From the Vault: "The Four Just Men"

I have said here - frequently - that I'm not much of a fan of today's thrillers. That's not meant as a putdown of those thrillers or of readers who enjoy them - they're just not where my own tastes lead me. I do admit something of a weakness for classic thrillers, particularly those from around the Golden Age - thrillers of the sort that writers such as Edgar Wallace churned out with astonishing frequency. Perhaps the quintessential Wallace thriller was his first: The Four Just Men. On the podcast a decade ago, I spelled out some of the things I enjoyed about that book and the others like it:

 - 0 -

During the early years of the 20^th Century, Edgar Wallace was one of the most prolific and most popular mystery authors. The author of 175 novels – and a wide variety of other plays and stories as well, Wallace is remembered today mostly as the man who wrote the first draft of the screenplay for the original King Kong, completed shortly before his death in 1932. But there was a great deal more to Edgar Wallace than that biography of a giant ape. Today, we’ll look at the novel that really began his career – The Four Just Men.

How popular was Edgar Wallace? Wikipedia cites Wallace’s publisher in the 1920s, who said that Wallace was the author of one quarter of all books read in England. As an author, Wallace was able to churn out books at a tremendous speed. Many of them were pretty much written to formula – usually, in his detective stories, there was a young woman in trouble, a man regarded as a sinister character who would turn out to be the true hero, and always a truly evil and memorable villain. Wallace wrote very few series about individual characters, though he did create the very popular Inspector J. G. Reeder. But the most enduring of his early creations, surely, were the Four Just Men.

Actually, there were only three just men – the fourth was added for the very first thriller novel that Wallace ever wrote. The Four Just Men certainly marks the origin of the modern thriller novel. It is about a group of men who – not to put too fine a point on it – carry out vigilante murders in the name of justice, killing criminals who cannot be touched by the law.

Certainly in this first novel, the men are working outside the law: they threaten the life of Britain’s Foreign Minister if he insists on pushing a particular law through Parliament that would force Britain to send certain exiles back to a sure death in their native lands. While the foreign minister is set up as a fairly sympathetic character, there is never any question in Wallace’s mind – or the reader’s – that the Four Just Men are justified in their position and in their willingness to use violence to achieve their end. The novel, then, is set up as a thriller: will the four be able to carry out their well-advertised plan, or will the minister relent. For the four make it very clear that they regard the murder of the minister as a last resort, referring to him as an otherwise honorable man.

And so we are treated to a cat-and-mouse game of international intrigue, with very high stakes on both sides. The minister honestly believes his bill is necessary because Britain has made promises to some of its international allies; the Four just Men believe just as honestly that the bill is an invitation to chaos and murder and that only they can prevent its passage.

Throughout, they justify their actions in terms which – in today’s age of terrorist killings and intrigues – could horrify. For example, the leader of the group – an Englishman named Manfred – explains their position this way, to the fourth man who has been recruited for this job because of his special talents – not revealed or explained until the end of the book. Manfred says:

"You kill for benefit; we kill for justice, which lifts us out of the ruck of professional slayers. When we see an unjust man oppressing his fellows; when we see an evil thing done against the good God" – Thery crossed himself – "and against man – and know that by the laws of man this evildoer may escape punishment – we punish."

In fairness to Wallace, his characters are not merely cardboard cutouts – at least not in The Four Just Men. He makes his potential victim, the Foreign Minister, very human and quite fairly states his position, explaining why he will not withdraw the bill in question, thus saving his own life:

"I have gone too far," he went on, raising his hand to check Falmouth’s appeal. "I have got beyond fear. I have even got beyond resentment; it is now to me a question of justice. Am I right in introducing a law that will remove from this country colonies of dangerously intelligent criminals, who, whilst enjoying immunity from arrest, urge ignorant men forward to commit acts of violence and treason? If I am right, the Four Just Men are wrong. Or are they right: is this measure an unjust thing, an act of tyranny, a piece of barbarism dropped into the very centre of twentieth-century thought, an anachronism? If these men are right, then I am wrong. So it has come to this, that I have to satisfy my mind as to the standard of right and wrong that I must accept – and I accept my own."

Now remember, that is spoken by someone placed by the author in the position of being a potential target. If our sympathies are intended to be with the Four Just Men – and they are – then that passage, among many others, reminds us of the human cost and principles behind the battle.

Most of the novel, of course, deals with the efforts by police to keep the murder from taking place – and on the preparations made by the Four Just Men to carry out their crime. Can they do it? Well, the novel is readily available – still in print and still read, more than a century after its initial publication. So I invite you to find the answer for yourself – and, in the process, to enjoy this very early thriller, The Four Just Men, by Edgar Wallace, with fascinating characters and ingenious plot twists.

- 0 -

To listen to the original podcast, please click here.

The Four Just Men, long out of copyright and even online in free editions, is now available in both paper and electronic editions which also include the other novels and stories which Wallace wrote about the Just Men, often with added notation. They're all pretty enjoyable (and the Just Men even wind up on the side of the authorities in later books). Details here from Amazon.com.

Next week: A Clutch of Constables, by Ngaio Marsh.

Comments

[Ronald Smyth]

I have read quite a lot of Edgar Wallace over the years, including the Just Men series. Most recently I finished The Black Abbott, but I cannot say that I am in agreement with you as regards thrillers. While I have a definite preference for Golden Age mysteries, when it comes to thrillers my preference is very much for those from the modern age. I find the older ones tend to be lacking in actual thrills since the stakes usually seem to be lower and the villains not sufficiently facinorous. (A lovely word that I picked up from a Brian Flynn mystery.)

[Les Blatt]

Well I have to admit you sent me to the dictionary for "facinorous." Note: duly added to vocabulary. Nero Wolfe would have been well-advised to call Arnold Zeck "facinorous."

Seriously, there's nothing wrong with differing in our thriller tastes - I always explain that my own preferences are just that - my own preferences. And there's something to be said for preferring books by current authors, thereby keeping the supply of fresh mysteries available for all of us!