Grab a brush and put a little makeup. You wanted to! Hide the scars to fade away the shakeup. You wanted to! Why’d you leave the keys upon the table? You wanted to! I don’t think you trust in my self righteous suicide. Let’s investigate The Case of the Constant Suicides, by John Dickson Carr.
Synopsis:
THINGS THIS MYSTERY IS ABOUT –
Four insurance policies…
A leather and metal dog carrier…
Some very old scotch whisky…
A missing diary…
A quantity of dry ice…
The license plate MGM 1911
A dressing-gown cord…
A disjointed fishing rod…
Source: Goodreads
SPOILERS BELOW
If you recall, the last Dr. Fell mystery I read was The Crooked Hinge; and I came away from that one feeling it lacked a certain indefinable something that I couldn’t put my finger on. Well, good news, everyone: the moment I started reading this story, it immediately leaped out at me what the previous one had been lacking – humor! That charming sense of wit which so surprised and charmed me when I first encountered it in The Third Coffin. This story opens up with two academics, both coincidentally named Campbell, who have been having a long-running feud in the newspaper’s editorial section over minor bits of obscure historical trivia which no-one else cares about, finding out that they’ve accidentally been double-booked for the same train compartment. That, right there, is exactly the sort of absurd situation which is comedy gold; and before I had even gotten to what the mystery is, it had me more interested in this story than I ever was in the last one.
Now, I am reading this book from the collection Four Complete Dr. Fell Mysteries. I remind you of that fact because, if you happened to click the Goodreads link I always provide, you might have noticed that the version of the book they show as a sample picture has a cover which completely spoils one of the major mysteries. Reading from the collection, I remained spoiler-free. I did, in fact, manage to figure out that plot point on my own – despite, in fact, being at a considerable disadvantage due to not knowing that “artificial ice” was how people at the time referred to what we in modern America call “dry ice”.
But just when Dr. Fell was going into has explanation and I realized that he was indeed talking about dry ice, I started patting myself on the back for getting something right for the first time – only to have my train of thought completely derailed by Dr. Fell’s analysis:
“Carbonic acid gas. One of the deadliest and quickest-acting gasses there is.”
– Dr. Gideon Fell, The Case of the Constant Suicides, Chapter XV
At this, I really must object. Dr. Fell has previously made certain comments regarding alleged common knowledge which I personally found dubious. For instance, in To Wake the Dead, he pontificates quite a bit about the well-known usage of soberstone rings by the Romans. While my research turned up that the Romans, like the Greeks before them, thought amethyst had the power to prevent drunkenness – the Greek name “amethystos” indeed literally means “not drunk” – I could not come up with any reference to the specific type of engraved bracelet Dr. Fell assures us were all were all the rage with Romans. At that time, however, I held my tongue. Maybe there’s a reasonable explanation, I thought; maybe it’s something that isn’t true, but is a misconception that was commonly believed at the time. For instance, I can take references to Nero fiddling while Rome burns in stride; because while fiddles had not yet been invented at the time, it’s pretty much become immutably enshrined in pop mythology. But this is just a step too far. For, the terrible carbonic acid gas which Dr. Fell makes so much ado about the deadliness of, is nothing more than common carbon dioxide.
I really must protest at that. OECD’s guidelines don’t classify carbon dioxide as toxic or harmful. Sure, enough of it in the air will asphyxiate you; but so will any other non-oxygen gas. And it is certainly not the deadliest gas there is: it takes a concentration of 70,000 to 100,000 ppm of carbon dioxide to cause suffocation, whereas, say, carbon monoxide is dangerous at as little as 100 ppm. I mean, I’m willing to allow for carbon dioxide as a killing mechanism in a case such as this, where it is specifically noted to be a small room with poor ventilation – I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it used under far less plausible circumstances in other media. Detective Conan, maybe? Or was it Spiral? Not Junji Ito’s Uzimaki, you understand, but the anime based on Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna… You know what, just forget it. The point is, I’ll buy even an implausible means of murder if you make it sound scientifically reasonable; but feed me an obvious line of bullshit that makes it seem like you don’t know what you’re talking about, and suddenly something I’d normally accept now seems ludicrous.
So, the previous book had a good mystery, but I felt was kind of lacking in the narrative department. This book, by contrast, had a really great narrative, but I felt the mystery aspect was flawed. Ultimately, I think that makes them about equal in terms of grade – I enjoyed reading this one a lot more than I did the other, but The Crooked Hinge is technically speaking probably a better mystery.
Final Rating: 3/5
And since this was the last book in Four Complete Dr. Fell Mysteries, I should give that an overall ratings as well. Let’s, we’ve got a 5, a 2, and two 3s… that’s 13 out of 20 stars, or 3.25 out of 5. But I don’t give fractional stars, so I’m rounding that down to 3. And with this, I think I’ll be taking a small break from Dr. Fell in order to look at the accidentally-neglected Golden Age detective Ellery Queen.
Final Rating (Four Complete Dr. Fell Mysteries): 3/5
profmorbius 