There are a few vintage mystery novels which focus on a jury. The first two that sprang to mind were Verdict of Twelve (1940) by Raymond Postgate and The Jury (1932) by Gerald Bullett. Curtis Evans who wrote the introduction to today’s read (Coachwhip Publication edition) also added a couple more titles to this list: The Jury (1927) by Eden Phillpotts and Thirteen Men (1930) by Tiffany Thayer. I was then reminded of the TV shows Monk and Diagnosis Murder, which both have an episode in which their lead sleuth is on a jury. One can also not forget to mention the film Twelve Angry Men (1957), which the jury in Sanborn’s novel are reminiscent of. They too are a jury in which nearly everyone is against the defendant, with only one juror really sticking to their guns, believing in their innocence. Prejudice and complacency are present in many of Sanborn’s jurors, who are contemplating the Sebastian Como murder case that sees a bootlegger’s mistress stand trial for his death. However, unlike in the film, there is no gradual wearing down of these social biases. Instead, the juror (Mrs Vanguard) who is determined to see the defendant be found guilty (even resorting to thinly veiled threats and bribes) is poisoned, leading to a mistrial, and her killer could only have been one of the jurors or the doctor who attended her. Suspicion falls heavily on the female juror (Cornelia Van Horn) who refused to change her verdict to guilty and onto a man she is close to, Dr March who is called in when the victim first took ill. Circumstantial evidence increasingly piles up against the pair. D. A. Pitts is keen to make a fast arrest and is quite happy forcing a confession, whether it is true or not. As the poisoning is gone into, more is uncovered about the murder the jury was deliberating in the first place. I must say I was intrigued by this setup, as a murder taking place within the jury deliberation room is not something I have encountered before in my reading.
Ruth Burr Sanborn (1894-1942) wrote over 100 short stories between 1923 and 1942. She mostly wrote outside of the mystery genre, but she did write two detective novels, today’s read and Murder on the Aphrodite (1935). Curtis, in his intro, includes the reason Sanborn gave for turning to crime fiction (albeit briefly):
‘It really is rare fun, I find, to write mystery stories. There is so much excitement in the planning – for of course you plan the murder, and then you stand the murder on its head and plan the mystery, with a slow leakage of clues. It gives one such a grand feeling of omnipotence. So few of us ever really have an opportunity to commit a murder in person. And it never is really well looked on. But think of the vicarious satisfaction of killing off on paper the man who poisoned your cat or the dentist who pulled your tooth!’
Although fallen into obscurity now, the New York Times did publish her obituary.
The opening scene of Murder by Jury sees each juror verbally casting either a guilty or not guilty vote, the verbal requirement being one insisted upon by Mrs Vanguard. Her presence in the book might not be for very long, but she makes her mark on the pages where she is there. Vanguard by name and vanguard by nature. In the first chapter she is described as: ‘[…] a big woman, in fact and in reputation […] There was a massiveness about her, impressive but unlovable, like a glacier or a precipice.’
The beginning of the story is also good at getting the reader up to speed on the Sebastian Como case, as the jury context allows for a recapitulation of the facts without this seeming implausible. Some early details include the fact Como had brought home a new mistress the night of his murder and another family member died of a heart attack during the same time period.
Sanborn is successful in recreating the jury setting, enabling us through conversation to see the factors, not connected to truth and justice, which influenced the guilty votes being cast. Flirting, embarrassment, social advancement and fear of social opprobrium all help to sway many of the jurors. The defendant is categorised as a ‘wanton woman’ and Mrs Vanguard uses this for her own ends, in trying to force the others to agree with her:
“Mr Apple […] She isn’t your sweetheart. She’s a wanton woman. The facts are all against her. Do you want to be counted on the side of law and order and respectability? Or do you want to be known as one who favours illicit relations, loose morals, contempt of law, contempt of home, contempt of decency, violence and bloodshed? If that is the kind of man you are, who do you think will buy your milk?”
Naturally, Mr Apple switches his vote to guilty.
The amateur sleuth of this piece is one of the jurors, Angeline Tredennick, a thirty-something-year-old whose hair has prematurely greyed, giving her an older appearance. She is a spinster but reflecting on her actions throughout the novel I would not say she is built in the Miss Climpson or Miss Marple mould.
For example, she lacks the bravery and strength of conviction the other two women have, as Angeline would have gone with the majority guilty vote, if Mrs Vanguard’s death had not intervened:
“It’s kind of hard to know what to say, isn’t it?” she murmured. “With everything the way it is. but the more I think it over, the more it seems to me as if so many people couldn’t be wrong. If it was just one or two now … but there, it’s pretty nearly everybody. I guess I’d better change over and vote guilty, too.”
You could say she is too easily influenced, unlike Miss Climpson in Strong Poison (1930) and it is clear from the opening paragraph that she would never have stood up to Mrs Vanguard:
‘Somehow the sight of Mrs Vanguard standing up there opposite, high-headed and high-handed, glaring round as if she defied them, everyone, to disagree with her, made Karen Garetti seem guiltier than ever.’
Where Angeline’s sleuthing skills do shine is in the hoovering up of gossip and information through casual conversation and idle questioning. And more importantly remembering it all. For her, ‘gossip was meat and drink and breath and sunshine […]’. Through Angeline most of the motives the jurors had for killing Mrs Vanguard are unearthed, including the victim harming businesses, threatening livelihoods, preventing one woman from getting adopted as a child, and even Angeline has a motive, since she was her neighbour, and Mrs Vanguard had killed her cat.
The downside to Angeline’s ability to find and share clues, is that this flow of information makes her a bit of a loose cannon, as she doesn’t know when to stop. Consequently, she contributes to the avalanche of circumstantial evidence against Cornelia and Dr March, a result Angeline is unable to foresee. She could have all too easily put the noose metaphorically and literally with the info she shares. The D. A.’s assistant Gary Brennon sums up Angeline thusly:
‘The qualities that made her rather a nuisance – her insatiable curiosity, her endless questions, her talent for always being everywhere and seeing everything – were the very qualities that might also make her valuable. Angeline was not really clever at putting two and two together, but there was nothing she could not find out about one and one and one and one.’
This is not a bad summary. Angeline is the one who finally uncovers the real culprit, but in some ways, this feels more accidental than deliberate.
Sanborn is good at creating a claustrophobic atmosphere as although the Como trial is aborted and declared a mistrial, the jurors (except one who can afford bail) are not allowed to go home. By night they sleep in jail cells and during the day they are taken back to the crime scene, the jury room. Even before Mrs Vanguard died the jurors had been discussing the case for 20 hours already, so these extra days afterwards of hanging round and being grilled by the district attorney certainly take their toll. The fatigue, physical and psychological, does not make Pitt let up either: ‘Pitt blissfully gnawing his cigar, knew that no one can hold out forever. The end was near now. He pounded on remorselessly.’
The narrative is dialogue driven and the author is effective in keeping the new developments coming, to maintain reader interest and engagement, especially when the victim’s widower is brought in for questioning. This is not a story you are bored by. Nevertheless, I can’t really see how Angeline solves the case at the 11th hour. It is one action of hers which creates a domino effect, revealing the killer, who then discards the social mask they are hiding behind. But it still feels a bit like chance that they were caught. Perhaps that was intentional though. However, from a genre point of view I think the culprit can be identified, and when it is explained you kind of want to kick yourself for missing it. That said, I still think their guilt (prior to confession) is primarily based on supposition and logic, which is a bit less satisfying. So, the denouement was less great, but I did enjoy the journey which got us there, which is reflected in my final rating.
Rating: 4.25/5