A
close resemblance between two characters is a plot device that Agatha Christie
used more than once—usually as part of the surprise outcome of one of her
seemingly impenetrable mysteries. But in Funeral
March of a Marionette, Winifred Duke—rapidly becoming one of my favorite thoroughly
obscure authors, though it's always quite a challenge tracking down her
books—twists things around (or turns the screw, as Henry James might have put
it) and makes such a resemblance the starting
point of her tale. Where she takes things from there is both completely daft
and enormously entertaining.
The sad and decrepit copy of Funeral March I read (and was lucky to get hold of, courtesy of Brigham Young University) |
I've discussed both of my previous experiences in reading Winifred Duke's novels here—The Dancing of the Fox, a sort of historical crime drama, and Dirge for a Dead Witch, an eery historical tale about a witchhunt and its repercussions. Funeral March is the first book I've read of hers that seems to have been set more or less in the present, though perhaps that is relative since it was published in 1945 but contains nary a mention of World War II, and perhaps it's the contemporary setting, taking away the need for her to get all of her historical details exactly correct, that makes Duke feel a bit friskier, freeing her up to be funnier and more irreverent. Because, much to my surprise after my previous Duke experiences, Funeral March is ultimately as much a comedy of errors as a whodunit. Its premise—two cousins who resemble one another so much that they were frequently mistaken for one another as children, and who moreover have both been in Australia and New Guinea for many years—is surely intended to be humorous in itself, but she complicates the situation to the point of farce.
The
cousins—Archie Garnett, who has made his fortune farming in Australia, and
Gilbert Garnett, who is now the Bishop of Wurrumpoopa, New Guinea—switch places
(as one so frequently does) on the boat back to England, purportedly because
Gilbert feels that he could be in danger from an unnamed source. And indeed,
the cousins have barely arrived in their home town before Gilbert, disguised as
Archie, gets himself killed. The trouble is, it's unclear which of them was the
intended victim—did the killer realize the victim was Gilbert in disguise, or
was the intention in fact to kill Archie? As a result of which, the survivor
must (according to the unique logic of the tale) remain in character until the
killer is identified, sharing his identity only with his former sweetheart,
Peggy, sister-in-law of the local vicar, with whom he has only recently been
reunited after years of estrangement due to the vicious lies of Archie's
stepmother, Mrs. Garnett.
Among
the unexpected complications of the impersonation, however, is the discovery
that the victim happens to have been a best-selling author of potboilers, by
the incomparable name of Aubrey Pouncebox (not to be confused with Horace
Purplepatches, a fellow author of bestsellers), whose publishers are growing
ever more impatient for his next book. Duke has considerable fun with the publishing
industry in this novel—Pouncebox's publishers are known as Garbage and Gush,
Ltd., not to be confused with their arch rivals, Sewage and Slush, or even with
Graball and Graball, who have occasionally lured away G&G's clients.
Archie pleads a nervous breakdown in order to explain the delay in producing a manuscript, and then hires Stephen Teal, a foppish, alcoholic, but apparently breathtakingly
handsome ghost writer ("Groups
of giggling school-girls followed him, worshipping him with their clear eyes.
Elderly women, who should have had more sense, turned to stare at him.
Middle-aged ones gazed rapturously.") to attempt to put together a novel
worthy of Aubrey Pouncebox, but has some difficulty in communicating exactly
what he needs without giving away his own secret:
"Aubrey Pouncebox mayn't like you poaching on
his preserves, Bishop."
The Bishop, too much occupied with
endeavouring to reconcile his recent recollections of his cousin Gilbert, the
celibate, the bestseller, with "a married man who's had some,"
incautiously blurted out his private thoughts. Unconsciously he thereby
confirmed Mr. Teal's own suspicions.
"He won't mind. He's dead."
"Dead!" exclaimed Mr.
Teal excitedly.
Too late, the Bishop realized his
error.
"I—I
heard in town the other day that
he was dead," he stammered. He gazed wildly about him. "At least— No,
it wasn't Aubrey Pouncebox. It was—er—er—Horace
Purplepatches."
"Horace Purplepatches
dead!" screamed Mr. Teal, aghast.
"I—I understood so. Is it a
great loss to literature? Of course, since my—my breakdown I confuse things,
and my memory isn't what it was, but I certainly
seem to have heard somebody mention that Horace Purplepatches had died
recently."
"It
must have been very
recently." Mr. Teal looked so vindictive as to appear almost plain.
"Because I was dining with him on
Thursday—the night before you came to see me."
"My
mistake," moaned the Bishop.
And
really, that's just the beginning of the mounting complications and the ever
more intricate deceptions required to keep up the impersonation. There are, for
instance, a surprising number of sudden reappearances from abandoned, secret
spouses, and each new character who appears seems to determine that they will
be the one to solve the mystery, adding layer upon layer of new deceptions to
the original one. And then there's the matter of the bishop's missing ring...
But
the efforts of all the characters to work out who committed the murder are quite
entertainingly interwoven with the web of lies. I sometimes get a bit bored
with the speculations and possible sequences of events postulated in mystery
novels. It's usually my least favorite part of the story. But one big advantage
of an utterly daft plot is that it's impossible to know where it's going, and
that's a large part of what made this novel such a rollicking good time.
I
have to admit, however, that fans of strictly traditional, methodical whodunits
(or of mysteries that retain even the remotest trace of plausibility) might
find Funeral March rather too
eccentric. A proper detective—in this case a nondescript local called Inspector
James—only finally appears on page 129 of this 192-page novel, and even then he
soon vanishes again like a skittish rabbit. I also have to admit that the
ending is a disappointment (no clever puzzle here) and is, sadly, also fraught
with brief but virulent racism—a weak point in such an otherwise entertaining
tale.
But
despite that, Funeral March has only
made me more determined than before to track down more of Duke's virtually
nonexistent mysteries. There were a fair number of them, at least some of which
were apparently quite popular and successful in their time, and the versatility
she has displayed in the three books I've read makes me wonder what else she
may have up her sleeve. So, next up is one of the bestsellers, Death and Her Sweetheart, first
published in 1938. I've just paid a bit too much for a tiny, cheap paperback
copy of Sweetheart, complete with
microscopic print and tissue-thin paper. But it was apparently one of the most
successful of her books, and this was the one and only copy listed on Abe
Books, and verily how could I resist?
So, more on Winifred Duke still to come…
So, more on Winifred Duke still to come…
O, Scott, art imitates life. A friend of mine is even now attending the funeral of his brother in Oklahoma, and Friday evening, he and the in-laws dined at the club - apparently, he and his brother resembled each other so much, than a rather sozzled acquaintance came up to him at dinner and said, "Oh, thank God, you're still alive!" An awkward moment, to be sure................too bead he couldn't have referred to Duke's book!
ReplyDeleteTom
Awkward indeed, Tom. But I guess it suggests that this type of plot isn't quite as farfetched as I have always thought!
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