There were quite a few questions to be answered in connection with the shocking death of John Pender Blundell. The former intelligence officer and cryptographer had left his home one evening, after saying he was on his way to an important meeting - and promptly disappeared. Police couldn't find any trace of him for weeks until his body turned up under a tree in a park. And while the body showed what seemed to be signs of a savage attack, perhaps by a wild animal, Blundell didn't die from his injuries - he was killed by cyanide poisoning. The only clue police could find was some writing scrawled on a piece of paper which appeared to have been in Blundell's pocket and overlooked by the killer. But it didn't seem to make sense:
“to-night I heard that crackling voice use those same strange words that I have heard twice before in this house. But the animal is not normal, it is spiked..."
What kind of animal might inflict such savage wounds? There is talk of a "spiked lion"...
And The Spiked Lion is the title of a 1933 Golden Age mystery by Brian Flynn. It is the subject of my audio review this week on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the complete review by clicking here.
At Scotland Yard, Sir Austin Kemble knew he was going to need some help finding a solution. Sure enough, another murder victim turned up, also battered and having been poisoned in the same manner. Sir Austin turned for help to consultant Anthony Bathurst. Which is how Anthony wound up involved in what he would eventually call:
“The most remarkable case…that I have ever been called upon to handle. I can assert that, I think, without the slightest fear of contradiction.”
To be sure, there are a great many puzzles here, including more murders, one of which is a classic locked-room mystery for Anthony Bathurst and his assistant on this case, Chief Inspector MacMorran, to solve. And the reader will find him-or-herself challenged as well by the nature of the clues, as the focus of the story changes and the book becomes much more of a thriller in the Edgar Wallace or Bulldog Drummond tradition. The last quarter or so of the book includes a chase, some housebreaking, an exhumation, secret panels, hidden rooms , a fair number of useful hiding places for Bathurst to discover just in the nick of time as he tracks down the culprit, an unexpected claimant to a huge inheritance – well, you get the idea. Brian Flynn manages to keep his juggled clues safely up in the air all at one time, with plenty of hints to be picked up by the reader – but be careful, for Flynn is pretty good at misdirection too.
Dean Street Press has been re-publishing many of Brian Flynn’s Golden Age novels about Anthony Bathurst and has sent some to me for review. Mystery historian Steve Barge has been contributing entertaining and informative introductory essays for the publisher about Flynn’s career along with in-depth examination of the books themselves. Barge has a review of The Spiked Lion available on his In Search of the Classic Mystery blog, and I commend his comments to you. The Spiked Lion is a great deal of fun, and I recommend it warmly.