“The girl was kind in a special way; when you spoke to her, she seemed to stop thinking of whatever she had been thinking and listened to you altogether.”
― Ellery Queen (The Player on the Other Side)
This post is going to be a spoiler filled overview as well as my thoughts on the Dutch Shoe Mystery (1931) by Ellery Queen (the writer name of Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee). This is the third story featuring the main character Ellery Queen solving mysteries. In general the story belongs to the original and highly praised Ellery Queen's Nationality series and it's a classic detective fiction case with a setting fitting for even more modern suspense stories.
The story of the Dutch Shoe Mystery deals with the case of Abigail Doorn which happened in the 1920's. A diabetic millionaire dies in a modern hospital that has been designed full of sound proof rooms, soundless doors, sterilized environment, electrical creations such as X-rays, as well as automatic lamps which are automatically lit when people enter a room. These hints go to showcase for example when a room is being used, and the writers make the entire thing feel enjoyable to read, so these things don't feel like information dumps in the story at all.
Backstory on our main character
Ellery Queen, the character, is known as a writer, an unofficial detective, and the son of Richard Queen, a highly ranked inspector. Ellery is a man who has been raised on crimes and who has learned the art of solving them, and he's a man who find excitement from solving gruesome crimes, but even then, he's no superman: he feels sick to his stomach from seeing cuts on living, breathing and warm flesh. However, when the corpse gets cold, that's when Ellery Queen's emotions completely shift elsewhere and his eyes start to gaze towards finding the truth. That is the king of person that the main character of the Ellery Queen stories is, and I truly believe that he's a great one much like Christie's Hercule Poirot.
The Dutch Shoe Mystery focuses a lot on diabetes at first: we learn about the intricacies of sugar count in blood for diabetics and how doctors lessen the amounts of sugar temporarily for a surgery, and how even the slightest surgeries done on a toe can kill a diabetic. There's even a mention of how the doctors would rather avoid anesthesia on a diabetic for a surgery. There's a part in the story in which Abigail Doorn, who is a diabetic, happens to be found in a coma in the hospital and due to the natural coma, the doctors avoided putting her into a medically induced coma for the surgery (of course in the surgery room there is always going to be a person ready to add anesthesia if the patient were to wake up from their naturally induced coma).
Just to mention I felt that this is one of those books that kind of stick with me for no explainable reason, and I can definitely appreciate the enjoyable, cold-water-to-the-face -like, really fresh-feeling writing style of Ellery Queen from 90 years ago.
(Notes: I felt that there was an iffy part in the story about information dump at first as the story explains that due to Abigail Doorn having high blood sugar, her levels were 180. It was stated to have dropped down to 135 at the beginning, and they stated that the surgery can only be done when the sugar levels in 100cm^3 of blood are between 110 to 120. Luckily it's not necessary to remember these facts for the story.)
The story itself has three parts. Introduction, investigation and resolution. The case can be figured out by the reader in the parts before the resolution, as Ellery Queen (the writer) is known for originating the Challenge to the Reader -type of writing in which the writers challenge the reader to solve the case before finishing the book. The books contain a challenge usually about 2/3 of the way in, before the resolution part starts.
First part - welcome to the Dutch hospital
It's a chilly monday morning of January. The story begins as our main character Ellery Queen arrives at a Dutch hospital in New York to personally ask a question or two from Dr. Minchen, a friend of Ellery who happens to be a surgeon and the leading medical superintendent of the Dutch hospital. Ellery asks Minchen about "whether or not you it is possible to fake the time of death," and due to Minchen bringing up the effects of speeding up the time of the death of diabetics, Ellery manages to crack a certain case right at the start of the story, but will that question be used as a foreshadowing for this case as well? maybe.
Now the structure for the case itself can seem to be simplistic side on the hindsight but once you start actually thinking about all the plot lines that lead up to the end, instead of just thinking about the main string of event which is Abigail Doorn's death and the time of the crime when the killer, so called "Mr. Janney," was in the room, the story becomes more complicated.
The basics of the case are simple and to the point. On the steps of the 3rd floor of the hospital, the creator of the entire hospital building as well as a millionaire, Abigail Doorn, fell into a sudden diabetes coma. Her muscles gave up at the steps and due to the impact from her fall, her gallbladder had gotten severely injured. The injury on the gallbladder is what the surgery of the story is about; and it has to be done immediately. Ms. Doorn was confirmed dead at 11:05, after 15 minutes of trying to save her life since the situation being noticed at 10:50, as Ellery Queen looked at his watch mechanically and said one word: Murder. According to Janney ms. Doorn was strangled with a wire and the rigor mortis had already kicked in when she was taken into the surgery room.
More of the basics:
Doctor Janney was called to the 3rd floor's stairs all of a sudden during his day's first patient check-up, at 8:04. Dr. Janney found Abigail Doorn at the stairs then.
Doorn was taken to one of the third floor's patient rooms, stripped naked and put to bed - as even the slightest surgeries can kill a diabetic, it was a must that they lower her blood sugar levels with insuline shots before the surgery, and the surgery had to be done ASAP. An artificial coma via anesthesia makes the surgery on a diabetic all the more complicated, hence why the natural coma she fell in was a positive turn of events.
Dr. Janney went to surgery room A when they got Doorn's sugar levels to stabilize. In SR A, Janney had another patient to perform surgery on quickly, as that was going on, Doorn was already taken to the first floor surgery room's preparation room.
As Janney was performing surgery in room A, Dr. Leslie took care of Abigail Doorn. However due to the state of the body, the rigor mortis, Janney could tell that Doorn would have been alive at 10:20.
Surgeon Leslie was with Doorn up to the point when she was taken to the preparation room. Leslie investigated Doorn and could confirm that she was alive and her heart was pumping. Doorn was taken to the preparation room at 10:20, pushed to the third floor's elevators that goes straight down into the preparation room of the surgery room. The elevator is used only for taking patients in and out for and from surgeries.
Along with Leslie came ms. Price, Dr. Janney's secretary, and ms. Clayton, a nurse.
Dr. Leslie went to the surgery room to prepare for the surgery as ms. Price was left with Abigail Doorn. Ms. Clayton left for other works she had to do, so she's almost certainly not necessary to the case.
Because the murder method was strangling, the question for ms. Price is: Who came to the preparation room when Dr. Leslie and ms. Clayton had left?
"No one. Well, no one, except Dr. Janney..."
As Dr. Janney had just finished a surgery on the third floor, and had spoken with Ellery Queen himself around at 10:30 after the surgery on the 3rd floor, as Janney was moving with the doorkeeper Cobb.
Ms. Price "saw" Janney - or his eyes atleast, behind a doctor's mask, completely dressed in white (as with all the workers at the hospital, white from top to bottom), at 10:30. The same time Janney had met Ellery Queen at the hallway.
-A mysterious person, mr. Swanson is mentioned early in the story, he wants to meet dr. Janney.
-Dr. Minchen, Ellery's friend, has a book he's been writing about allergies from birth, which he doesn't want to share to Ellery due to his co-author, Janney, not wanting to share the information to anyone, well, anyone except his secretary ms. Price.
So the mystery of the culprit is: Ms. Price saw Dr. Janney - or believed she did, because Price had known Janney for many years; a small man who limps with one of his legs. "Janney" who had arrived at 10:30(+), was he real or an imitator? Was the culprit trying to frame Dr. Janney?
The culprit could only have killed Abigail Doorn in the preparation room, around 10:30?!
It's nice to see how every small detail that was presented matters, how a mention of a business card or a cheque can bring forth multiple actions from Ellery Queen, as well as the hints when there are multiple doors to the preparation room, how these characters in the other rooms saw the things; all very similar this time around, though, could have been done more cleverly, bring different kinds of testimonies from different people who saw or heard things from different rooms. The anesthesia room, the hallway, the elevator in the preparation room and the surgery room, all around the preparation room where the murder supposedly took place and where many people supposedly saw the murderer, Dr. "Janney" go to and leave from. They even saw what was supposedly the moment of the crime and tried to communicate with him!
Questions that arised to me personally:
- Janney never said who called him to the 3rd room's stairs all of a sudden.
- How did the wire appear on him, how come it was never noticed?
- The sugar balance should have been stabilised. Is the time of the death accurate, or does the temporary balancing of blood sugar not affect how fast rigor mortis begins for diabetics? It was confirmed that the blood sugar levels was "down from 180 to 135." The surgery can only be done when it's 110-120.
In chapter 17 we get to hear how things have not progressed an inch. It's the evening, Papa Queen has caught a flu and the night begins to turn to day as chapter 18 opens up with testimonies from everyone on what happened in and after the hospital incident. That chapter is used to transition the story to its next part as New York and many other areas have begun to fall into utter chaos. The scale of this story gets massive. Abigail Doorn's murder affects everyone from famous people and politicians to the Wall Street shares. The police does all they can - that the mayor and the police chief have to admit - however, the newspapers make up their own stories and the masses NEED answers right away.
The second part - another case happens
Right now Dr. Janney is the person that was supposedly being imitated during the time of the crime as well as the person most suspicious for being the culprit due to him keeping secrets that the police think might be important in solving the case: the mysterious mr. Swanson.
As the world is in uproar, Mr. "Swanson" makes his move and appears at the district attorney's office. He claims to be Dr. Janney's stepson, Thomas who took her mother's maiden name years ago due to a failed surgery while he was working in the Dutch Hospital years ago. On monday morning, the time of the crime, Thomas borrowed a cheque of $50 from his father and was hiding ever since due to avoiding journalists digging up his past as a failed doctor. He had lost his doctors license but was making his way back up in other career's.
Inspector Queen makes a call to the hospital for Janney to confirm mr. Swanson's statement which will confirm Janney's alibi at the time of the crime, when they were at the office, as well as Swanson's true identity, however. . . Ellery answers the phone.
10:35. "It's been about half an hour since Dr. Janney was murdered!"
And so the plot deepens.
The second case of the book is certainly interesting, but the story is rather quickly heading towards its conclusion.
Dr. Janney was found dead by Ellery Queen and Dr. Minchen at 10:35.
At the time of his death he was writing about allergies since birth, co-author of it being Dr. Minchen.
The time of death according to Minchen and Ellery is between 10:00 and 10:05 am.
In his room there is one door and one large window opposite of it. Janney was sitting on his table, Ellery remarks that it's weird how the table was not positioned in front of the window. He also notices that, after being told by Minchen, about a few weeks ago the floor of the hospital's offices had been renewed.
Dr. Janney was hit from the back with a blunt object that is nowhere to be seen; the killer must have taken it with them, and after falling unconscious, he was strangled to death with a similar electrical wire as what was found on Abigail Doorn's throat. Stuck so deep on his throat that it was barely visible.Now, the mysterious part is that the culprit managed to do this while the hospital was filled with police.
Police superintendent and the police sergeant had already been in hot water before this - the newspapers claim that they, especially Queen, are not fit for the job as they haven't figured out a thing, and now, under the police's watch a murder has happened! The noose is tightening on inspector Queen's neck as, if he doesn't figure out the case by the end of the day, he and his superior will be shelved from their duties for good.
This particular book is no prime example of great plotting but let's go over a list of how well Queen managed to tango with these plotlines in this one particular book just to make a point, shall we?
There are 37 listed characters are some more such as nurses and detectives and many other people like that in the story. I will not go over the list of all of these characters but the ones that everything culminates to in a list from Least (still very important) to Most.
The second part mostly focuses a bit on the second, Janney's, case and the Queen household and them not being able to figure anything out about the crimes - Ellery claims that instead of perfect crimes they were impossible crimes! We can also read about Ellery going through the crime scenes again and figuring out information we had no known yet, things that had been changed. He found an unexplained item which is an important clue he could figure out how to find it after figuring out the case.
And that's when we get the
Challenge
TO THE READER!
Which Ellery Queen stories are known and praised for. The second part of the story ends up with this claim: All the clues have been laid. You can figure the case out. You don't need "that" and "this" (the information of both the Item and Intel which Ellery did not share with the reader but did with a few case characters) to solve the case, as Ellery himself figured the case out before knowing them as well!
Now, crack the case!
Dr. John Minchen - Ellery's friend. Has a revolutionizing (from medical standpoint) writing project with Dr. Janney.
Hendrik Doorn - "Someone will probably kill me if I speak." A person who's been living under Abigail's wing since she became rich. Her brother. An extremely overweight man with addiction to gambling and women. Has no money despite getting it from both Abigail and ____.
Abigail Doorn - The victim, in her 70's. Very rich, created two testaments but only one thing changed: Kneisel's project is out.
Sarah Fuller - Despite her high position in the servant's of Doorn household for many years, she hates Abigail and Abigail hates her, never to kick her out. Sarah's a religious person to the core and claims to have foretold Abigail's death in a sense.
Dr. Florence Pennini - Has hate towards Dr. Janney due to losing her high position in the delivery ward.
Dr. Dunning A man who met ms. Fuller for half an hour after the murder. Neither want to tell what the meeting was about.
Lucille Price - A nurse and Janney's secretary. Janney atleast shares the project with Minchen with ms. Price.
Hulda Doorn - Daughter of Abigail. 18's, mysteriously young.
Philip Morehouse - Victim's family lawyer. There are very short chapters about him and Hulda since the very beginning. The chapters don't go to explain anything they are just... Weird to read because you know they foreshadow something. Morehouse claims to have had a testamented order that when Abigail were to die, important papers should be gotten rid of. Philip destroyed them before showing them to the police.
Moritz Kneisel - A labrat who is 2 years late in creating something "much better than steel" along with Dr. Janney who got Abigail to pay for the project in turn that it would be finished in 6 months.
Michael Cudahy - "Big Mike" a crime gang leader boss of small-time guys: Joe Gecko, Snapper and Little Willie. Mentioned about killing Abigail Doorn.
Dr. Francis Janney - Alot of the plotlines in the story seem to culminate up to him. He's the victim's favourite. Through the victim, Abigail, he got the position of dr. Pennini in the labour ward. Through the victim he got the money for Kneisel's project. He won't allow others to learn of the identity of the mysterious man he met before the crime; "mr. Swanson." He shares a writing project with dr. Minchen and won't allow others to know what they are all about.
This part can be skipped; it does not have to do with the case characters. It just goes over the cast of main and overarching characters: Ellery Queen (I'd like to call him a daddy's boy version of Hercule Poirot), Richard Queen the police sergeant, Pete Harper a trusted journalist whom has helped the police on multiple cases, Richie the lieutenant, Detectives Flitter, Piggott, Johnson and Hesse, sergeant detective Thomas Velie who is mentioned many times, he works on most of the clues by bossing other police around to figure out impossible to figure out things such as where the electrical wire used to strangle Abigail Doorn was bought from, who is the real owner of the killer's doctor's clothes that were abandoned - as the shoes are both worn as badly, Ellery figured they can't have been the real Janney's clothes, etc. As well as the police doctor Samuel Prouty as well as Henry Sampson and Timothy Cronin the district and assistant district attorney's.
The third part - the culprit
This is the part which contains all the answers to this rather mind boggling case but even I, with my keen eye for detail, have yet to unravel the truths of this case. By the time of reaching the last two dozen or so pages which contain the final part of the story, I must admit this: I know nothing, what I did guess is the information-twist that Dr. Minchen gave about Hulda Doorn, but that was revealed at the end of the second chapter. Jesus... Just how far ahead can this author be. There are a ridiculous amount of unsolved mysteries that my mind can't focus on solving the main ones.
Okay, now that the novelty of being outwitted by the writer has worn off, let's talk reality.
The murder cases #1 and #2 are both genius in their simplicity - I always had a feeling that a certain "door" was obviously used for something but never brain stormed it through that what it could be - the obvious answer. I realized that I was being confused by the numerous mysteries focusing on each individual character, instead of the crimes themselves.
Not to be seen.
Not to be heard.
In other words visualization.
That is what I was lacking when reading this story as, well, I was
simply reading the pages. To solve the case in ridiculously simple ways you have to
be able to visualize the text, what does the moment of the crime
actually show you? Had I visualized either of the cases it would have been a wrap, however, the identity of the killer, is something I subconsciously blocked out - the opportunities for this person were obvious. It makes too much sense for this person to be the culprit! So I thought.
Had this been done in comic book format akin to Detective Conan, there would be no excuses for not figuring out the culprit - it`s the side plots of the numerous characters which lead you astray from being able to point the finger at that person, it's them which make you question your objective thinking.
Now let's go over the few problems I have with the story:
the motive for the first murder, Abigail Doorn's, is all fine and dandy, however how could they have known that the surgery for her broken intestine would have to be done after falling the stairs? That makes no sense, there's no proof that she would have gotten injured like that. It seems like a case of plot induced stupidity.
Second problem. The second murder, case of Dr. Thomas Janneys - the motive makes no sense, it was brushed aside but come on now. The culprit/s have no reason to kill off this particular man due to his personality and connections with them. What's worse - had they not done that, they would have gotten away. The second case helped Ellery pinpoint who the killer was. Although looking at it, had I visualized Abigail's murder, I would have figured it out then and there - though, then again, I would have questioned the amount of killers when the police brought that up and my thoughts would get mixed.
Also I did not really like how most of the characters were brushed aside. The clues for the first case are questionable as the culprit could have faked Ellery to think that way about the shoes. That could have been set-up - but I do understand that going through his line of thoughts will still lead up towards the culprits. It's just a way of giving more proof than just obvious theories on who the culprit could be.
The second case is pretty simple but due to not figuring out the first one, my thoughts & the story were not really focused on that. It was in the back-seat to the first murder.
Rather than just tension there's some comedy in the story as well when it comes to the more overarching characters of the Perry Mason stories; the police, the district attorney and especially the police doctor. Doing things like constantly kicking the hospital doors and making a lot of noise, spitting a piece of cigar on the hospital floor and going to check up a corpse as well as everyone eating sandwiches, in what I believe to be the preparation room. were presented in a pretty funny way, that along with just some dialogue here and there for some mysterious reason gave me a chuckle. They just seemed kind of stupid or misplaced I guess, considering the tense moments. Many of the random remarks for almost no reason gave me a good chuckle.
So as a detective story it was solid. I had barely any idea what was going on while reading despite its, by now, simplistic nature which was presented as something far more grand and complex than what it really was. In a comic book this case would be extremely easy so solve, but as a novel story, it was good.
I have another Ellery Queen book that I've bought and will read soon enough - it's the one that was created right after this one, and it's twice as long as The Dutch Shoe Mystery.
But maybe I want to experience some Carr first before moving onto that one.
Oh how mysterious. At the corner of a table I also just happened to find another Ellery Queen book I've had for years - but only now I've realized it was a Queen book in the first place! Think it's time for a quick reread and blog post. Or not so quick if I can't remember anything about it.
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