From the Vault: "The Judas Window"

If you are a fan of the impossible crime or locked room story, as I am, then you are probably familiar with the name of John Dickson Carr (who also wrote as "Carter Dickson"). If you are a fan of the impossible crime or locked room story and you are not familiar with the name of John Dickson Carr, then it's time you read at least one of his best books. I'm sure there are good reasons why Carr - so far - has not been widely reprinted by publishers who have been bringing back so many fine Golden Age authors, but I do not know what those reasons are. I do hear, from time to time, rumblings about plans to make some of his books available - and I've found that one of his best is available currently as an e-book. So while we wait for the day when we can again find affordable paper editions of some of Carr's other fine books, here's my review from the Classic Mysteries vault of The Judas Window, originally published in 1938 as being by Carter Dickson and featuring the irascible Sir Henry Merrivale as its detective. As usual, the text of my review has been slightly tweaked:

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How’s this for a nightmare situation: you wake up, aware that you have been drugged, to find yourself alone in a room with a dead man. He appears to have been stabbed with an arrow that had been hanging on the wall. The window is securely shuttered and locked. The door is locked and bolted on the inside. There is no way in or out of the room – and there is nobody else in the room. And someone is knocking on the door. That’s the situation in The Judas Window, by Carter Dickson – the pen name of John Dickson Carr.

John Dickson Carr was, and remains, the acknowledged master of the locked room mystery. As Carter Dickson, he wrote a series of impossible crime novels featuring his detective, Sir Henry Merrivale, H. M. as his friends call him. In The Judas Window, Sir Henry winds up in the role of defense lawyer in court, defending the young man I described a moment ago, who is, of course, accused of the murder.

Let’s recap: James Answell, the young man in question, has been called to the house of his fiancee’s father – a man he has never met. The two enter a room. The father begins – in Answell’s eyes, at least – to act strangely, and appears to be picking a fight. But then Answell passes out. When he wakes, perhaps 20 minutes later, he finds the scene as I described it a moment ago. His future father-in-law has been murdered inside a locked room, with no way in or out. Witnesses, who overheard the start of an argument between the two men, are able to testify that nobody has entered or left the room. The whiskey decanter which Answell says contained the drugged liquor is full (and there are no drugs in it) and the glasses are clean, and a doctor called to the scene says he can see no signs that Answell was drugged.

There is, in short, nothing to believe except that Answell has committed the murder, having quarreled with his fiancee’s father. He is arrested, charged with the murder, and his trial takes place in that great court of London known as the Old Bailey.

But Answell does have one thing going for him: Sir Henry Merrivale agrees to take the case for the defense. Because Sir Henry thinks he knows what really happened. The crime was committed, he says, through use of the Judas Window.

And what, you may ask, is the Judas Window? Obviously it’s going to be a while before Sir Henry reveals that to you. Is it some obscure secret? Hardly. It is, as H.M. says repeatedly, the key to the whole plot (not to mention the title of the book). Some obscure secret passage? No. As H.M. observes pretty early on in the book, you will find a Judas Window in just about every room you enter. The trouble, as he says, is that so few people even notice it.

Does it sound as if Carr is playing with the reader? He is. Most shamelessly. And quite thoroughly. The book is primarily a courtroom drama – something a bit unusual for Carr, but not at all out of place. And the locked room mystery, which is so clearly at the heart of this book, is well and fairly presented to the reader. H. M. even gives the reader a carefully worked-out timetable, with names and events neatly outlined and his own comments penciled carefully into the margin. And yet I’m willing to bet that most readers won’t tumble to the solution before H.M. is ready to deliver it – and that will follow quite a set of courtroom theatrics. As one of the characters says to him, at the very end of the book, “I am inclined to suspect that you are a disgrace to all the splendid traditions of the fairness of English law.”

There are critics who have called The Judas Window the best locked room mystery of all time. I’m not sure I agree with that; as I have said before, I still think Carr’s The Three Coffins (known in England as The Hollow Man), takes that honor. But The Three Coffins is much more complex in its locked rooms and impossible crimes, depending on a series of more-or-less unlikely events and the careful misleading of the reader. The solution to the locked room problem in “The Judas Window,” by contrast, is breathtakingly simple – in fact, as is often the case with such books, there’s a tendency to feel somewhat disappointed, to say, “is that all?” That’s unfair to the genius of the author, who has managed to practically rub our noses in the concept of the Judas Window – and yet conceal his meaning until the end of the novel – and, by doing so, he misdirects us admirably.

As always with Carr, the reader can’t help but be aware that he or she is in the hands of a master manipulator – but one who essentially plays fairly throughout. It is a book that belongs in every mystery lover’s library.

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You can listen to the original audio review by clicking here.

Next: If Death Ever Slept, by Rex Stout.

Comments

[Colin McGuigan]

It's been a long time since I read this and I've been thinking of revisiting it soon, maybe over the Easter break when I have a bit of time to lose myself in it.

[Les Blatt]

I think it's definitely worth rereading, Colin!