Okay. Admittedly, I have a strange sense of humor. But when I discovered a book called The Shrieking Pit, written in 1919 by Arthur John Rees, I simply couldn't resist that title(especially when you consider that Rees also wrote a book the next year called The Hand in the Dark) - well, I had to share it. Actually, I gave this book an audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast about five years ago. As usual today, I offer you the transcipt below, slightly edited, and I hope you'll read it - title notwithstanding, it's surprisingly good for an early Golden Age book. Enjoy:
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There seemed little reason to doubt that the young stranger was a murderer. He had left his room at the remote inn located in the English county of Norfolk early in the morning, before the discovery of the body of a murdered man who had been sleeping in the next room. That man’s money was missing, and the young stranger apparently was in desperate need of money. His footprints were found leading to the place outside the inn where the body was found – in that pit known as the shrieking pit, said to be haunted by a woman in white – a figure which meant death for anyone who saw her. It really is no surprise that the young man was arrested, tried for murder, convicted and sentenced to death, particularly when he refused to say anything in his own defense or authorize others to appeal his conviction and sentence. But an American detective, Grant Colwyn, felt there had to be more to the story than that. And, as it happens, he was right. You can read all about it in the marvelously titled book, The Shrieking Pit, by Arthur J. Rees.
For an author who is credited with writing more than twenty mysteries, surprisingly little is known about Arthur J. Rees – the “J” is for John. He appears to have been born in Australia sometime in the early 1870s, moved to England at an early age, and died there in 1942.
The Shrieking Pit, published in 1918, appears to have been his first solo book, after two collaborations with another author. I must admit I couldn’t resist that title. It refers to a pit from which – according to local legend – the sound of shrieking could be heard at night. The shrieks were said to come from an apparition called the White Lady of the Shrieking Pit. Rees tells us – quoting now –
“Whose ghost she was and why she shrieked, Ann was unable to say. Her appearances were infrequent…and the timely warning she gave of her coming by shrieking from the depths of the pit before making her appearance, enabled folk to keep indoors and avoid her when she was walking. As long as she wasn’t seen by anybody, not much harm was done, but the sight of her was fatal to the beholder, who was sure to come to a swift and violent end.” Unquote.
The shrieking plays a relatively small – but significant – part in the mystery here. The setting is a small town in the English county of Norfolk. The town is named Flegne-Next-Sea – that's "Flegne" which, Rees says, is pronounced “Fly” by the natives, “Fleen” by etymologists, and “Flegney” by the rare intrusive Cockney.
The book begins with the odd behavior of a young man named Ronald Howard – behavior unusual enough to attract the interest of an American detective staying nearby, Grant Colwyn, the central character in several of Rees’s books. This is during World War I, and the young man appears to Colwyn at least to be suffering from a form of shell-shock. Soon, however, there is a murder at another hotel – and the young man quickly becomes the prime suspect. On the morning when the murder was discovered, the young man had swiftly departed the hotel – and disappeared. Shortly thereafter, the body of the murdered man was discovered at the bottom of the shrieking pit.
Colwyn isn’t convinced by the evidence that Ronald Howard was the murderer, but he has no facts that might refute the police case. It’s worth noting that the police detective, Superintendent Galloway, is both diligent and reasonable, although once he has decided on his suspect, he has a tendency to ignore any facts which might contradict his theories of the case. At any event, the young man is located, arrested, and put on trial for murder. Even at trial, he refuses to say anything in his own defense, and he is quickly convicted.
But Colwyn is called back into the case and learns some facts which make Ronald Howard’s guilt appear unlikely and even impossible. The rest of the book is a race for Colwyn to discover more evidence before Howard is executed – including the secret of why the convicted man refuses to say anything on his own behalf. Meanwhile – just to keep the pot boiling – there are unconfirmed reports that the infamous White Lady of the Pit has been heard shrieking regularly since the murder.
It really develops into a clever and enjoyable plot, with a great many clues scattered about for the reader to pick up. I do think the final unraveling and explanation is quite complex – perhaps too much so – but everything is eventually explained. I very much enjoy Rees’s writing and his descriptions of the scenery and especially the local characters are memorable. Writing of the local coroner, for example, he tells us,
“Mr. Edgehill, the coroner, was one of those people who seized upon the war as a pretext for the exercise of their natural proclivity to interfere in other people’s affairs…/snip/...In short, Mr. Edgehill, like many other people, had used the war to emerge from a chrysalis existence as a local bore into a butterfly career as a public nuisance.”
Some things don’t appear to have changed very much in the intervening century since Arthur Rees’s The Shrieking Pit was written. I recommend it to you.
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You are welcome to listen to the complete audio review by clicking here.
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