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The Judge’s Progress

The classical detective story – classical in the sense that it is written within a recognized and well-worn structure – is one of the most resilient, versatile and adaptable forms of popular fiction despite regular prognostications by critics that its time has passed. A reviewer of a Sherlock Holmes story published in Blackwood’s Magazine in the 1880s wrote: ‘In view of the difficulty of hitting on any fancies that are reasonably fresh, surely this sensational business must soon come to a close.’ The difficulty of hitting on fancies that are reasonably fresh remains, but the detective story shows no immediate sign of demise, and what I find remarkable is the extraordinary variety of books and talents which the conventions of the genre can accommodate. Novelists who have used, varied and experimented within this form include such very different authors as Charles Dickens, Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins, Agatha Christie, John le Carré, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and, today, Ian Rankin and Ruth Rendell, and the genre continues to provide ingenious challenges to readers and writers alike. What we expect is a central mystery, usually but not necessarily murder; a closed circle of suspects with means, motive and opportunity for the crime; a detective, whether amateur or professional, who comes in rather like an avenging deity to solve it; and by the end of the book a conclusion which readers should be able to arrive at themselves by logical deduction from clues inserted in the novel with essential fairness but deceptive cunning.

The origins of detective fiction are disputed. Stories which combine mystery with excitement can be found in ancient literature and in the Bible, including the story of Susanna and the Elders in the Apocrypha. It is generally agreed, however, that the detective novel proper could not exist until communities developed a recognized detective force and an organized system of law enforcement. Credit for being the founding father of the modern detective story is generally shared between Edgar Allan Poe in America, whose short stories adumbrated every development in the genre, and Conan Doyle in England, the creator of probably the best-known amateur detective, Sherlock Holmes. In this country the detective story flourished between the two world wars, the 1920s and 1930s often being spoken of as the Golden Age. Those who practised the genre successfully included a Roman Catholic priest, Monsignor Ronald Knox, G. K. Chesterton, the master of the short story, economists and academics as well as the usual purveyors of mystery and thrills. In general the stories concentrated on providing an exciting narrative and an original method of murder, theme and characterization being often subjugated to the demands of the plot. Webster has written that death has ten thousand doors to let out life, and popular writers of the Golden Age made use of many of them, vying with each other to produce the most bizarre and ingenious exits for their victims. Most of these writers are no longer read, except by students of the genre, but there are some who deserve to be remembered and reread, and among them is one of my favourites, Cyril Hare.

Cyril Hare is the pseudonym of Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark, who was born in 1900 and died in 1958. He was a barrister who became a county court judge and took his writing

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The classical detective story – classical in the sense that it is written within a recognized and well-worn structure – is one of the most resilient, versatile and adaptable forms of popular fiction despite regular prognostications by critics that its time has passed. A reviewer of a Sherlock Holmes story published in Blackwood’s Magazine in the 1880s wrote: ‘In view of the difficulty of hitting on any fancies that are reasonably fresh, surely this sensational business must soon come to a close.’ The difficulty of hitting on fancies that are reasonably fresh remains, but the detective story shows no immediate sign of demise, and what I find remarkable is the extraordinary variety of books and talents which the conventions of the genre can accommodate. Novelists who have used, varied and experimented within this form include such very different authors as Charles Dickens, Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins, Agatha Christie, John le Carré, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and, today, Ian Rankin and Ruth Rendell, and the genre continues to provide ingenious challenges to readers and writers alike. What we expect is a central mystery, usually but not necessarily murder; a closed circle of suspects with means, motive and opportunity for the crime; a detective, whether amateur or professional, who comes in rather like an avenging deity to solve it; and by the end of the book a conclusion which readers should be able to arrive at themselves by logical deduction from clues inserted in the novel with essential fairness but deceptive cunning.

The origins of detective fiction are disputed. Stories which combine mystery with excitement can be found in ancient literature and in the Bible, including the story of Susanna and the Elders in the Apocrypha. It is generally agreed, however, that the detective novel proper could not exist until communities developed a recognized detective force and an organized system of law enforcement. Credit for being the founding father of the modern detective story is generally shared between Edgar Allan Poe in America, whose short stories adumbrated every development in the genre, and Conan Doyle in England, the creator of probably the best-known amateur detective, Sherlock Holmes. In this country the detective story flourished between the two world wars, the 1920s and 1930s often being spoken of as the Golden Age. Those who practised the genre successfully included a Roman Catholic priest, Monsignor Ronald Knox, G. K. Chesterton, the master of the short story, economists and academics as well as the usual purveyors of mystery and thrills. In general the stories concentrated on providing an exciting narrative and an original method of murder, theme and characterization being often subjugated to the demands of the plot. Webster has written that death has ten thousand doors to let out life, and popular writers of the Golden Age made use of many of them, vying with each other to produce the most bizarre and ingenious exits for their victims. Most of these writers are no longer read, except by students of the genre, but there are some who deserve to be remembered and reread, and among them is one of my favourites, Cyril Hare. Cyril Hare is the pseudonym of Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark, who was born in 1900 and died in 1958. He was a barrister who became a county court judge and took his writing name from his London home, Cyril Mansions in Battersea, and his chambers in the Temple, Hare Court. His great strength is the use he made of his expert knowledge, both as barrister and judge. Tragedy at Law, published in 1942, was his favourite novel and introduced his hero, Francis Pettigrew, an ageing and very able barrister but one who has never fulfilled his early promise. Pettigrew is aided in his detection – or is it perhaps the other way round? – by a professional police officer, Inspector John Mallett of Scotland Yard, who had appeared in previous detective stories by Hare. Tragedy at Law is set in the early days of the war. Bombs have not yet fallen on the sacred precincts of the Middle Temple, and the ancient Temple Church, later to be almost destroyed, is as yet untouched by war. For almost the whole of the book we accompany the Honourable Sir William Hereward Barber, Knight, one of the Justices of the King’s Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, as he makes his formal perambulation through the towns of the Southern Circuit. Today the Crown Court, although one jurisdiction, has a number of permanent homes in major cities and towns throughout the country, but at the time Hare was writing the age-old ritual was still in existence and the judge, with his retinue, processed from one assize court to another, trying the cases which had been accumulated for his arrival. Reading the story of Judge Barber’s progress brings to mind stories of the ‘Bloody Assize’ in the seventeenth century when the notorious Judge Jeffreys travelled in state to wreak retribution on the rebellious West Country followers of the Duke of Monmouth. Sir Hereward Barber is no Judge Jeffreys but he is fully aware of the prestige and power which should rightly accrue to a judge who on his journey represents the Sovereign himself, and the book opens with Barber’s slightly peevish annoyance that he is not greeted in the first town with the customary blare of trumpets before attending in state the church service which always precedes the assize. But the country is at war, trumpeters have more important duties and at least one ceremonial flourish has had to be sacrificed. Despite this deprivation, Barber still travels in style with his retinue of Judge’s clerk, marshal, butler, cook and members of the Bar, including Francis Pettigrew. Later the little group is joined by the Judge’s handsome and formidable wife, Hilda. Lady Barber is herself a barrister and as good a lawyer as her husband. Her presence undoubtedly enlivens the journey round the circuit, although the uneasy relationship between Barber and Pettigrew is not helped by the fact that she and Pettigrew were formerly lovers. We are in no doubt from the beginning of the novel that the intended victim is Judge Barber. Soon after his arrival at the first town he receives an anonymous threat and, later, a poisoned box of chocolates arrives, one of which he immediately and greedily samples but which Hilda manages to extract from his mouth before it is swallowed. Worse is to come. The gas is turned on in the room where he sleeps and but for his wife’s watchful care he could have died. But an accident at Markhampton, the first town visited, proves as potentially catastrophic to the Judge and his wife as any direct threat to his life. Lady Barber, who has enlisted the marshal’s help in keeping watch over her husband, forestalls any further threats and, when the assize is at last over, Barber starts to feel that the danger is past. But this confidence is misplaced. At the end of the book there is indeed a murder followed by a solution to the mystery which is as satisfying as it is unexpected. Tragedy at Law presents a challenge to even the most perceptive reader but all the clues are fairly presented and we would do well to remember that the author, as well as his detective-hero, was a barrister. Tragedy at Law is elegantly written and leavened with wit and humour. The varied characters are finely drawn and the story of the increasingly threatened judge has its moments of high excitement. But for me the book’s strength is the setting. We feel we are one of that little group accompanying the Judge from town to town, experiencing with him and his retinue the varied lodgings provided, some more comfortable than others, sitting in court listening to his judgments and sharing the emotions and experiences of the humane, likeable and original hero. The novel’s appeal is enhanced because the world it so accurately portrays has passed for ever. The setting has become history. A critic of detective fiction has written that the most successful books are 25 per cent plot, 25 per cent characterization and 50 per cent what the writer knows best. What Cyril Hare knew best and devoted his professional life to was the practice of law, and even sixty-four years after it was first published, Tragedy at Law is generally acknowledged to be the best detective story set in that fascinating world.

Extract from Slightly Foxed Issue 12 © P. D. James 2006


About the contributor

P. D. James published her first detective novel in 1962 and for over 40 years never lost her fascination with this murderous business. She got a little tired of readers who expressed surprise that a plump 86-year-old great-grandmother should have harboured such violent fantasies, and she pointed out that her own preoccupations are essentially harmless and peaceable.

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