Animal Instincts - The Greek Coffin Mystery (1932)

"Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise"

- Frank Ocean

I am tired after reading this little piece of work... In a damn good way, though! It's the first time ever that a book has ever fallen from my hands - I literally was on the John while reading the book and then, when the final revelation came, the book just fell from my hands and I was sitting there shocked down to the bones with my eyes closed for a good 10 minutes until I managed to continue reading, albeit really slowly, with a lot of re-reads of those few pages. How, why, what... Those types of questions filled my mind. Queen really got me this time and I'll be proud to make a post of this novel for my 50th post milestone on this blog.

"Ungentle reader, you now have in your possession all the facts pertinent to the only correct solution of the... problem. ...I say with all good will and a fierce humility: Garde à vous, and a pox on headache!" - One of the greatest lines and works of a Challenge to the Reader that I've ever seen, most certainly; you can theorize to your hearts content, you will be trapped, you will be shocked - and THAT is actually a promise straight from an extremely optimistic and almost arrogant author known as one of the greats from the Golden Age, Ellery Queen, on one of his greatest works: The Greek Coffin Mystery.

I made a review on Ellery Queen's the The Dutch Shoe Mystery earlier this year and found it to be entertaining but not too special in the modern days, although the hospital setting for that story is very intriguing. I definitely understand how much the trick done in that story has inspired and been utilized in modern mysteries all the way to Ace Attorney, Detective Conan, Kindaichi and Danganronpa manga and game franchises.
However for this one we'll be talking about an entirely new kind of beast that you don't see every day as there is no mere one trick here that can be used as a trope to shock the readers, no, this is a one single long story that has been professionally crafted.

To put it simply The Greek Coffin Mystery (1932) - TGCM for short - is a traditional golden age detective novel which is even hyped by the author Ellery Queen, the writer name of one of the greatest known orthodox mystery writers, to be one of Ellery's (the character's) greatest cases - TGCM is a case that deserves to be called a well-written story due to the meticulous amounts of planning put into the story and how everything comes together. While it's not a work of perfect synergy, it does a good job to make it all flow together from the very beginning. The story takes place during Ellery's earlier years so the character Ellery, in the "present" of when the book was published, didn't want to publish the story until the fourth book because he himself felt that it was one of his weaker cases, which is quite opposite from reality. Ellery obviously had later thought of how he saw himself constantly messing up during the case instead of the case itself, basically he saw the trees but not the forest. In the novel he's a novice on the crime scene but he has still managed to make a name for himself, still, he's going to have to put in work in order to make the police and his father, the leading inspector Richard Queen, to accept him as part of the investigation squad. The same policemen and attorneys from the earlier stories are all present as well from the muscular inspector Velie and his squad to the district attorney Sampson.

The story begins with a funeral. The words 'tense atmosphere' are brought up multiple times by the story and characters in the beginning - the tensity is in the air up to the point when the coffin is buried as the funeral goes on, but no one is shedding tears. The presentation of the case in this book seems somewhat more gruesome than usual. by the way. The funeral is due to a man named Khalkis, a rich person who was known to handle art. The Case of Khalkis, a name it's given despite Khalkis dying a supposedly natural death, is due to the fact that during his funeral his new testament was stolen. Although there was only a five minute time frame between when the metal box in which the testament is in was last seen and when it was gone from the safe. The case begins with inspector Velie under Queen investigating every nook and cranny - every person who was in the funeral and even the ones who did not attend were listed and everyone's still in Khalkis's house which' area happens to be locked from outsiders; everyone is known and investigated multiple times, however... The metal box is never found. Due to it being locked and with only one key existing there are not many ways to get rid of the testament (such as flushing down the toilet), so the case is pretty well handled in both its limitations and its ridicilousness due to this metal box disappearing impossibly.
Ellery Queen appears on the scene. The police think of him as more of a nuisance during this time in the past when the case took place, and he makes a deduction: if the person who claimed that the testament was still in the safe between those five minutes, and the testament really was stolen then despite the butler of the house not seeing anyone go to the room, then there is only one place where the testament should be, and that place is...! Well, the coffin of Khalkis. As the coffin is lifted from the grave the police medical worker assistant happens to smell something off. Almost as if there was no embalming used on the corpse? On top of the body of Khalkis they witness as rotten corpse of another person who was strangled to death with some kind of rope, and to Ellery's surprise, there's no metal box to be seen, and that's the basis of the story with many twists to it.

When you look at the story structually, you have a book that contains over 400 pages, has a slightly smaller font than the usual novel and quickly in the pages goes expertly over events that would make a novice writer intentionally write chapters about to fill the pages; in the hands of a bad writer this would easily be over 600 pages. You have such an information packed story planned to such lengths and it only focuses on the important aspects of the case so much that it has to be pointed out. There are actually four answers to this case and it's bound to shock any reader at the very end. A complete opposite of Queen's own Kill as Directed work which was a mediocre-at-best short novel that stretched out every little detail.
As I was reading the story the third answer has an important detail that can only be figured out by people who are in possession of certain equipment - an equipment that many had in the past but barely anyone has anymore - so I was kind of down in the mood due to that fact being the way to expose the culprit, even though I was shocked by that one already, but the book did not disappoint in the end as it went beyond my expectations of how shocking it can be.
This is truly an impressive piece of work but not in a way that everyone can appreciate it, no sir, as it has nothing to relate to - you can't get emotionally attached to the events or the characters; emotional impact is sadly a likened to always be a sign of "good writing" for most people these days despite that not being true, sure you all know the drill. What makes this story so impressive is the plot weaving and handling of more and more raw information one after another.

So. TGCM is a grand murder symphony, it's a tale about a certain stolen painting and the lives that disappear with it. It's a story that - and I will take liberties of coming up with this kind of solution to how this story originated from what Queen mentions of the story and his fans in the Challenge to the Reader page - Queen created specifically for the fans who claimed that they could 'easily' see right through his plot weavings of the previous stories.

Note: It's preferable to read at least one other Queen work before this one though, for multiple reasons that I will not talk about here, not many of them are exactly spoilers but reading at least The Dutch Shoe Mystery before heading to this one is an advice that I will give to all the Ellery Queen fans in the future.

The Window to Truth - The Dutch Shoe Mystery (1931)

“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.

The beginning of the story alone has a very important purpose in the story of the Dutch Shoe Mystery as one would guess, although I didn't even think much about it until starting to write it now though. Every word for the story seems to be carefully thought out for the purpose of it being a mystery novel - you can immediately tell that the novel is made purely for mystery solvers, leaving out all the unnecessary fluff that would enhance the storytelling itself but stretch out the novel in a way for the kind of target audience that the author does not write for. In that sense Ellery Queen (the writers) know exactly who they are writing for, which is commendable, as in the real world you just can not please everyone.
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.

Love to Hate - The Case of the Constant Suicides

"The price of being a sheep is boredom, the price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with great care."
- Hugh McLeod



The Case of the Constant Suicides (1941) by John Dickson Carr is a classic whodunnit detective story with all the usual settings and tropes and whatnot. The story takes place during wartime where people have to put light blockers in front of their windows every night to avoid serious consequences.
 The book is bit above average in length but the character writing in the first 3/4 of the story felt very immersive so the pages just fly by.

Dr. Alan Campbell (many doctorates in this story) is about to leave on a train to Scotland and decides to leave his train room for a quick bite at a nearby restaurant after getting his packages in the room. The first chapter. Alan reminisces about his passion - debating and critiquing opinions about historical elements for months on end on newspaper articles. Due to this passion Alan Campbell has a person he really hates more than anyone in the world due to this person talking back to his debates without giving up. The person is known as K. I. Campbell - has a similar last name to Alan's but is only a distant cousin of him. This debating character trait which is brought up multiple times in this story just for characters' personalities' sake, and although this particular part of Alan's and the secondary MC's characters' K. I. Campbell's habits is brought up a bit too much in this story, it was not that hard to read through luckily. Never got stuck to having to force myself to read through the pages.

Alan is a new doctorate in his 35's years of age. He's scottish in family origins but has never been to Scotland personally.

Alan was set on a certain journey which is why a person of his caliber had decided to take a long train trip to nowhere, well, it's also his vacation time as well, He had gotten a letter of invitation from Scotland saying: "Shiran castle, Inveraray, Loch Vyne." Alan's goal is to visit the castle where Angus Campbell had died. A murder? A suicide? That's what's being debated.

As Alan heads back to his carriage room from the restaurant, he sees a beautiful woman who happens to be in her mid 20's in his room which says reserved for Campbell on a small board outside of it. Yes, this woman is Alan's most hated person Dr. K. I. Campbell.

The Case of the Constant Suicides has a very lively cast of characters. Some of the liveliest I've come across in novel format and they would work very well on either comic book or animated format - not so much on live action due to the comical aspect of the story. The dialogue between Kathryn and Alan seems unfitting for realistic people to say.

Kirstie MacTavish, a maid
MC's: Alan Campbell, secondary Kathryn Campbell
Angus Campbell, suicide, accident or murder.
Alistair Duncan, a lawyer
Ms. Elspat Campbell, not really even a Campbell
Charles E. Swan, an unlucky reporter called to Shiran by Elspat
Walter Chapman an insurance man
Dr. Gideon Fell - the detective


Angus Campbell had taken many different life insurances totaling up to 35 000 pounds - despite his old age he had managed to get all of them due to his good health. He took his latest insurance from mr. Chapman's company just three days before his death. However all of the insurances become null if he had done a suicide.

The case of Angus's death is a locked-room case, if it were a murder. The basics are simple:
During the day of the incident mr. Campbell had a serious argument with a man named Alec Forbes who could be a killer. Getting Alec out of the house took effort and Angus went to sleep at 10 pm.
Angus tended to sleep at the top of one of the towers that contain a room. The door to the room was locked from the inside. There are people who absolutely believe it's a murder and people who can see it only as a suicide. Many points of views of different mysteries and facts are neatly laid out by dr. Fell.

Early the next morning Angus's corpse was found, fallen down from the tower - broken spine and many other injuries being the cause of his death. He was not under any drugs or meds so his death being an accident is not likely. What's more is that Angus's death is identical to another Campbell's death from a long time ago.

It's impossible to get into the room of the tower - the room can't be entered through the window 18 meters from the ground level, or the roof which cannot be walked on. Also due to the maid's testament of the evening when Angus went to sleep, there was no one in the room.

What makes the case crazier as well as a possible murder, other than semantics, is the appearance of 1) a mysterious large suitcase-type of thing created of leather and metal; a box for moving dogs around in trains, had appeared under the bed of the late mr. Campbell during the night of the murder. The box was not under the bed the evening before, confirmed by two maids, and the door had to be broken through to get in the day after, and 2) a disappearing notebook where Angus would write every night on as he would burn the notebook at the end of each year.


As the book says it's the case of the constant suicides so more cases are to come but Dr. Fell effectively solves everything quickly, very quickly, along the way.  I can't really say that it's possible for us to come to the logical conclusion of most of these tricks in the book; some of them are simple, some just need knowledge of things. However there are a good amount of small mysteries about how characters act that do make very much sense but never really come to mind. You have to think about the kinds of characters they actually are to come up with the answers, which is nice.
I believe especially that in the third case that a Queen-styled showing (at the beginning of the book) of the room would have been useful. Still, Carr's Case of the Constant suicides happens to be one of the more enjoyable stories I've read due to Carr's ability to write interesting characters who are funny and enjoyable to follow. The end-up with the importance of these characters ended up being lacking as well as the amount of possible culprits felt off but what can you do? Albeit generic in ideas, it's a nice story for what it was.