Authors: J Jefferson Farjeon
Thirteen Guests
Thirteen Guests
J. Jefferson Farjeon
With an Introduction
by Martin Edwards
Poisoned Pen Press
Originally published in London in 1936 by Collins
Copyright © 2015 Estate of J. Jefferson Farjeon
Introduction copyright © 2015 Martin Edwards
Published by Poisoned Pen Press in association with the British Library
First E-book Edition 2015
ISBN: 9781464204906 ebook
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
The historical characters and events portrayed in this book are inventions of the author or used fictitiously.
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Contents
Thirteen Guests
is a country house mystery story, firmly in the tradition of the Golden Age of Murder between the two world wars. For decades, detective fiction written during that period has been associated with a handful of “Crime Queens”âAgatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allinghamâand the worthy achievements of several of their male contemporaries have tended to be overlooked. One of Sayers' own favourite crime writers was, in fact, J. Jefferson Farjeon; she much admired his “creepy skill”. He published this book in 1936, the year before
A Mystery in White
, which has been enjoyed afresh by thousands of twenty-first-century readers following its reissue in the British Library's series of Crime Classics.
The story begins at the “gravelly” railway station of Flensham, where an accident introduces John Foss to a lovely widow called Nadine Leveridge. Nadine takes it upon herself to invite Foss, a young man who has reached a crisis point in his life, along to Bragley Court to recuperate. This is the home of Lord Aveling, an ambitious Conservative politician, who is about to host a week-end social gathering. Assorted fellow guests include a county cricketer, a novelist, a society painter, a gossip columnist, a Liberal MP, and a retired “sausage king”. Aveling had planned on a party of a dozen people; Foss is the thirteenth guest.
Foss is not superstitious, and in any event, as the cricketer tells him: “The bad luck would comeâ¦to the thirteenth guest who passes in through that door.” Last to arrive at Bragley Court are an enigmatic couple called the Chaters, and it is the husband who proves to be the thirteenth guest. Farjeon soon ratchets up the tension with a sequence of strange incidents in which the violence escalates. A painting is damaged; a dog is killed; a stranger's body is found in a quarry; finally, one of the thirteen guests meets an untimely end.
Country house murder mysteries were a staple of Golden Age detective fiction. E.C. Bentley's
Trent's Last Case
set the pattern, and was followed by Lord Gorell's now forgotten
In the Night,
and Agatha Christie's unforgettable
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
.
The Red House Mystery
, by A.A. Milne (yes, the man who later created Winnie-the-Pooh) poked fun at the form, while the iconoclastic Anthony Berkeley played an ironic game with it in
The Layton Court Mystery
. Yet country house murder mysteries not only survived, but flourished, continuing to be written and published in almost industrial quantities. The reading public of the 1920s and 30s loved them, and it is easy to understand why.
The “closed circle” of murder suspects to be found at a country house party provides readers of a whodunit with a chance to pit their wits against the author. The portrayal of conflict and tensions in a small community has a powerful and enduring appeal, and over the past three-quarters of a century crime novelists have shown much ingenuity in creating “closed circle” mysteries. Think of relatively recent books as different as P.D. James' final novel about Adam Dalgliesh,
The Private Patient
, a book firmly within the genre's traditions, and Stieg Larsson's
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
.
James and Larsson shared a strong interest in human behaviour and motivation. Characters in Golden Age mystery were, if conventional wisdom is to be believed, invariably “made of cardboard”, but this criticism is itself both clichéd and misleading. Whilst plenty of Golden Age novelists focused solely on the puzzle element of their stories, others showed a genuine interest in exploring character. J. Jefferson Farjeon belonged to the latter group; he depicts the suspects with a zest that remains appealing to this day.
Joseph Jefferson Farjeon (1883â1955) came from a literary family. His father Benjamin, his sister Eleanor, and his brother Herbert were accomplished writers, while his grandfather was a noted American actor, and Thomas Jefferson an ancestor.
The Master Criminal
, Farjeon's first novel, appeared in 1924, and he proceeded to publish dozens of books, mostly under his own name, but occasionally using the pseudonym of Anthony Swift.
No. 17
, a play as well as a novel, was filmed twice, the second time by Alfred Hitchcock.
Mountain Mystery
, published in 1935, and
Death of a World
, written in the aftermath of World War II, saw Farjeon venturing into speculative fiction, and even in more down-to-earth thrillers, like
Thirteen Guests
, he seized every opportunity to indulge his romantic streak. Shortly before he died, a story he had written in the Thirties for radio broadcast, “Murder over Draughts”, was adapted for TV, prompting
The Times
to gaze into its crystal ball: “how eminently natural it seems to turn to the television for a story. Perhaps these experiments will tempt some modern authors to write stories directly for television.”
Farjeon's work, then, enjoyed sustained commercial success during his lifetime, and made a contribution to the popular culture of the day. He honed his skills as a writer, so that although he never lost a taste for melodrama, he learned how to marry it with engaging characterisation and deft plotting. Perhaps, like many popular novelists, he wrote too much, but his detective fiction certainly does not deserve the neglect into which it had fallen before the success of
Mystery in White
.
Thirteen Guests
earns its place in the British Library's Crime Classics series as another novel that displays Farjeon's “creepy skill” and provides lively entertainment as well as a teasingly constructed mystery.
Martin Edwards
Completion of the Number
Every station has its special voice. Some are of grit. Some are of sand. Some are of milk cans. Some are of rock muffled by tunnel smoke. Whatever the voice, it speaks to those who know it, sounding a name without pronouncing it; but those who do not know it drowse on, for to them it brings no message, and is merely a noise unilluminated by personal tradition.
The voice of Flensham station is gravelly. The queer softness of it is accentuated by the tunnel and the curve that precede it. The tunnel throbs blackly and the curve grinds metallically, but Flensham follows with a gravelly whisper that is as arresting as a shout. With eyes still closed the familiar traveller sees the neat little platform gliding closer and closer. He sees the lines of equally neat bushes that assist a wooden partition to separate the platform from the road. A notice, warning passengers not to cross the track when a train is standing in the station. A signal, arm slanting downwards. A station-master, large and depressed, fighting the tragedy of Cosmos with a time-table.
Of the two passengers who alighted at Flensham from the 3.28 one Friday afternoon in autumn, only one had an advance vision of these things. She was a lady of about thirty, and Puritans and Victorians would have called her too attractive. Her hair was tinged with bronze. Her nose delighted your thoughts and defied your theories. Her complexion was too perfect. Her frankly ridiculous lips annoyed you because by all the rules of sanity they should have disgusted you, yet they did not.
She had been described by her husband, now lying peacefully in his grave, as one of life's most glorious risks, and he had consciously taken the risk when he had married her. “Let her tear me to pieces,” he said on his wedding-day. She had done so. She had jolted him from heaven to hell. And he had never reproached her. He had loved her without her make-up, and three hours before he died, during one of her rare moments of repentanceâeven the worst of us are softened as we watch the sands run outâhe had waved her regrets aside. “How can you alter what God made?” he had said. “Some one has to suffer.”
The other passenger was a young man. To him the gravelly music of Flensham station told no story, and for this reason he almost ignored it. The lady was already on the platform, interviewing a liveried chauffeur, before the man realised that the train had stopped.
“HalloâFlensham!” he exclaimed suddenly.
The train began to move on again. The young man jumped to his feet. On the rack above him was a suitcase. He seized it with one hand, while the other groped for the door-handle. A moment later the suitcase shot out on to the platform. The sight amused the lady, to whom every sensation was meat, but it insulted the large and depressed station-master, to whom every sensation was a menace to routine.
Worse followed. The owner of the suitcase shot out after his belonging, and as he shot out his foot caught in the framework of the door. Now the lady's amusement changed swiftly to anxiety, and the station-master's indignation to alarm.
“Quick! Help him!” cried the lady.
The station-master, the chauffeur, and a porter ran forward. The train chugged on. Its late passenger sat on the ground, holding his foot. He had been pale before; he was considerably paler now.
“Hurt, sir?” asked the station-master.
“Of course I'm hurt!” he retorted unreasonably. “Why the hell don't you show the name of your station in larger letters?” Then he noticed Nadine, and apologised.
“Quite unnecessary,” Nadine answered graciously. This young man was immensely good-looking. He had a smooth, boyish face, and his eyes, though drawn with pain at the moment, held possibilities. “Swear as much as is good for youâand that's probably a lot.”
He forgot his twinges for a moment. Nadine had the beauty that drugs. Her commanding ease, also, was a consolation, dissolving the oppressions of an unimaginative station-master, a staring porter, and a rather too superior chauffeur.
“ThanksâI'm all right,” he said, and fainted.
“Coo, 'e's gorn off!” reported the porter.
“Looks like a case for a doctor,” muttered the station-master.
“Definitely,” nodded Nadine.
The chauffeur glanced at her, and read his own thought in her eyes. There was a faint green light in them. It generally came when she was intensely interested. Her husband had called it, anomalously, the red signal.
“Could you get him into the car, Arthur?” she asked.
“Easy,” replied the chauffeur.
“Then, if you don't mind, I think we'll stop at a doctor's on the way.”
“Dr. Pudrow, madamâthe same as attends Mrs. Morris. He's the one.” He turned to the porter. “Give us a hand, Bill. And remember he's not a trunk.”
The station-master interposed. He himself had been the first to suggest a doctorâhe was glad of thatâbut a certain procedure had to be observed. This was his platform.
“You'd better wait till he comes to,” he said.
“Of course,” agreed Nadine. “We're not going to abduct him.”
In a few seconds the young man opened his eyes. He now fought humiliation as well as pain.
“Did I go off?” he gasped, momentarily red.
“We all do silly ass things when we can't help it,” smiled Nadine. “Don't worry. But I think you ought to see a doctor.”
“
She
thinks,” reflected the station-master. “Taking it all to herself!”
“Believe you're right,” murmured the young man. “Something or other seems to have gone wrong with my foot. Could youâsend one along?”
“I'm glad you're keeping your sense of humour.”
“Eh?”
“Why send one along when I can take you along?”
“That's really frightfully decent of you.”
“Say when you're ready.”
“Well, if it's not too much troubleâsooner the better.”
She made a sign to the chauffeur, then turned back to him.
“Grit on to yourself. It mayn't be nice when they lift you. I know what it's likeâI hunt.”
He closed his eyes, and kept them closed for two very unpleasant minutes. Then he found himself gliding through a land of gentle undulations and russet October hues. Above him the sky was crisp and clear. The tang of autumn was in his nostrils. The sounds of autumn came to him, too. Dogs bayed in the distance. He recognised the quality, and pictured red coats among them. From an opposite direction cracked the report of a gun. Now he pictured a pheasant flashing downwards from the blue dome, to end its short uneasy life in fulfilment of its destiny. Closer at hand were branches as gold as the pheasant's breast. Closer still was a bronze curl.â¦His eyes, as they opened, focused on the bronze curl.
But pain intruded. Stags and pheasants were not suffering alone.
“How are you feeling?”
“Not too bad.”
“I expect I'd say the same.” Nadine's voice was appreciative and sympathetic. “We'll soon be at the doctor's.”
It occurred to him that he ought to thank her, but when he began the bronze curl moved a little nearer to him and she placed her hand over his mouth. He rebelled against the pleasure of that momentary contact with her fingers. They were cool, while they warmed. He rebelled because he knew that she was conscious of his pleasure, that she had deliberately produced it. But he did not know that she was conscious, also, of his rebellion. She took her hand away. She had the sporting instinct. She did not fight a man who was down.
“But stags and foxes, eh?” her husband had once taxed her, when she had been forced to point out this virtue to him.
“They're different,” she had retorted.
“Of course they are,” he agreed. “They don't start fifty-fiftyâand they can never get up again and smack you.”
The conversation had preceded one of their biggest rows.
The Rolls glided on. A small vine-covered house peeped over one of the brown hedges on their left. The sun, nearing the end of its shortened day, sent a low arrow of light into the vines and picked out a brilliant little plate-inscribed: “Dr. L. G. Pudrow, M.D.” The house was less pretentious than the plate, and therefore needed the plate to dignify it. But for the useful illness of a rich old lady and the daily visits this illness imposed, the house might have been even less pretentious. No doctor, however, could visit Bragley Court every morning, and sometimes every afternoon as well, without comfort to his bank-balance, and Dr. Pudrow had found Mrs. Morris a godsend. That was not why he had devoted so much earnest thought and care to the business of keeping the suffering old lady alive.
When the Rolls stopped outside the house, Dr. Pudrow was actually engaged in that rather unchristian occupation. A maid informed the chauffeur that her master was out.
“He's at your place,” she said. “If you hurries you'll catch him.”
“Is he coming straight back?” inquired Arthur, with the practical sense of one who has to deal with grit in carburettors.
“No, he's not,” answered the maid, and added pertly, “he's got a baby coming at six.”
Arthur considered. It was now eleven minutes to four. He pointed out that the baby was not due for over two hours, but the maid retorted that you never knew, and that the doctor was going right on anyway. “This'll be No. 8âit's that Mrs. Trump again,” the maid observed. “
I
call it disgusting!” She believed in good looks and Marie Stopes.
The chauffeur returned to the car and reported. Nadine looked at the young man. The green glint in her eyes was dancing once more.
“There's only one way to catch the doctor,” she said. “And there's only one doctor to catch. He's attending a patient at Bragley Courtâwhere I happen to be going myself. Shall I take you on there?”
“Why not deposit me here till he returns?” asked the young man. “I mustn't go on being your responsibility like this.”
Nadine explained the situation. The doctor might be hours before he got back. Some babies were optimistic, and hurried; others showed less anxiety to enter a troubled world.
“Thenâwould you take meâ ?” began the young man, and paused.
“Yes? Where?” inquired Nadine.
Obviously, even a man who fell out of a train had some destination beyond the platform. For the sake of the adventure she had delayed referring to it.
“Not sure,” said the young man, and the reply pleased Nadine. The autumn sun was in a very generous mood, and she had no wish to end the adventure. “Isn't there an inn somewhere?”
Nadine turned to the chauffeur, who was still awaiting instructions.
“Bragley Court, Arthur,” she said, “and don't worry about speed limits.”
There was always something vaguely personal in her use of the word “Arthur.” It implied no social unbending on her part, and permitted no familiarity on his, but it recognised his existence; almost, his male existence. Now it added two miles to the speedometer.
“Bragley Court doesn't sound like an inn,” commented the young man wearily. He found he couldn't fight.
“It certainly isn't an inn,” answered Nadine. “The only two inns within reasonable distanceâas far as I knowâare the Black Stag and the Cricketers' Arms. The Black Stag is by the station. No stag has ever been known there, although I think there
is
a rumour that years ago one hid behind the bar, but there's plenty of blackness. It comes from the tunnel. I believe the inn puts up one traveller a year, and never the same traveller. The Cricketers' Arms is
much
more lively. That's why it is even less desirable. All sorts of company. And I'm told the bed, like Venice, is built round seven lumps. I really think, if you went to the Cricketers' Arms, you might die of it.”
He did his best to smile. Watching him closely, she assured him the smile was not necessary.
“You're quite understanding,” he said suddenly.
“I know you're in pain,” she replied. She had to restrain an impish desire to give him a more personal answer. “I was thrown once, and couldn't listen to a funny story for a week. Does my prattle worry you?”
“No, please go on.”
“I don't know if there's anything to go on about. Oh, yesâBragley Court. We are racing there to catch the doctor before he leaves one patient to go on to another, that's all.” She laughed. “You are to be sandwiched between old age and youthâan old lady of over seventy, and a baby minus two hours.”
It was true her prattling did not worry him. It helped him wonderfully, for there was a vital quality behind its levity that forced some part of his attention, diverting it from his pain. But he did not quite know how to handle it.
“I hope the old lady is not very ill?” he said rather conventionally.
“She is very ill,” returned Nadine. “She does jig-saws, and is a lesson to everybody. That is, if anybody ever
is
a lesson to anybody else, which I doubt. I've only known two people in my life who could make me feel a pig. She's one of them.”
“I know what it is,” thought the young man. “She's so confoundedly
natural
!” Aloud he asked, “Your mother?”
“It would have been politer to have asked if she were my grandmother! I forgive you. She's neither. She is ourâmy hostess's mother. Bragley Court is the place of the Avelings, you know. Or don't you know?”
“What! Lord Aveling?” She nodded. “I sayâdo you think you'd better take me there?”
“Why not? Are you Labour?”
He did not reply at once. He was frowning. In the distance the dogs were barking again. A bird, too fat to emigrate, sent a note of shrill sweetness from a bough. “I have just eaten a worm,” sang the bird. It was happy. The snow was a long way off.
“I don't know whether you realise what
I'm
realising,” said the young man seriously, “but I may have to stay a bit where you set me down.”