I’ve not read anything by Ethel Lina White for a while, four years in fact, mainly because I have read a lot of her work already and the remainder is not the easiest to find cheaply. But it has been pleasing that the British Library have been reprinting some of her work in their Crime Classics series. White was a wonderfully versatile mystery writer and a key pioneer in the development of psychological suspense fiction. As such her writing style can be hard to categorise as she could go from gothic tales of crime and espionage thrillers to poison pen mysteries, inverted mysteries, and female-character-led suspense novels.
Synopsis
‘Behind the ominous walls of Jamaica Court, Anthea Vine rules as a provincial Queen Elizabeth, imperious and wealthy, vain and pathetic. But Anthea holds chained to her in financial dependence five discontented souls, all with a motive for murder. Her tentacles reach beyond her three wards and draw into their clutches her secretary, Sally Morgan, and the sardonically charming local doctor. Anthea’s charms prove fatal to none but her. For, while people set their watches by the light in her bedroom window, Florence Pye reads death in the cards. Her prophecy comes true, silently, violently in the depths of the night. What Miss Pye has not foreseen, though, is that she will be first to find the body . . .’
Overall Thoughts
Put Out the Light (1931), begins with an author’s note which heralds the type of mystery the novel is going to be:
‘Most stories of crime begin with a murder and end with its solution. But as the victim is the most dominant character in this novel, she has been retained as long as possible. Readers, therefore, may decide who is going to kill her, before the murder is actually committed. They will probably reach the goal before the detective, who is built to last, and not for speed.’
In a time when author events were less common and writers did not have blogs to post on, I feel like the author’s note or foreword was a way for the writer to say this is what doing, and this is why I am doing it. In some ways this author’s note challenges the notion that a mystery novel is all about the murderer or the detective and their battle to undo each other. White is elevating the importance of the victim in the story (and not in this case because they are remotely sympathetic) ahead of the curve arguably as Before the Fact by Francis Iles did not come out until a year later. White seems confident that the murderer in her story will be easily spotted by the reader ahead of the police detective. However, I don’t think this is entirely the case. I think some readers will have a hunch, but the field of suspects is a relatively strong one, so nothing is certain.
The title for White’s story comes from Act 5 Scene 2 of Othello:
‘Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.
Put out the light, and then put out the light.’
Looking back on the book overall, I would say the victim, Miss Vine, was a trouble to men, whom she was very good at manipulating. Yet I won’t say she excluded women either, she just had more uses for men and accredits them with greater value accordingly. I wouldn’t want to stretch the common ground though, as the story diverges from the quoted lines in several ways. For example, Othello’s motivation for murdering Desdemona is not one on offer in White’s tale, and whilst Othello avoids using a murder method which sheds his wife’s blood, the murderer in White’s book has no such repugnance. In the main White’s title is a metaphor for someone dying, but it is also just a reference to a very literal light in the story, namely the light in the victim’s bedroom which locals use to set their clocks by:
‘One other light was distinct in character and received definite recognition. Every evening at eleven o’clock, it glowed from out the left wing of the great pile of Jamaica Court. The porters at the hillside station always watched for it, as it was more punctual than their scheduled trains. In addition, it was informative, for it broadcast a parochial News Bulletin. Miss Anthea Vine was going to bed. At twelve o’clock, to the stroke, the light went out.’
Due to the way locals use the light to judge time by, it unsurprisingly becomes involved in alibis and the time of death, later in the narrative.
Our first impressions of Miss Vine come from Miss Pye and her brother who is a superintendent. Miss Pye declares that Miss Vine is “a woman who’s going to be murdered.” I very much appreciate Ethel Lina White’s characterisation, as she quickly sets up these two characters. Miss Pye is described as:
‘[…] fair, fat, and she liked to be taken for forty. A pleasant woman, of strong character and sound common sense, she was fixed of purpose as the Pole Star, although she clouded her issue behind a Milky Way of words.’
Meanwhile her brother is said to be:
‘[…] bull-necked and massive in build, with great cheeks like ripe plums, and choleric blue eyes. His reputation was that of a good mixer and a competent football referee. For generations his people had lived in Oldtown, where they had been, originally, landowners, and Pye, himself was essentially of the soil. His present job was once of Fate’s misdeals. While he was in general request as judge, at every local dog-show, the prevalent opinion was that, from long cold-storage in Oldtown, his brain had mildewed […] He yearned to handle a subtle-murder-mystery, and all Providence sent him was dog-fights and drunks.’
That kind of description is usually saved for the bumbling police official who is trounced by the amateur sleuth who solves the case. Yet as White’s author’s note suggests that is not going to be the case here. Superintendent Pye and his sister, irrespective of their weaknesses, are all justice has got in this story and I was intrigued to see how the pair will manage to solve the murder.
Miss Vine is an older woman with a weak heart, yet she is also a woman who strives to maintain her physical appearance, even having a rigour nighttime beauty treatment schedule. Her appearance has a startling effect on people at times, as it is not what they expect. This can be seen in the way Miss Vine transforms in the mind of the superintendent. Initially he sees ‘on the tarred road […] two young men and a girl, engage[d] in noisy conversation […]’. He does not realise the woman is Miss Vine. So, in his mind he notices ‘her slim form, in its short tweed suit’ and it is said that the woman ‘held the allure and grace of girlhood […] As she poised on one toe she looked like the Spirit of Youth Triumphant – hovering for one golden moment of laughter […]’ Yet once Miss Vine turns round and the superintendent recognises her face, his thoughts swiftly change:
‘As Pye spoke Miss Vine suddenly spun round on a slender stem of silken leg, revealing the painted, triangular face of an elderly woman. He swallowed a gulp of repulsion.
“Murdered?” he grunted. “Well, she’d be the better for it. It might cure her complaint. Silly, vain old maid, pink and hollow as an Easter egg.”’
He then proceeds to denigrate Miss Vine’s intelligence. This is something Miss Pye challenges though. She doesn’t like Miss Vine by any stretch of the imagination, but I think she has a sense of kinship because they are both spinsters. Nevertheless, the pair have contrasting views on Miss Vine’s wealth:
“Men have made her fortune for her. She’s lucky with her managers.”
“Well, doesn’t it show brains to get men to make money for her?”
“I call it a canker. She squeezes them dry and then sacks them.”’
It is through the Pye siblings that we learn a bit more about the setup of Miss Vine’s household and the way she has become the powerful matriarch figure holding the purse strings, keeping her cousins, and adopted daughter in freedom crippling dependence. Rather than being a skinflint through their adolescent years, Miss Vine spent loads of money on their education, but then she removed the financial support so much that they then can’t afford to liv away from her. In some ways this feels crueller because Charles and Francis Ford, her blood relations, had been trained for professions, yet financially cannot strike out on their own.
Iris Pomeroy is the final adoptee and our first description of her is a wonderfully catty remark from Miss Pye: “Look at her eyes. She’s one of your moderns, who’d think nothing of banging Miss Vine over the head with a chopper, and then calling it a complex.” At this juncture I did wonder if Miss Pye would be like Dr Sheppherd’s sister in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. However, going back to Iris it is through her eyes that we see the trap she and the other two are in. They like the luxuries they receive more, even with the strings that come attach to them, than the idea of freedom and poverty. For example, at one point it is said of Iris that:
‘She threw a glance at the leaping fire and the soft depths of a rose padded chair. Exchange this for a mean, narrow room in some boarding-house, and a gas-fire with a slot-meter. […]
“No. I’m a luxury product. Anthea made me so. It’s all her fault. She’s got us tied by the leg, with our wings clipped. We may sulk, but we all open our beaks at feeding-time. Utterly degrading.”’
This reminded me of Murder in Rockwater (1944) by Margot Neville, although I would say Miss Vine is a much crueller matriarch than Clarice Dodd. Having said that though, I was unsure how sympathetic Iris, Charles and Francis were. I think sympathy levels towards them change over time and I don’t think they move in the same direction for each character. Francis is probably the most cut-throat in his language saying that Miss Vine is ‘only here to be bled.’
Being a fan of crime fiction, particularly of the classic variety, I am not ill-acquainted with unpleasant murder victims, in my reading. The controlling patriarch or matriarch is a figure I know well. Yet, I felt White’s creation felt very fresh. Watching Miss Vine in action, manipulating, goading, and flattering those around her to do what she wants, was an intense close-up experience. Her selfishness is so great that Miss Vine’s dictator-like attitude leads to the death of one of her doctor’s other patients. This is a horrific moment, yet even then the doctor is unable to see Miss Vine’s true colours. Seeing Miss Vine at work was perhaps like someone going from watching a film in black and white to viewing it in technicolour. There was a vividness to it. And one thing which certainly contributed to this was the parts of the book which looked at the situation from Miss Vine’s point of view. White recreates Miss Vine’s sense of paranoia (fearing conspiracy and betrayal) well. This paranoia is best witnessed when she is trying to sleep and there is even an extensive dream sequence in which Miss Vine chillingly ends up realising she is dead. Is this, she wonders, a vision of what is to come? The psyche of the unlikeable victim is really gone into, in ways I don’t think we often see in 1930s mystery fiction.
Unlike many a mystery fiction victim, Miss Vine is able to write a new will (as normally victims are murdered to prevent this happening), yet it is one which only seeks to increase the dependence of her dependents upon herself. She even has the will read, so she can see everyone’s reactions. Miss Vine is supremely good at vindictively playing with people, like a cat with a mouse and as the book unfolds you are unsure which one will crack first. Nevertheless, there are times when Miss Vine contemplates changing her ways and being nice, only for something to occur which puts her off from doing so. In some ways she is like an unredeemed Scrooge. William C. Weber in his column ‘Murder Will Out’ in The Saturday Review of Literature wrote that Miss Vine is ‘a wealthy spinster, one of the most diabolically fascinating creatures in mystery fiction […]’
As a character study this book is a tour de force, although that does not mean the mystery is lacking. White offers plenty of reasons for people to want to bump Miss Vine off, including the superintendent, as another sister of his is threatened to be put out of business by Miss Vine’s next commercial venture. Furthermore, as the tension builds at Jamaica Court, there is also a spate of burglaries taking place in the area. Will they be linked to the forthcoming murder in some way?
As Ethel Lina White foretold us Miss Vine dies late in the book, on page 240 of my edition, out of a 319 paged book. I love how the body is discovered as this is done by Miss Pye. She secretly followed her brother when he storms off to Jamaica Court to give Miss Vine a piece of her mind, fearing his anger will overtake him. However, as a result she awkwardly gets stuck in Miss Vine’s home and is desperately waiting until the coast is clear so she can get out of the house without encountering anyone and their embarrassing questions. Unfortunately, her exit out of the property comes with a few surprises.
The investigation of Miss Vine’s murder offers more opportunities to enjoy the sibling relationship of the Pyes. Their interactions with one another are amusing, especially when Miss Pye tries to put forward some theories, much to the superintendent’s irritation. Superintendent Pye finally cracks the case partially due to his sister’s story of their maid breaking the crockery, which put me in of Miss Marple’s use of human parallels. The ending requires the reader to be told some information they weren’t privy to, yet it works because this information fits in with the characters we have grown to understand (to love doesn’t seem like the right word.)
SPOILER IN ROT 13 CODE: V jnf abg shyyl pbaivaprq ol gur vqrn gung gur xvyyre jnf vafnar, cnegvphyneyl jura bar bs gur ernfbaf jul gur fhcrevagraqrag vf fher guvf vf gur pnfr, vf gung jura gur zheqrere jnf tebjvat hc, gurl jnfurq gurve unaqf jvgubhg orvat gbyq gb. V qba’g srry gung vf n ebohfg fvta bs vafnavgl!
When I picked this book up to read, I hadn’t thought I was in the mood for a slow book, but this one definitely worked for me and was a rewarding reading experience. So much so that this book is now my 4th favourite story by White, pushing The Wheel Spins (1936) into 5th place. Positions such as fourth and fifth normally don’t sound very good but both of the above books have received a 4.5/5 rating from me. So, it is more the case that White’s books are so good that even the ones in 4th and 5th are brilliant reads.
Rating: 4.5/5
See also: You can see here a ranked list I wrote for the 9 books I had read by White, which I posted in 2020.