book in the White City trilogy is a striking, absorbing, disturbing mystery with another amazing opening.

In 2019, 3 years after The Water Rituals, the life of Inspector Unai, the Kraken, is going well. He is with Alba. They have a 2 year old daughter, Deba. He has almost fully recovered from Broca’s Aphasia.

The Vitoria police are stressed by the disappearance of the 12 and 17 year old Nájera sisters.

The structure of the book is intriguing. Sáenz has written a Lords of Time book about 1192 that is contained with her Lords of Time book of 2019. They are two independent books. As well, there is a chronicle from the Middle Ages providing source material on the events in the 12th Century.

At the eagerly awaited book launch in 2019 for The Lords of Time book about 1192, Antón Lasaga, a wealthy textile businessman, is found dead in a bathroom. 

In the 1192 story Count Don Diago Vela has returned to Victoria, which was the name of Vitoria in the 12th Century, after a 2 year journey. He arrives to find his betrothed, Onneca, has just married his brother, Nagorno. Rushing to the home of her father, Count Furtado de Maestu, he is just in time to join the witnesses to the consummation of the marriage in the matrimonial bed. (They are there to confirm there is a bloodstain showing the bride was a virgin.) Hours later, Count de Maestu is found dead. 

Both Lasaga and De Maestu have died from being poisoned by Spanish Fly (cantharis), the aphrodisiac made from “the crushed shell of the blister beetle”.

Unai and Count Diago set out to find the killers over 800 years apart.

Once again Sáenz has created yet another form of riveting ritual death to rival the means of murder in the earlier books which featured stuffing bees in the mouth of unconscious victims and a form of drowning with the victims lowered into pots of water.

In 2019 Unai orders a search for the source of the Spanish Fly. It is banned. He learns Blister beetles were recently stolen from the Museum of Natural Sciences.

Count Diago is also searching for Spanish Fly. While not on sale in the marketplace Spanish Fly is available in 1192.

Looking for the author of the fictional fictional Lords of Time Unai and his aide, Esti, go to the NograroTower in the Valdegovía Valley to see Ramiro Alvar Nograro, the 25th Lord Nograro. A shy man, really a recluse, he is an intellectual  under 40 years of age and never leaves the Tower. The Lord they meet, Alvar Nograro, says he is the 24th Lord and is a very handsome man “wearing a cassock and a delicately embroidered scarlet chasuble”. The psychological issues are striking and complicated.

Count Diago had been on a secret mission for King Don Sancho the Wise to take Berenguela to marry Richard the Lion-Hearted.

Ritual murders of young people take place in 2019 in the same ways as set out in the fictional fictional The Lords of Time.

At the body of a boy Unai genuflects and recites to himself his mantra:

“This is where your hunt ends, and mine begins.”

Tasio Ortiz de Zarate of the first book, The Silence of White City, returns to Vitoria. He wants to see Deba. In the 12th Century young aristocratic women might be immurred, walled up in a church with an opening for food and water.

Who connects the current fictional fictional The Lords of Time about 1192 and the ancient chronicle for the plots are almost the same? 

The villains past and present are fiendishly clever and brutal. Danger lurks in the past and present. The body counts increase.

In Victoria conflicts rage between the aristocrats and the common folk. How will Count Diablo solve the murder of Count de Maestru amidst the violence enveloping the town?

As Alba and Unai explore the tangled past of the NograroTower Deba is taken care of by Unai’s 100 year old grandfather and his brother, German.

Unai is a reflective man:

“.... contemplating Locards’ principle that every criminal leaves some trace of themselves.

What I was about to discover is that the same is true for every act of love.”

Unai considers a comment about a town “full of bastards”. He is advised there are “children born to an official mistress who was faithful to her man”, “children born of incest”, children born to concubines - “Women who cohabit with Catholic priests”, nuns and “children born to an adulterous woman whose husband brings them up as his own”. 

The traces from love or more accurate sex are unexpected and devastating. The complications and consequences of illicit love are endless.

The story in Victoria moves to 1199. It remains a turbulent time with a vicious war.

In the present, assumption, as always, proves misleading for Unai. There is a fundamental flaw in his reasoning in the tracing of a deceased member of the Alvar family.

Unai is convinced psychopaths cannot be “rehabilitated”:

They don’t respond to therapy …. Why? Because psychopathy isn’t an illness; it’s a way of being.”

His grandfather is attacked while taking care of Deba and she is taken. Unai freezes and his aphasia returns. Because of “cognitive dissonance” he cannot determine who to help first.

How Saenz connects the past of the 12th Century and the present of the 21st Century to the end of the book is so clever.

At the end of the book there is a self-reflection on the past, the present and the future by Unai about himself and his family and his city. Few books extend such reflection over 800 years. I received in Norway a decade ago a family tree for the ancestry of my great-grandmother that goes back to 1,000 A.D. when a Viking in the Lofoten Islands converted to Christianity. I am a rarity in Western Canada to be able to trace my family for a millennium. Spain is different and its ancient heritages let authors create a depth to their works that is impossible in North America.

****

Sáenz, Eva Garcia and translated by Nick Caistor - (2022) - The Silence of the White City; (2023) - The Water Rituals and Broca's Aphasia in The Water Rituals