Midsummer Murder (1937) by Clifford Witting

Midsummer Murder (1937) is Clifford Witting's second novel starring Inspector Harry Charlton, attached to the Downshire County Constabulary, who has to put aside his daily, small-town problems to turn his attention to a curious murder – committed in the town square of Paulsfield. The murder happened during a chaotic moment on a market day, in July, when a bull "intent on its one brief hour of glorious life" got loose and turned the whole market in an uproar. So the sound of a gunshot largely went unnoticed in the pandemonium. What didn't went unnoticed is the man who had been cleaning the statue of a former Lord Shawford dropping dead between the railings and the plinth with a bullet in his head.

Inspector Charlton begins to investigate this strange shooting with all the accustomed thoroughness and plodding vigor of the British police.

They begin to gather evidence, which isn't much, trying to determine the general direction from which the bullet came or hoping to match the extracted bullet to locally issued firearm permits. A whole crowd of witnesses need to be questioned and close attention is being paid to the shopkeepers occupying the part of the square from where the shot was presumably fired. And there's the question of motive. Why shoot "an ordinary working man" who's cleaning a statue? A somewhat unusual case, but an isolated one and nothing too sensational until the murderer decides to make murder a habit.

On the following morning, the murderer kills a second man in the then deserted square and, later in the day, a third man is shot and seriously wounded while sitting in his car – only links are the bullets and opportunistic nature of the shootings. Every time the shooter pulled the trigger, it was during "the psychological moment." Like a bull rampaging overturning market stalls, a passing thunder storm or a deserted street with "no one awake but a nodding night-watchman." More shots would be fired in the town square "before the sniper's reign of terror came to an end." So the newspapers begin to screaming about the Paulsfield Sniper spreading terror in town and making veiled comments regarding the lack of progress the police has made in apprehending this homicidal maniac. Charlton remains undeterred and investigates each crime, "separately and also in relation to the others," with that same thorough and plodding vigor.

Midsummer Murder is not the first Golden Age mystery to revolve around a serial killer, but Witting certainly penned one of the earlier examples and a pretty odd one at that.

The serial killer from the pre-World War II detective novel has always been an odd, often out-of-place character compared to its modern-day counterpart. There are generally three types of serial killers in the classic detective novel: a rational murderer who uses the serial killings as a smokescreen for their through motives/objectives or a genuine homicidal maniac, which always feels out-of-place in a Golden Age mystery – a third type is a combination of the first two. So closer to the serial killers of modern crime fiction. One thing they all have in common is that they lean into the thriller-ish elements of having a serial killer present as panic spreads across the community stoked by sensational headlines blaring about the latest murder. For example, Francis Beeding's Death Walks in Eastrepp (1931) and Ellery Queen's Cat of Many Tails (1949) do this very well. However, Midsummer Murder reads like a charming, leisurely paced small-town mystery with a thick dollop of local color, quirky, but well-drawn, characters and some lighthearted humor. There are blaring headlines and the people of Paulsfield began to favor the parts of town "free, as yet, from the murderous attentions of the Sniper," but within a week "everything had returned to normal" as they began to drift back into the square. Even though the newspapers about alarm and panic, the actual description of "that 'orrible to-do in the Square" is very little more than an annoyance to the locals. Like the shopkeepers around the scene of the shootings.

Now I appreciated the calm, levelheaded approach of the police and the town to the presence of a sniper indiscriminately picking people off in the market square, but it strikes a false note. And a missed opportunity. Witting put on the local color thickly and it would have made for a great read to see a rural town, where "everything seemed so ideally peaceful" under the midsummer sun, getting paralyzed as everyone locked themselves away in their sweltering homes. But without that element of spreading fear and terror, Midsummer Murder comes across as an overwritten, drawn out novel that badly needed trimming in order to expand the ending. Midsummer Murder ends abruptly and not in a good way. Nor something that justifies taking the long way round to get there. The story begged for something better and more substantial to end on.

I don't think the story's shortcomings would have bothered me half as much had Witting not been so cute by constantly acknowledging those shortcomings with such lines as "it will be as well if local colour is not laid on too thickly at this early stage in the story" or "overstock this story with characters." Even worse is the sudden ending in combination with that closing line (ROT13), "jr xabj gung gur Qrgrpgvba Pyho, haqre gur cerfvqrapl bs Ze. R. P. Oragyrl, qb abg yvxr znq zheqreref, ohg gurer vg vf." Without those comments, I would have taken Midsummer Murder as an interesting, well-intended curio of the Golden Age serial killer novel similar to Brian Flynn's experiments in The Edge of Terror (1932) and Reverse the Charges (1943). Witting knew what the story lacked and simply didn't appear to care. Just wanting to write the story, whether it worked or not, and joking about it. I can forgive a lot from a mystery writer when they have something to show in the end, but not being cute and empty handed. So the conclusion annoyed me to no end.

That being said, I did enjoy Charlton trying to grapple with the problem of a serial killer, "these are not natural crimes," while admitting ordinary police methods can have its limits with an indiscriminate killer. And trying to anticipate in which direction the solution is headed. Other than that, the least satisfying of the Witting reprints so far. Catt Out of the Bag (1939), Subject—Murder (1945) and Let X Be the Murderer (1947) are all infinitely better detective novels. Murder in Blue (1937) is better written than plotted, but would even place that one above Midsummer Murder. Well, you get the idea. I'll try to pick something good for the next time.

Let X Be the Murderer (1947) by Clifford Witting

In 2020, Clifford Witting emerged from six decades of obscurity with a reprint of Catt Out of the Bag (1939), courtesy of Galileo Publishers, who have since reissued eight of his sixteen novels and expended their catalog of Golden Age detective fiction – adding Joan Cockin, Joan Coggin and Max Murray to their line-up. I'll get to those three, but first want to go through their Witting reprints.

Let X Be the Murderer (1947) is the seventh title in the Inspector Harry Charlton series, following the superb Subject—Murder (1945), which begins ordinarily enough for a detective story. An early morning call from to Elmsdale, "Sir Victor Warringham's place," to the Lulverton police station to report an attempted murder. Sir Victor claims that during the night a pair luminous hands tried to strangle him, but, when he jumped out the bed to turn on the light, there was "no trace of anything unusual in the room." So asks the police to come down immediately and have "this spook removed from the premises without any of the customary delays."

Inspector Charlton takes Detective-Sergeant Bert Martin to Elmsdale to hear Sir Victor's story. Instead, the two policemen find a very strange and suspicious situation full of contradictions. Lily, the maid, confirms the Sir Victor's call ("the master was nearly murdered in' is bed last night"), but the housekeeper, Mrs. Winters, tells a different story – saying her employer was simply taken ill and is not to be disturbed ("doctor diagnosed heart trouble"). Sir Victor's son-in-law, Clement Harler, takes the confidential approach and explains to Charlton that "the old boy" never was same after his wife and only daughter were killed by a flying-bomb in 1944. So every now and then, Sir Victor gets funny ideas, but assures he's quite harmless and that a specialist is coming down from London to look him over. Clement's second-wife, Gladys, had yet a different yarn to spin. In the end, they're turned away without seeing Sir Victor and it doesn't end there. Sir Victor had also summoned his lawyer, Mr. Howard, but gets told his client is not fit to see him ("he's mad, I tell you!"). Only for Mrs. Winters to intervene and telling the Harlers, "you'll not prevent me from doing everything I can to protect an honourable, trusting old gentleman from a pair of cheap confidence tricksters."

So, as they would say back in the days, the game's afoot. This all proves to be a prelude to murder and someone at the mansion gets strangled in their bed, but the victim is not the supposedly sick or mad Sir Victor. And it's obvious the murder committed by a human. Not a pair of disembodied, glowing hands.

I've seen Let X Be the Murderer being described as a homage to the Victorian-era sensation novel and the premise suggests one of those Golden Age tributes to the period. Brian Flynn's The Triple Bite (1931) and Christopher St. John Sprigg's The Six Queer Things (1937) come to mind. As others have pointed out, Let X Be the Murderer reads like a Victorian sensation novel with its long monologues and soapy transgressions driving the tangled plot and cast of characters, but the resemblance became less, and less, as the pages between the opening and closing chapters grew – as it weaved unexpected patterns into familiar designs. For example, Sir Victor's own account of the midnight attack and why the assailant should have read his book, England's Haunted Houses, is a clever and unexpected touch to the plot and overall story. While it plays on the familiar themes of the Victorian-era novel, I found the story (after a while) to stand closer to one of Francis Vivian's excellent Inspector Knollis novels like The Laughing Dog (1949) or The Singing Masons (1950).

Another comparison I've seen thrown at the book is John Dickson Carr, but the ghostly attack in Sir Victor's bedroom is not an impossible crime or even presented as one. On the contrary! Witting headed in the completely opposite direction when setting up the plot. Now if Carr had written Let X Be the Murderer, the menacing hands would have been the resident ghost terrorizing the family for generations by trying to strangle them in their beds and the murder, two disembodied hands strangling the victim, would have been observed through the keyhole of the locked and bolted bedroom door. That and I can't see Carr handing this particular murderer over the hangman.

So this is not that kind of detective or sensational novel, but an enjoyable and pleasant take on the crime fiction of a bygone era presented as one of those thoroughly competent British detective stories of the Golden Age. Charlton said it best, "the policeman plods steadily along the winding highway of cold fact" unlike "the carefree amateur sleuth" scampering "madly across the green meadows of intuition." So the inspector is not all that impress by a pair of murderous hands, Sir Victor's madness, his scheming relatives or domestic servants with agendas of their own. It cleverly undermined expectations. If there's anything to hold against Let X Be the Murderer, it's the reason why this rambling review is a bit shorter than usual as the plot leaves very little room for discussion. This time, Witting can be called stingy when it comes to clueing. A ton of misdirection and red herrings, but not much to help the reader, or the inspector, to logically piece the whole thing together. Nevertheless, even with a glut of red herrings, I think most readers, just like Charlton, will eventually get "a very shrewd idea" about the who-and why – or at least in which direction a solution can be found. So, purely as a fair play mystery, Let X Be the Murderer is not a patch on the previous Catt Out of the Bag and Subject—Murder, but, comparisons and nitpicking aside, it's a good and thoroughly enjoyable Golden Age mystery. I liked how Witting used the Victorian sensational novel to frame a 1930s-style country house mystery, of sorts, pleasantly diverting the plot from established patterns once the murder is committed. Recommended with some “buts” and nitpicking.

A note for the curious: one of the characters references a story about a boy that "hadn't any relations at all and was Alone in the World." Is this a reference to Hector Malot's Sans familie (Nobody's Boy, 1878) famously known in my country as Alleen op de wereld? For some reason, I always thought the story is virtually unknown in the English-speaking world.

Subject—Murder (1945) by Clifford Witting

Clifford Witting was a British writer of sixteen detective novels, published between 1937 and 1964, which were well received at the time ("written with refreshing vitality and humour, and can produce a neat problem and an ingenious solution"), but were seldom reprinted and went out-of-print for seventy years – driving up the price of scarce, secondhand copies. A situation that remained unchanged until Galileo Publishers reissued Catt Out of the Bag (1939) in 2020 and have since reprinted six more novels.

Murder in Blue (1937) is Witting's entertainingly written, well characterized debut marred by a clumsily-handled plot and solution, but showed prodigious improvement in his fourth novel, Catt Out of the Bag. So looked forward to the reprints of Midsummer Murder (1937), Measure for Murder (1941) and Dead on Time (1948), but decided to hold off when Galileo Publishers announced a new edition of Witting's reputed masterpiece was on the way. A supposed noteworthy entry in the World War II-era of the British Golden Age detective novel.

Subject—Murder (1945) is the sixth novel in the Inspector Harry Charlton series, but the main character and narrator this time is his assistant, Detective Constable Peter Bradfield, who waved his C.I.D. exemption as reserved occupation to enlist – realizing "soldiering was going to be different from police work." Bradfield promises that the first-half of Subject—Murder was not going to be "just another rookie's war-diary" full with military recollections, but "the opening scenes of a comedy-drama that ended in tragedy." However, the account of Bradfield's first weeks of training in a far-flung outpost of Empire (North Wales) to becoming a bombardier and pay-wallah of "XYZ" Light Anti-Aircraft Battery, R.A, can certainly be read as a rookie's war diary. I suspect the first-half will test the patience of readers who hate long preambles to murder and read a review stating, "when finally the murder occurred and the police started their investigation, it had reached a point where I couldn't care less about any of it." I, on the other hand, loved the detailed, now historical, military background as Witting carefully placed and moved the pieces around on the board that will invariably lead to murder. What a murder!

The prologue makes no mystery about the identity of the future victim, Battery Sergeant-major William George Yule, who earned his nickname, "Cruel Yule," by going further than your average army bully. Someone who liked to see others in physical pain or mental distress, "particularly if he himself had been the agent of their suffering," racked up a legitimate bodycount among the men under his control. If there was someone he felt had slighted him or simply disliked, Yule would use his power and authority a contemptible, petty and sadistically subtle revenge campaign.

A best-case scenario for Yule's victims is getting transferred to another base, but one man, "the Battery's smartest sergeant," ended up getting demoted and another man committed suicide. During the first-half, Bradfield befriended an impulsive, temperamental young man, Johnny Fieldhouse, who doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut – which painted a giant target on his back. Yule's scheming ensured Fieldhouse served nine months in the goal. I think most readers today will be galled by Yule's sadism towards animals from gloating over a mouse dying in pain to "accidentally" drowning the mess kitten, Midnight, in a pail of tea and suspected of having had a hand in the death of Captain Fitzgerald a little Cairn terrier. The death of the little terrier provides the story with a mini-puzzle, of sorts, as Yule appears to have been innocent of that specific incident, but certainly not of the others.

So when Yule reaches his final hour, "there was neither manliness nor honour, but merely the harsh, brutal justice of the Dark Ages."

One morning, Battery Sergeant-major Yule "bloody, shattered, almost unrecognizable body" in a meadow with his wrists lashed together behind his back by a leather dog-lead and "roped by his ankles to foam-flecked, wild-eyed, utterly exhausted" mare – a thistle had been thrust under the dock of her tail ("the time-worn thistle trick made certain of a sticky finish for Yule"). This murder happened when they were stationed near Lulverton. So the murder, as explained in the story, comes under the investigation of civil authorities represented by Inspector Harry Charlton and Bradfield suddenly finds himself back in his old position, but has a struggle between duty and friendship when the evidence against Fieldhouse begins to rapidly accumulate.

First of all, the murder happens very late into the story with the investigation covering roughly the last third of the novel and forming a detective novella tacked on to a war-time novel, but what an excellent novella! Subject—Murder is comparable to Christopher Bush and particularly to his home front mysteries like The Case of the Murdered Major (1941), The Case of the Kidnapped Colonel (1942) and The Case of the Fighting Soldier (1942) with an array of mutual, interdependent alibis, marital skulduggery and false-identities. Even better is that the problem of the murder comes with a small, but excellent and original, locked room mystery! The forward brake-rope of a Light Anti-Aircraft gun was used to help give Yule a horsey-ride, but the brake-rope was locked away in the gun-shed secured with a heavy padlock and the key in safe custody ("if the doors were locked and the key in good hands, how the devil could the rope have been pinched?"). Locked room mysteries concerning padlocked doors don't crop up often with the two, or three, best-known examples using a slight variation of the same trick. I expected the explanation for the theft from the gun-shed to run along a similar or identical line, but Witting came up with an entirely different and original solution how "the gun-shed could be opened without a key."

Subject—Murder is neither mentioned in Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991) nor Brian Skupin's Locked Room Murders: Supplement (2019). So had no idea the book contained a locked room-puzzle or expected one, let alone a good and original one. That was a nice surprise only adding to the overall quality and enjoyment I got out of this much deserved Golden Age reprint.

There is, however, a single caveat to the ending. I mentioned the long prelude to murder turned the investigation into a detective novella, but also had the unfortunate effect that it made the murderer's capture feel like something that needed to be over and done with quickly – which really needed more time to breath in order to do it fully justice. Something you would expect from a largely character-driven mystery that tries to get the reader to sympathize with the murderer. So the ending does not fully pack the punch it needed to be heralded as a truly long-lost Golden Age classic, but, in the end, it was nothing to the detriment of my enjoyment of this thoroughly engrossing army mystery full with well-drawn characters, romantic subplots and murder silently brooding and taking shape in the background. I would place Witting's Subject—Murder among the ten, or so, best World War II-era detective novels that comes highly recommend. Even if some will experience its first-half as a Sitzkrieg.

Murder in Blue (1937) by Clifford Witting

Clifford Witting was a British mystery writers, "a noteworthy figure from the Golden Age of English detection," who published a total of sixteen, "genuinely engrossing," detective novels from 1937 through 1964, but after he died his work tumbled into obscurity – where he languished until recently. Back in 2020, Galileo Publishers reissued Witting's slightly unconventional Christmas mystery, Catt Out of the Bag (1939), which proved to be first of many more. Galileo is right on track in bringing all of Witting's detective novels back in print. Midsummer Murder (1937), Measure for Murder (1941) and Dead on Time (1948) have already returned to print, while new editions of Subject—Murder (1945) and Let X Be the Murderer (1947) are scheduled to be published next year. The same year Catt Out of the Bag returned to print, they also reissued Witting's inaugural mystery novel.

This new reprint edition of Murder in Blue (1937) opens with a brief note from his now nearly 90-year-old daughter, Diana Cummings, who shares that her father wrote the book "while he was still commuting to London for his day job and he worked on it every evening." And how her crying in the next room probably distracted him more than once from "the very complicated business of writing a detective story." I appreciated this short, personal note and hope Witting really would have been thrilled knowing "that some 84 years later it would be reprinted amid a renewed interest in the Golden Age of Detection." I've always been curious and worried what those Golden Age writers would have thought of us basket cases obsessing over their detective stories in a space they would have viewed as pure science-fiction. Anyway, on to the story! 

Murder in Blue reads like an introduction to the series. A series that takes place in a small, fictitious town named Paulsfield, behind the South Downs, which Witting closely modeled on Petersfield in Hampshire – included "many references to the real town as it was in the mid-1930s." The opening chapter, or rather pages, introduces the reader to the narrator, John Rutherford, who runs a bookstore on Paulsfield Square and stumbles across a body while out on an evening stroll. On the Hazeloak road, Rutherford discovered the body of Police Constable Johnson, of the Downshire County Constabulary, lying on the grass. His head had been "terribly battered" by "a blunt implement" and the bicycle was lying on the opposite side of the road to the body.

A rainy, melancholic beginning that had moments early on in the story suggesting something more in line with Henry Wade's Constable, Guard Thyself (1934) than the lighthearted mystery that was promised in several reviews. Both concern the murder of a policeman and Wade has the haunting memories of the Great War hanging over his novel. That same specter briefly appears in Murder in Blue as Constable Johnson's injuries bring back those memories ("I went through four years of it... and tonight brings it all back again. The rain and darkness and death—and the mud"). On the following day, while going over the crime scene, they hear a distant explosion and take off their hats to observe the two minutes' silence the Armistice Day ceremony. But that specter quickly dissipates. Second and third chapter really set the tone for the rest of the story.

John Rutherford is in at the death with the murder being discovered on page one, but the second and third chapter take a detour to formally introduce the narrator, "the story of an ordinary chap who became involved in a murder case," which resulted in two of the most amusing and entertaining chapters in the whole book – beginning with how his bookshop came into existence. Rutherford bought an old candy story, dating back to the 1600s, on the south-eastern corner of the town square and turned it into a successful, subscription based bookstore that operated like a library. How did he manage to do that? Simply by banking on small town snobbery and charged "an exorbitant rate of subscription," because "the average provincial lady will willingly pay "through the nose" provided that she is certain that other people notice her doing it." Somehow, it worked. The third chapter introduces Rutherford's 19-year-old shop assistant, George Stubbings, who's "an expert on detective fiction" and managed somehow to keep pace with the stock of detective-and thriller novels. So he can discuss the books with his boss and customers ("This'll go well, sir. The man knows his job. He doesn't try to thrill you with mechanical devices"). A great character and couldn't agree more with John Norris that "whenever George sets foot on the scene the book gets a welcome humorous lift."

So, of course, George is as excited to be so close to a local murder mystery as he's that Rutherford, sort of, aids Witting's series-detective, Inspector Harry Charlton. The problem they face can be summed as follow: was Johnson murdered because he was a policeman or a Lothario who played with fire? A problem further complicated by swapped bicycles ("bicycles seem to be playing quite a big part in this case"), a police constables uniform and Johnson's mysterious companion who was seen dressed in a constable's cape and cap.

Regrettably, the solution betrays the unpracticed hand of the first-time detective novelist. It feels like Witting arbitrarily selected the murderer from the cast of characters, tacked on a motive and produced a vital clue out of thin air that destroyed the murderer's alibi. There's has been no ghost of a hint in the book to either the motive or vital clue, which soured what otherwise would have been a first-rate detective novel. However, I suspect Witting had two alternate solutions in mind that got ditched because he had grown fond of the character. You see there were some clues and hints pointing at George. Firstly, Witting never explained why the dog who saved Rutherford backed away from George with "his ears down and a let's-get-out-of-here look about him." Secondly, Rutherford spotted Charlton pocketing "a scrap of pink-coloured paper" at the crime scene and under certain lighting, or conditions, orange can appear (in a split second) to be pink or pink-ish in color. The books in Rutherford's store all have striking, orange-colored in-store dust-jackets on which the name of the store is printed in big, bold letters ("VOSLIVRES"). It could have been intended as a torn piece from a dust-jacket that appeared to be pink as it disappeared in a flash into the inspector's pocket. And, if it was, it suggests the murderer is linked to the story as either a customer or employee. Thirdly, Charlton half-mockingly calls the murderer a craftsman who simply couldn't quietly fade away, "that was far too primitive," but had to leave "a selection of clearly marked trails" calculated to lead them in "a dozen wrong directions" – even sending a "confounded bit of doggerel" ("Murder in blue, Murder in blue. Once there was one, soon there'll be two'). This is more in line with George than the person who eventually revealed as the murderer.

So it would not surprise me George was originally intended as the murderer and him getting married by the end could have provided him with a motive, but Witting couldn't bring himself to hand George over to the hangman or have him killed off. The second death strongly hints at another possible solution (ROT13: Gur Oveyfgbar Tnzovg), which would have been a little on the obvious side, but the method is absolutely ingenious! Witting should have used that method to write a case-of-the-constant-suicides type of detective novel in which perfectly happy, non-suicidal people keep walking head-first into oncoming trains. 

Murder in Blue is an entertainingly written, but clumsily-plotted, debut from a mystery writer who (to quote Barzun & Taylor) "started feebly, improved to a point of high competence and has since shown a marked capacity for character and situation" as shown in Catt Out of the Bag. I can only recommend Murder in Blue as a well-written, wittily characterized introduction to a short-lived series with a dash romance, dangerous situations and plenty of humor. Just a shame the plot didn't held up in the end, but you have to make some allowances for a mystery writer's first stab at the genre. Witting already demonstrated he would go on the improve tremendously on his plots. I'm definitely going to dip into Midsummer Murder or Dead on Time as I eagerly await the republication of Witting's reputed masterpiece, Subject—Murder.

Catt Out of the Bag (1939) by Clifford Witting

Clifford Witting was an English mystery novelist who, somewhat irregularly, wrote sixteen detective novels, published between 1937 and 1964, which have since fallen into obscurity and even most crime fiction reference guides tend to overlook or barely mention him – until recently only a few knowledgeable fans have reviewed Witting online. Nick Fuller commented that Witting is an engrossing writer with "the genuine whodunit pull" and Curt Evans said his novel "typically offers interesting situations, appealing local color and some fine wit." More recently, John Norris and Kate have reviewed a bunch of his novels (here and here). 

Nevertheless, Witting remained in total obscurity and one of the better-known unknown Golden Age writers who didn't make his way back into print during the current Renaissance Age of reprints, which began in the early 2000s. This suddenly changed last year when Galileo Publishers reissued Witting's Catt Out of the Bag (1939). I believe it's the first time one of Witting's mysteries has appeared in print since the sixties! 

Catt Out of the Bag takes place in the small town of Paulsfield during the last weeks of December, 1939, which makes it a seasonal mystery, but the Christmas celebration is used only as a framing device.

John Rutherford is the story's narrator and his wife, Molly, reluctantly accepted an invitation to spend Christmas with family friend, Sybil de Frayne, who's mixed up in every Paulfield social activity and notorious for her never tiring "efforts to involve her friends in the forwarding of her dear expedients" – whose sense of charity began next door. She puts the Rutherfords to good work with the main event being the annual carol-singing in aid of the Cottage Hospital. A round of colds depleted the ranks of the Choral Society and Rutherford has to go out on a dripping wit, misty evening to make "the necessary noise at road junctions and other points of vantage." One of the towns people, Tom Vavasour, has to dart up and down the side streets with the collection box, but they lost him somewhere in One O'Clock Lane.

Vavasour had vanished without a trace and Rutherford decided to turn amateur detective together with another house guest of the De Fraynes, Raymond Cloud-Gledhill.

I've to stop here to mention two things. Firstly, Catt Out of the Bag is listed in Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991) as a disappearance from carol-singing party, but, to use Adey's own words, "the impossible crime element is elusory." So don't expect anything in the way of a genuine impossible crime story. Secondly, despite the presence of a pair of self-styled amateur detective, Catt Out of the Bag unmistakably belongs to the Realist School of R. Austin Freeman and Freeman Wills Crofts. 

Just like Crofts, Witting is not exactly showy with his story, or plot, which looks on paper as an unexciting and pretty mundane detective story. Something he perfectly encapsulated in this line, "a sordid chase for a cheating scoundrel who's pilfered a pound of two from a collection-box." Inspector Harry Charlton can't even enter the case until Vavasour has officially been reported missing. So hardly the premise for a classic, complicated Golden Age detective novel, but the quiet, competent detective work (amateur and police) reveals that the plot is constructed around a staple of the Realist School. The breakdown of identity.

Vavasour was a man with no background, who "appeared from nowhere," and left the side of his wife for "weeks at a time to go commercial travelling," but he turns out to have been a man of many names and peeling away these layers of false-identities was the highlight of the plot – as was the impact of these revelations. I also cracked a smile when Vavasour's real name was revealed (minor spoiler, ROT13: Gubznf "Gbz" Pngg). But this is all I can say without giving away too much. It's one of those books best read without knowing too much beyond the premise.

Witting almost went out of his way with Catt Out of the Bag not to stand out too much, but if you like the fairly clued, solidly plotted and unassumingly competent detective novels of Crofts and John Rhode, it's very much worth your attention. And the lighthearted, witty tone of the story makes it everything but a humdrum novel. Recommended for your 2021 December reading list.