This anthology was compiled and introduced by Barry Pike. My copy is the later paperback edition. Back in 2019 I published a ranked list of the Sergeant Beef mysteries Bruce wrote and some of the stories in this collection feature this series sleuth. Whilst I have tried some of Bruce’s Carolus Deene novels, they have not grabbed me in the same way as the ones involving the beer swilling and dart playing sergeant. This is something I explored last year when I did a comparison post for these two fictional detectives.
Pike’s introduction had some interesting information. For example, I was not aware that Leo Bruce had a fan club in Tokyo. Does anyone know if it is still operating? This introduction also reminded me of how prolific Bruce was as an author, as he published over 126 books in 55 years. Most of them were not crime fiction though, his autobiography occupied quite a few volumes for one thing. He certainly seems to have been someone who travelled, as he taught in Buenos Aires and Switzerland. All the stories in this anthology, bar one, was originally printed in the Evening Standard from 1950 to 1956. The sole exception is ‘On the Spot’ (1952), which was published in Magpie.
Bruce’s stories lean more towards the shorter side, meaning this anthology has around double the number of tales that you might expect to see in a collection from the British Library Crime Classics series, for example. It was still a surprisingly quick read though. So, without further ado let’s take a look at them…
Story No. 1: ‘Clue in the Mustard’
I have already reviewed this story when reading Serpents in Eden (2016), ed. by Martin Edwards.
Story No. 2: ‘Holiday Task’
Sergeant Beef and Lionel Townsend, his chronicler, are on holiday in Normandy. Beef bumps into Léotard, a Sûreté detective he knew when he worked in the police. His French counterpart is currently investigating a case in which a car has gone over a cliff. Was it suicide or murder? The man inside the vehicle was an unpopular prison governor. Beef quickly asserts that it was not suicide, but the mystery remains of how the car left the prison compound, as there is only one exit, and it was watched the whole time. The guards on duty say the car did not leave. The answer to this puzzle is a satisfying one, although I felt that there was less banter between Lionel and Beef, which is something I loved in the full-length novels.
Story No. 3: ‘Murder in Miniature’
In this story Sergeant Beef is reminiscing on a past case which quite literally fell into his lap on a train. Heavy braking led to a corpse falling off the roof rack. The dead body evades earlier detection as the victim is only 2ft 6. The setup to the case is interesting and the victim, named Charles Mumby, was a rich circus performer, who ended up stabbed. One of the reasons for Beef recalling this investigation was because it demonstrates his advantages as a sleuth:
“I was just thinking […] How useful it is to be the kind of detective I am. Ex-policeman. ordinary sort of chap. None of your ritzy types with titles and private incomes. I’m a public bar man, and if I hadn’t of been I might never have cleared up this case […] I shouldn’t have had the right friends for one thing.”
The mentioning of “ritzy types” is arguably a nod to the likes of Lord Peter Wimsey, a detective Leo Bruce parodied in his first crime novel, Case for Three Detectives (1936).
I felt the motivation for this crime was weak, as it was not very visible, and the method of the murder very much has to be told to you. This is one of the disadvantages of the shorter short story. In addition, there is a distinct lack of humour in this tale and once again we lose the caustic wit from Lionel Townsend, who is uncharacteristically very friendly and positive about Beef.
Story No. 4: ‘The Doctor’s Wife’
The opening echoes sentiments which can be found in Case for Three Detectives:
“There are cases of murder,” said my old friend Sergeant Beef, “in which the local man, the village bobby if you like, has all the clever boys from the yard beaten before they start […] They may have their microscopes and their post-mortems – he has his knowledge of the people concerned, ordinary human knowledge, which is sometimes worth all their scientific theories put together.”
Such a speech elicits the first real criticism from Lionel Townsend who describes it as ‘sententious preamble’. Yet Sergeant Beef goes on to recall a case which proves his point, involving the death of a doctor’s wife, who died of tetanus. I was not really convinced by how Beef said his suspicions were first aroused. It was also when reading this story that it occurred to me that the narration of these short stories was weaker than the novels, because Beef was being given the space to dominate verbally, and often they become more like monologues. Lionel very much falls into the background and off the page.
Story No. 5: ‘Beef and the Spider’
Sergeant Beef is on a case looking to find evidence which will prove Sir Oswald Pitcairns murdered his brother, who 6 months previously had been found dead in a canal. The difficulty is that Sir Oswald has an alibi. I guessed how the false alibi was made, but I found the clues Beef used were a little unconvincing, particularly the spider analogy.
Story No. 6: ‘Summons to Death’
This is another tale in which Sergeant Beef reminisces about a past case in which a solicitor called Kibble was killed. Beef is still a little sore that whilst he solved the mystery, he was never given the credit, as his superiors prevented him from being the one to gather the evidence. Kibble seems to have been murdered to prevent a will being signed, but again alibis get in the way, for a while. I am not sure the reader could figure out the “how” in this one.
Story No. 7: ‘The Chicken and the Egg’
Beef talks about the death of Mr Rumple, which could be interpreted as a murder or as a suicide, depending on what Beef cryptically remarks as ‘which was cause and which was effect’. There was an interesting idea in this tale, but it was unfurled in a lump at the end of the narrative.
Story No. 8: ‘On the Spot’
A Scotland Yard detective inspector decides, due to his experiences and skills, that he should turn to crime. He comes up with a plan to rob a firm’s wages, which are transported via taxis. I really liked the ending.
Story No. 9: ‘Blunt Instrument’
Sergeant Beef regales us with a story about a case he advised on. It involved the killing of a woman for material gain in a southern county’s village. The death is quite violent as the victim takes an axe to the head. The mystery is like a riddle, as you have to notice one small point to solve the case.
Story No. 10: ‘I, Said the Sparrow’
I have already read this story when I reviewed the Settling Scores (2020), ed. by Martin Edwards.
Story No. 11 ‘A Piece of Paper’
Sergeant Beef describes this as ‘the most unpleasant case’ that he ‘ever had to deal with’ and he further adds that ‘for sheer villainy’ he has ‘never know[n] its equal.’ The mystery in question is the death of Mrs Gribley, whose demise is due to an overdose of sleeping tablets. There are some curious points in the suicide note and a slip of paper also awakens Beef’s suspicions. I agree that the solution is dark, but I am not convinced by the timings of the crime.
Spoiler in ROT 13 code: Pbhyq lbh trg fbzrbar gb jevgr n fhvpvqr abgr, gnxr cvyyf naq qvr sebz gurz va 40 zvahgrf? V nz abg fher ubj ybat vg gnxrf gb qvr sebz fyrrcvat cvyyf naq gur fhvpvqr abgr vf bs gur xvaq gung fbzr gubhtug jbhyq unir orra erdhverq. Jul jbhyq gur ivpgvz arrq be jnag gb ehfu?
Story No. 12: ‘A Letter of the Law’
Mr Ziccary has killed his wife and has buried her under the cellar floor. He believes he is in the clear, as he saved a letter his wife wrote to him last year when she planned to leave him. I love how the postman is his undoing, and in a way this story makes a nod to G. K. Chesterton’s ‘The Invisible Man’. This is a told-to-you inverted mystery, but I think it is done well.
Story No. 13: ‘A Glass of Sherry’
Fed up with her aunt and godmother, Miss Alicia Greenleaf, Mrs Plummery’s husband suggests that they kill her for the £30,000 inheritance. This is a short inverted mystery, a style that Bruce leans into for a quite a few of the stories in this collection.
Story No. 14: ‘The Scene of the Crime’
A criminologist called Mr Stickles is visiting a man who bought a house where a murder was committed in the past, one which remains unsolved. The crime scene is now the current owner’s bedroom. Mr Stickles wants to examine it, as he happened to be passing. As the story unfolds it becomes clear that there are parallels between the murder victim and the current owner. They both live alone and own an old-fashioned razor, the latter object being the weapon used. The ending is easy to anticipate, as the story setup only really has two likely options as its destination.
Story No. 15: ‘Murder in Reverse’
A doctor gives a certificate for the death of Wicks, a manservant to Whiston and Hobart Grewer. Wicks suffered from anaemia which suddenly worsened. The local detective sergeant is suspicious of the death, but nothing more occurs until three years later when there is another death. The solution was an interesting, although I am not sure what evidence the DS had.
Story No. 16: ‘Woman in the Taxi’
A taxi driver brings his last fare to the police station, as when he took her home, he found she had died, poisoned by some chocolates. For part of her journey, Mrs Dolbick shared the taxi with a man, and naturally they become a prime suspect. This is sort of a police procedural mystery, although Detective Sergeant Grebe follows a hunch to reach the conclusion. The ending is not one you can readily anticipate, as there was not much in the way of pointers.
Story No. 17: ‘The Nine Fifty-Five’
Frogmarsh murders his adopted father, Mr Lloyd, on the night Mr Lloyd normally takes a train to London. His plan is to take the body to a railway embankment on that route and make it look like his adopted father fell off or was pushed from the train. There is a delightful sting in the final two sentences of the story.
Story No. 18: ‘Person or Persons’
Mrs Tiggers raises the alarm when Mr Holme, her employer, does not answer his door. When the police break in he is found hanging. Once more the question is whether this was suicide or murder? Is his death linked to the mysterious stranger who visited him yesterday? This is another DS Grebe tale, but I was not convinced by certain aspects of the guilty party’s plan. Were all the steps necessary?
Story No. 19: ‘The Wrong Moment’
This story has a Francis Iles like opening:
‘Mr Minchin has good reason for wanting his wife out of the way. she was rich, fretful and selfish. She demanded endless attention and showed no gratitude for it. She was the most tactless creature in the world. Mr Minchin himself a silky, diplomatic man, suffered endlessly from her habit of saying or doing the wrong thing at the wrong moment.’
I won’t say much more about this story, but the denouement of the tale really adds a certain irony to the final line of this passage. I think Iles (a.k.a. Anthony Berkeley) would have liked the ending to this one.
Story No. 20: ‘A Box of Capsules’
Miss Hipton is a companion to the elderly Mrs Lane, and she is biding her time to kill her, making sure of the money first. The ambiguity of the English language is unfortunately her undoing.
Story No. 21: ‘Blind Witness’
Adam Muffin is coshed on the head and pushed over a cliff, when taking his blind brother Abel for a walk, who also needs a wheelchair. A small clue is the undoing of the killer, although I think the story signals in other ways the identity of the killer.
Story No. 22: ‘Deceased Wife’s Sister’
This story features a Dr Crippen style murder, where Gilbert Runshore kills his wife and then tries to make it look like she left him for another man. A mineshaft is to be become her resting place. Having read a few of Bruce’s inverted mysteries, a certain level of formula can be felt. There is invariably always one clue which unmasks the killer and trips them up. Moreover, this clue is often something we cannot predict as it is not mentioned until near, or at, the conclusion.
Story No. 23: ‘Riverside Night’
Mrs Watworth’s lodger, Mr Sitchwell has murdered a bus conductor who was blackmailing him. When she discovers this, after all the corpse is on her kitchen floor, her lodger is not unduly worried:
“There’s a dead man in the kitchen!” cried Mrs Watworth, bursting into the sitting-room of her riverside cottage.
“Please don’t come in without knocking,” replied her lodger severely. “There is nothing whatever to be excited about. The cadaver will be removed as soon as it is dark this evening.”
Naturally, Mrs Watworth wants to tell the police, but how can she reach them without becoming another victim. The situation becomes more complicated when she learns that her lodger has been spreading rumours about her being delusional. Will anyone believe her story, especially if his plan to remove the body is successful? The denouement is rushed, which is a shame as the narrative setup had a lot of promise. I felt like this was the most different plot the collection had offered in a while.
Story No. 24: ‘Rufus – and the Murderer’
DS Brent recalls the time when the station mascot helped to convict a killer. The mascot is called Rufus and is ‘a life-sized dummy.’ Brent’s visitor ‘saw a white blank where the face should have been, a battered hat, an old blue suit, all apparently filled with stuffed sacking. There was something grotesque about this. It had the horror of a realistic scarecrow seen by a child.’
The case Brent describes was centred on Cyril Ragley who decided to bump off his richer brother Basil. Yet you will have to see how Cyril planned to use the dummy in order to fake a driving accident. Naturally, the well-worked out plan goes wrong, in keeping with the other inverted mysteries in this anthology.
Story No. 25: ‘The Marsh Light’
Boyd Lancaster has been walking the marshes with his nephew. Some locals helped to rescue his nephew who fell, and he wants the police to help him arrange a reward for them. But as Boyd tells his story, DS Grebe soon realises that Boyd unknowingly narrowly escaped murder instead. This is a different type of tale as it is not often that victims avoid their planned fatek.
Story No. 26: ‘A Stiff Drink’
Horace Ruffins dies in the saloon bar of a pub, poisoned by cyanide of potassium. Initially, the police think it was suicide or murder at the hands of his drinking companion. But both options seem unlikely to DS Grebe. The solution he uncovers is interesting, but it relies on a slender verbal clue.
Story No. 27:’Into Thin Air’
Urquhart Bresson tells DS Grebe that his sister has disappeared into thin air. She had moved into his house that very day, but by teatime she was gone. There is only one exit, the gate is locked, and the lodge keeper and his wife have the key. I was disappointed that this story had a near identical solution to another tale in the collection. The motive though is more amusing in this mystery.
Story No. 28: ‘A Case for the Files’
Mrs Grimmets is battered to death on her way home, when she took her day’s takings down a lonely road. DS Grebe’s only clue by the body is a greasy cloth cap, ‘made by one of the great London hatters in Edward VII’s reign. They had not turned one out in that pattern since 1910.’ The culprit is rather obvious, but the proof of their guilt is beyond the reach of the reader, as it requires looking into police case files.
Overall, I found these stories pleasant and quick reads, as Bruce does have a relaxing writing style. However, the plots are rather unremarkable, and I definitely missed seeing the friction Lionel Townsend and Sergeant Beef have in their novel-length cases.
Rating: 4/5