Exit Screaming - Christopher Hale

THE STORY:  It's 3:00 AM in Avondale, Michigan and Jill Trent has been awakened by a bloodcurdling scream followed by the sound of four gun shots. Against her better judgment she goes outside to investigate and meets up with her neighbors Gene Ramsay and Mr & Mrs Truax.  They find blood on the cement terrace of the home belonging to Mrs. Warner.  But there is no sign of any person anywhere near these bloodstains.  Two more pools of blood are found near a barn.  And inside a feed barrel covered with glass bottles they find the body of Mrs. Warner.  Soon Sheriff Perry Simmons, ill equipped to handle a murder investigation and too busy with some cattle thieves, is forced to call in help from the Michigan State Police. Lt. Bill French shows up in his Rolls Royce coupe dressed in smartly tailored clothes and gets to serious work very quickly. Before the killer is revealed there will be an attack on a dog, an escaped cottonmouth snake, a missing chauffeur, numerous rifles as possible murder weapons, several phony identities and two more murders.

THE CHARACTERS: The action of Exit Screaming (1942) is mostly confined to Avondale, a small town mixing wealthy Michiganders with cattle farmers and country folk. The primary characters consist of:

Jill Trent - our intrepid heroine with a violent secret in her past. She seems like she might have tiptoed out of a Mignon Eberhart "woman in peril" mystery novel because she is always at the mercy of insane dangers. She survives several shooting attempts and the attack from the escaped venomous snake mentioned above. Though she may have a bandaged head wound for most of the book she proves to be not only intrepid but pretty damn smart unlike the often foolhardy heroines found in neo-HIBK novels.

Gene Ramsay - the requisite dark and handsome man with a mysterious past. No one really knows what he is doing in the cottage on the grounds of Mrs. Warner's estate. Rumor has it he's writing a book. Others claim he is a doctor who gave up his profession. But Gene isn't revealing what he does for a living or what he's settled in Avondale. He does have a rifle that matches the caliber of the bullets found in Mrs. Warner's body and that makes him Suspect # 1 in the eyes of Sheriff Simmons. Jill wavers in and out of suspecting him. Gene proves to be her savior on more than one occasion. Can he possible have murdered his landlady? And if so, why?

Randolph & Ivabell Truax - Mrs. Truax is more of a bogey character as far as I'm concerned and appears in only two scenes. Let's just skip over her. It's Mr. Truax who is of interest. A lawyer, another rifle owner and innately suspicious of Mrs. Warner, her mother Mrs. Lynch and the shifty chauffeur he seems to know too much about medicine to be a real professional driver.  Lt. French thinks Mr. Truax has too much of a lawyer's mind, but spurred by TRuax's seemingly outrageous ideas begins to dig into Mrs. Warner's past and uncovers some intriguing details. Notably that her mother died more than 30 years ago. Then who is the elderly woman living in the house?  Mrs. Warner claimed that Mrs. Lynch was her mother.  And what happened to Mrs. Lynch? No one can be found inside the Warner house since the night of the gun shots, the scream and Mrs. Warner's murder.

Minnie MacDuff - What would one of these mystery novels be without the garrulous, foolish town gossip. Minnie fills this role extremely well. A dress designer and seamstress by profession she makes it a habit of visiting her customers in their homes for frequent dress fittings and alterations. A convenience for her customers but also an opportunity for Minnie to pick up free lunches and snacks at tea time while dishing the dirt about everyone in Avondale and the surrounding area.  Her thirst for info on everyone makes her a target...or is that just a clever ploy?  I was sure she was involved in something. Hale paints Minnie as such a scatterbrain I was convinced this was a cover for a shrewd and devious women with revenge in her blood.

Mark Macduff - Minnie's invalid brother who is also a ham radio enthusiast constantly broadcasting from his bedroom. Minnie is overprotective of her brother. Anyone who reads mystery novels ought to be immediately suspicious of an invalid.  When Gene and Jill find mud-stained shoes in Mark's closet and burrs on his trousers it seems to indicate that Mark is shamming his inability to walk.

There are also a variety of dimwitted gossipy servants who supply Hale with an unfortunate opportunity to make fun of "stupid farm girls" but also an intriguing way to reveal the small-minded prejudices of privileged wealthy "upper class" types who make up the majority of the characters. I felt sorry for the Lamb women, Jennie and her niece Alma, the butt of insults and jokes, but who also are rather observant and catch things that their snobby employers dismiss as irrelevant.

ATMOSPHERE: Hale does a good job of setting a scene of a sinister countryside in the town of Avondale.  Though the residents think of it as quiet farm country where the wealthy can escape their past and start life anew, from the very first page violence intrudes and never leaves. Mrs. Warner turns out to have alternate life and identity and her chauffeur, as suspected by Mr Truax, turns out not to be a chauffeur at all.  The story is replete with violent attacks. Rifle shots going off constantly. Jill and Gene are shot at many times , windows are shattered on an almost nightly basis, and even a birdhouse becomes a symbol for criminal activity.  For a book set in the WW2 era this story resonates with our 21st century world of constant gunfire and random acts of violence. 

QUOTES:  Hale has a wry sense of humor and often she can dish out some acerbic wit. Here's a single sentence summing up the bigoted, not too smart, deputy who helps Sheriff Simmons: 

Verne Hoskins' well-weathered face looked as if he had been expecting the worst for years and hadn't been disappointed.

When French accuses Gene Ramsay of not being trustworthy because he has both lied and withheld vital information, Gene retorts: 

"But, damn it all, I'm not guilty of anything but being an ass, and they aren't arresting people for that yet or the jails would be full."

THINGS I LEARNED:  During one of Minnie's  gluttonous visits while she is chowing down on more free food she spills gravy on her silk dress.  She says, "Dear me, best silk, too. Guess I ought to try a little Energine..." I figured this was some type of detergent.  Actually Energine was a dry cleaning fluid made with naphtha, highly flammable, that was apparently in many homes. It was still being made as late at the early 1960s much to my surprise. The popularity of commercial dry cleaning operations that became all the rage in the 1970s eventually replaced the need for private individuals taking care of their stained clothing. In looking for photographs of this defunct product I was a bit horrified to learn that vintage bottles (some still full!) are being sold on eBay. Bizarre!

At the start of Chapter 17 Jill is served some coffee and ginger flavored cookies by one of the young policeman. She refuses the coffee but samples the cookies while waiting for French to question her.  Hale writes: "Jill went on nibbling at the gingery cooky. It was rectangular, with MARY ANN stamped on it. She felt she'd never again taste ginger without thinking of this moment."  I wanted to know if these were also real, but all attempts at internet searching for "Mary Ann Ginger Snaps" yielded absolutely nothing. I know that Lorna Doone shortbread cookies are still made with the name stamped on them. That's a very old cookie, kids! Introduced in 1912, the same year as Oreos, another cookie with the brand name stamped on it. I figured if a Mary Ann ginger snap existed it must've been from Nabisco, the company that sells both Oreos and Lorna Doones. Sadly, I failed to find anything about a ginger snap with ANY name stamped on them. Ah, well. Anyone out there have any clue?

EASY TO FIND?  Only a few of Hale's books were reprinted in cheap editions outside of the original Doubleday Doran "Crime Club" hardcover.  Exit Screaming was one of them. Alas, both hardcover and paperback digest (see photo above at right) are difficult to find these days. I located three copies out there for sale at various online bookselling sites. Hurry if you want one. 

FFB: Stormy Night - Christopher Hale

THE STORY: It was a dark and stormy night… Isn’t it always at some point in a crime novel? During this particular storm in upstate Michigan Dr. Lawrence Shuler is desperate to find his sister who went wandering off into the night. Problem is his sister is severely disturbed. A neurotic who shuns all socializing, avoids any people if she can, Florence is known for taking solitary walks on her own but she always returns home well before dark. Dr. Shuler gets the unwanted assistance of Ann York who insists on helping him look for the woman. Together they find poor Florence dead at the edge of the swimming pool on the property of wealthy Curtis Graham. But only a few feet away Graham is also found dead. Both have been shot, apparently by each other. Ballistic studies prove the gun near Florence fired the bullet in Graham’s body and the gun by the man’s body matches the bullet in Florence. But there is a very peculiar find when State Trooper Bill French has the state medical examiner do a thorough autopsy. Two bullets turn up in the single bullet wound in Florence’s body! That’s only the beginning of multiple mysteries in this baffling and complex tale.

THE CHARACTERS: This is the debut of Bill French, Hale's series character who appears in almost all of her mystery novels. French shows up early in this story and has to sort out the mess started by the incompetent Sheriff Ben Harper who decides to conduct the inquest rather than letting the equally inept coroner do the job. Harper tries to turn the inquest into a theatrical grandstanding opportunity calling witnesses out of traditional order to heighten the drama and reveal secrets and probe into private lives. Most of what he does is utterly irrelevant. In one of the best scenes in this section Harper is called out for his protracted questioning of witnesses by the foreman of the inquest’s jury. The foreman expected the event to be over in a couple of hours and needs to get back to running his business. He berates the sheriff for not getting to the point. Eventually Harper blows the whole thing when his attempt at dramatic tactics fail and he has to call for an adjournment. French who has watched the entire inquest from a corner in the back of the hall took copious notes, smiling to himself and drawing attention from most of the women. French, you see, is startlingly handsome, dresses like a movie star in attractive tailor made suits, and drives a Rolls Royce. He’s hardly your average lieutenant with the Michigan State Police. Or any state police for that matter.

As soon as French takes over, the double murder of Florence and Curtis Graham starts to be treated with seriousness. He tries his best to find the connection between the two people and uncovers one unexpected fact after another. Among the many suspects he must question and odd incidents he must take into considerations are:

Mathilde York – Ann’s imperious aunt with a habit of spying on neighbors with her binoculars form her bedroom where she spends most of her invalid life.

Amelia Winslow – Aunt Mathilde’s taciturn secretary/companion with a “mellifluous voice” and officious manner. She watches everything and everyone silently and always seem a bit too eager to carry out the old woman’s every whim.

Walter & Dorothy Preston – The York’s neighbors who on the night of the murders suffered severe food poisoning leaving them both bedridden and ill for most of the night

Gordon & Kitty Cuthbert – country club friends of the Grahams who are known to be spongers and loafers. They’ve been invited to stay with the Grahams after losing their house for non-payment of rent. Gordon was coincidentally present on the grounds when Ann and Dr Shuler found the two corpses making him suspect number one in Ann’s eyes. But what would be his motive?

Maria Graham – Curtis’ neurotic wife. With her weak heart she manipulates everyone in the house to get what she needs and throw tantrums when she doesn’t want to talk to police. Heavily protected by Vera, her mannish nurse with the “unusually deep voice”

Jimmy Haverford – Another ridiculously handsome man in the tale. He’s in his late 20s, rumors circulate of his working in Hollywood movie business. He has every woman in town wrapped around his finger. He uses his good looks and easy-going charm to exploit most of the women and a few men.

Nicholas Post – Wannabe private investigator who brags about working for Graham on a secret project. Keeps dropping hints that he knows exactly who killed Florence and his former employer and more importantly knows why. Says the motive will astound and shock everyone. "Just wait and see!" is his mantra.

Lola – the Preston’s maid whose difficulty in getting some towels cleaned properly leads to her firing., Did she accidentally find out something she shouldn’t have while doing the laundry?

The mysterious man in the trench coat and fedora – overheard talking to Curtis Graham the night he was killed and seen walking around the grounds by some servants just before the bodies were found.

Click to enlarge this map of Riverdale, Michigan

 As the investigation continues two more deaths occur making the connection between Florence and Curtis even more clouded. One of those victims is introduced late in the book, materializing rather conveniently out of Florence's past, has a brief scene where he is questioned by French only to turn up dead four of five pages later. Hale has overloaded the story with gripping incidents at the expense of cohesion. The plot is perhaps much more complicated than need be. An abundance of red herrings are cleverly laid out to distract the reader from a rather obvious culprit. Only the motive is too obscure to uncover on one’s own until French supplies us with the killer’s reasoning. Too much emphasis on melodrama in the first half, some outrageous coincidences (Florence and Mrs. Graham worked as chorus girls together many years ago and a photograph turns up in which they look like twins), and some dipping into the trunk of hoary old clichés make this outing with French less than satisfying. But it’s never boring. On the contrary, despite its flaws I thought it highly entertaining and often very funny.

INNOVATIONS: I liked the contrast between an inept sheriff and the methodical State Police, an organization Hale goes to great lengths to extol. The personal motives of elected officials like the coroner and sheriff, two men not so much concerned with the legalities of their job as how they are perceived in town, are satirized as rural narrow-mindedness and self-interest. At one point a Michigan law is discussed that states all cases of violent death outside the cities must be reported at once by the local sheriff to the State Homicide Bureau. Walter Preston then elaborates that if the sheriff “isn’t well on the way to solution forty-eight hours after the death has occurred, he’s supposed to request the state to take charge.” Ann bemoans this as a “silly law” and wishes Harper hadn’t the chance to “mess it up” for nearly two days. She is fearful he will “ruin all the clues.” And he nearly does. French steps in just in time when Harper embarrasses himself at the inquest.

Enlargement of compass on the map
Poison bottles and pistols!

 

The two bullets in a single wound was a touch I’ve rarely encountered in detective fiction, or any crime fiction for that matter. It’s another way that Hale gets to show the ineptitude of rural elected officials. The local coroner couldn’t be bothered to do a thorough autopsy. Only the state medical examiner found the second bullet (the one fired first and embedded deeper in the wound) which was the actual cause of Florence’s death. To the surprise of all ballistics proves it did not come from Graham's gun.

One of the most fascinating bits doesn’t come until the finale when French recreates a rather confusing gizmo. It’s a way in which the murderer managed to create the illusion of being inside when in fact was outside killing the two victims. The gizmo reminded me of the kind of intricately designed machinery that John Rhode employed as bizarre murder means. This however, was supposedly a simple clockwork device to provide an alibi. An ingenious idea as it is presented in the context of the story, too glibly explained and almost dismissed by French. I’m not so sure if its actual function could be pulled off in real life.

QUOTES:   Mrs. Cuthbert looked very attractive in molded curls and a flowered chiffon frock. She faced him with the bland confidence of the accomplished liar and when her voice came out it was like thick golden honey pouring plausibility over everything she said.

By the fire, in a chintz-covered chair, in an eddy of lavender silk and Mechlin lace, sat [Mathilde York]. She looked as if she had been drawn by Arthur Rackham from her beaky nose to her brilliant eyes. Distributed about her person with the main idea of getting the most on, was a quantity of out-of-date diamond jewelry.

As Bill mounted the steps he glanced at Miss Winslow. The light striking across her glasses hid her eyes, but her mouth was rigidly curved upward. Her smooth brow was serene. Bill wondered why, as he followed her, he had the same sensation as when he watched men balancing in chairs on the parapets of high buildings.

French: “Well, why was Graham being blackmailed? What had he done?”
Post: “I have no idea. [Graham] refused to discuss it with me.”
Bill's opinion of Curtis Graham moved up a notch.

Post: “Have you discovered that Graham was married before?”
French: “Is that so? Are you positive of that?”
“Yes. Well… that is… I deduced it.”
Bill knew by this time that in Nicholas Post’s mind "deduce" was a synonym for "guess," but he made no objections.

I’m on a roll with Christopher Hale -- a great discovery of a writer.  I’m sort of angry with myself for not having read these books earlier. I had at least three Hale mysteries sitting in boxes for years and only just started digging into them. Aptly I chose those with the titles that reflected the bad weather we've been experiencing here in Chicago. I’m sure I’ll find a few more books in her total output that will live up to what she delivered in the very good Dead of Winter.

FFB: Dead of Winter - Christopher Hale

One day last week I was literally snowbound and decided to dig into my various winter themed murder mysteries which led me to Dead of Winter (1941) by Christopher Hale. Initially, I had set aside a small pile of Hale mysteries for a post on the series character Lt. Bill French for my ongoing "Neglected Detectives" blog feature. However, this introduction to Hale (yes, it’s the first book I’ve ever read by “him’) and French was such a winner that I had to highlight the book in a solo post.

THE STORY:  A ski party turns deadly when a monstrous blizzard —98” according to a radio emergency weather report!—leaves a group of Michigan friends stranded in the home of Mrs. Enid Beauregard while a killer targets the guests.

THE CHARACTERS:  Brett Collins is our narrator who introduces us to the various guests who include her fiancé Hadley, itching to get a loan of $10,000 from anyone who will listen to him; Homer Bence, a 62 year-old plumbing salesman and former business partner of Enid’s ex-husband; jovial boyish Norman Prescott and his oddly aloof girlfriend Judy; Rhoda Norwood, a flighty blond known for her award-winning golfing skill and almost equal skiing talent; and Capt. Toby Woodward, Hadley’s rich uncle who spends much of his time chasing women. Brett is his latest would-be conquest. In fact, he daringly proposes marriage to her practically in front of Hadley. Rhoda is not happy about that, however, for she is in love with Toby. This sets up a houseful of volatile emotions, passionate tempers and money grubbing relatives. Toby has murder victim written all over him from the moment he appears and it’s not long before he fears for his life.

He claims that his bedside glass of water had been poisoned. He demands someone give him a container so he can pour in a sample of the tainted water and head out into the storm to the police station so that it can be tested. He’s already sampled the water and it tastes oddly bitter. Homer also tastes the water and says it has definitely been spiked with something. With that second opinion out in the open Toby storms up to his room promising to suit up for the blizzard and trek the four miles to town on his snowshoes. After an entire days passes and Toby does not return everyone is afraid something horrible has happened.

Hadley goes snooping in Toby’s bedroom when his uncle does not return. He find his wallet now empty of its original $500. Beneath the bed Hadley finds the container with the poisoned water as well as a tray holding his uncle’s dental bridge. How could Capt. Woodward have left the house without any of those things? To leave behind the poison sample is the most alarming as that was his reason for leaving the house in the first place. Hadley confides in Brett and suspects that someone has killed Toby. But where is the body?

When the police finally show up landing in a seaplane on the semi-frozen lake nearby and do a thorough search of the area Captain Woodward’s body is found frozen solid in a ravine. Was it an accident? Did he lose his way in the storm? Lose his balance perhaps and fall? Or was he sent toppling to his death? Evidence proves he was killed his face his smashed in as if he fell or was shoved in to the ground and yet the body was found face up in the snow. Lt. Bill French implies that Woodward’s body was moved from the original spot where he died. French has several theories and is leaning towards murder, but he tells everyone they will have to wait for autopsy results to learn if Toby was drugged or poisoned.

INNOVATIONS:  The story is filled with all sorts of nifty bits – a curious cat turns up dead in someone’s bedroom; someone is nearly killed by a tree felled for firewood; someone monkeying around with poison bottles and chloroform; and a second murder is pulled off in a locked and almost sealed room. Only the window is open and yet there are no footprints beneath the snow-covered ground below. How did the murderer get out of the room? Forgery, stolen objects, and bigamy also feature in the plot. Everyone, of course, has a well-guarded secret, most of all the murderer.

INFLUENCES: The more I sampled of Dead of Winter the more I got strong flavor accents of Mignon Eberhart. Hale manages to create a creepy atmosphere and a well maintained sense of paranoia and claustrophobia both aspects that permeate most of Eberhart’s murder mysteries. Like Dead of Winter Eberhart’s mysteries also tend to feature small groups of suspects in isolated environments. Having a woman protagonist who filters all the characters personalities through her viewpoint also had a heavy Eberhart vibe. Additionally, the narrative mirrors Eberhart’s favorite ploy of making the female narrator’s love interest the primary suspect, a fictional convention Eberhart pioneered and so often imitated throughout the 1930s and early 1940s by mostly women writers who saw Eberhart as the idol of the American mystery novel that it became a formulaic trope for decades after and continues to this day. Hale does a brilliant job of shifting blame and suspicion among her characters but laying it thick on Hadley. For a while it seems that no one else could possibly be the killer. Then we have two other possibilities with stronger motives and opportunity. Finally, in a last minute twist Hale pulls out her wild card and slaps it on the table. I was truly surprised in the ingeniously done finale.

Frances Ross Stevens
aka "Christopher Hale"

THE AUTHOR:  There is not much about Christopher Hale on the internet, primarily because it is a pseudonym. Once I started hunting under the writer’s real name I hit some gold. In the December 14, 1947 issue of Detroit Free Press I found the obituary of Frances Ross Stevens (1895 – 1947), the true identity behind the pen name of “Christopher Hale.” Over on the left is the photo that accompanied the obituary -- perhaps the only photo of Stevens in the whole of the internet. Note that the date of her death has been inaccurately reported all over the internet, she died one year earlier than 1948.

Stevens appeared to be married based on her name, but nothing was mentioned about her husband who she either divorced or who predeceased her. Stevens grew up in Michigan, the setting for most of her mystery novels, and had two brothers and one sister, Margaret, who was also a writer. She died at the home of her brother William Ross in the well-to-do Detroit suburb of Royal Oak, Michigan where apparently her other siblings also lived. According to Ellen Nehr's research in Crime Club Compendium Stevens worked as an advertising copywriter in Cincinnati and Detroit prior to moving to Grand Rapids, Michigan and becoming a full time novelist. With the exception of her first book, Smoke Screen (1935), all her mystery novels were published by the esteemed “Crime Club” imprint of Doubleday Doran. Her mysteries were regularly reviewed in Kirkus Reviews, The Saturday Review and the New York Times with consistently favorable write-ups that called attention to her clever plotting, engaging characters and often humorous dialogue.

Lt. Bill French Detective Novels 
Stormy Night (1937)
Murder on Display (1939)
Witch Wood (1940)
Dead of Winter (1941)
Exit Screaming (1942)
Murder in Tow (1943)
Hangman's Tie (1943)
Midsummer Nightmare (1945)
Rumor Hath It (1945)
Deadly Ditto (1948)
He's Late This Morning (1949)
Going, Going, Gone (1950) - published only in the UK
 (NOTE: This is not a UK title of a previously published US title. You'll find this claim on various websites and it's wrong.)