I’m crossing off my last square: Locked Room Mystery, of my British Crime Classics BINGO which is the brainchild of Rehka at The Book Decoder. My previous square: Death By Strangulation, was checked off with Anthony Berkeley’s The Silk Stocking Murders, which you can read here. In Till Death Do Us Part, join Dr. Fell in solving how and why a man was poisoned using a hypodermic needle in a locked room.
The Plot
Dick Markham and Lesley Grant are in the afterglow of their new engagement. Lesley Grant, a beautiful, if somewhat illusive, woman, moved to the village of Six Ashes six months back and immediately started turning heads. Markham, utterly besotted by Lesley Grant, cannot wait to begin a happily married life with her shortly.
After attending a local cricket match, Lesley beseeches Dick into letting her visit the much-gossiped-about fortune teller at the little carnival nearby. The identity of the fortune teller is shrouded in mystery, and he is reported to be very good at knowing specific details about his visitors. In reality, the fortune teller is Sir Harvey Gilman, the Home Office pathologist, and crime expert.
After Lesley visits the fortune teller, she is visibly shaken and upset but continues to wander around the fairgrounds with Dick, where she becomes frightened and agitated after being goaded into trying her hand at a shooting booth. Lesley tearfully tells the booth man and Dick that she is scared of guns and doesn’t know how to shoot. Lesley’s agitated behavior and fearful demeanor are so acute that Dick heads to the fortune teller’s tent to find out what was said to frighten her so badly. It is Dick, however, that gets the shock of his life when Sir Harvey Gilman is accidentally shot by Lesley right in front of him.
Sir Harvey Gilman is whisked away, and terrible rumors circulate around Six Ashes of his impending death. Later that night, Dick visits Sir Harvey Gilman at his house, where Gilman drops a bombshell about Dick; Lesley Grant is a murderess who has killed three previous husbands, somehow inducing them to inject poison into their arms using a hypodermic needle. Gilman has been tracking Lesley’s movements and wants Dick to be his ally in catching her before Dick becomes her next victim.
Dick tentatively agrees but truly believes that Lesley is an innocent woman. Later that night, Sir Harvey Gilman dies from poison injected with a hypodermic needle in a locked room. The bizarre case is soon referred to Dr. Gideon Fell, an expert in solving closed room cases and impossible crimes. Looking over the corpse, Dr. Fell reveals another incomprehensible twist- the dead man is not Sir Harvey Gilman, only a man who has assumed his identity.
Dick, unsure if the imposter was telling the truth about Lesley, decides to help Dr. Fell find out the identity of the dead man, how he was killed, and whether Lesley Grant had anything to do with the whole ordeal.
The Review
Till Death Do Us Part is a phenomenal book, and I can easily see why it is a classic of the mystery genre. The book excels at creating a dark, suspicious setting by having the joy of Lesley and Dick’s happy engagement being pitted against a threatening rain. The metaphor is a bit heavy-handed but effective; you know something horrible is on the horizon, but you don’t know what.
Not knowing what will happen next is a hallmark of Carr’s books, but in the case of Till Death Do Us Part, Carr’s mastery is on full display. Everything Carr has told us in the initial love scene between Dick and Lesley might be a cunning and deadly lie. Then when you feel like you have your feet on the ground again and are ready to bring a murderess to justice, you are told by Carr that he has pulled the rug out from you again- because Sir Harvey Gilman, you have trusted this whole time, isn’t the real Sir Harvey Gilman. Dick Markham, Lesley Grant, and the reader won’t know who to believe, even the author!.
Suspicion and distrust pervade the story, and Dick and the reader are maddened further by the impossibility of the locked room murder- if it even is a crime- and not a suicide since Carr is an unreliable author. Now Dick and the reader are left to investigate on two lines: murder or suicide and unravel whether anything the Gilman imposter said was actually true about Lesley Grant. Also, if it’s untrue, one must believewhat horrible lies did the faux Gilman make up about Dick Markham to Lesley Grant? Why did he target her and Dick anyway? Has the fake Gilman done anything like this before? The mind relatively races with questions. Till Death Do Us Part is like reading a never-ending anxiety spiral. You can really appreciate how masterful Carr is at creating, maintaining, and ratcheting up physiological torture. This is a crime that will make your head spin with possibilities.
The locked room element, where two impossible truths coexist simultaneously stratosphere, on top of the acute psychological torture, the stormy atmosphere, puts this book into the stratosphere. What I really enjoyed about the locked room element of the story is that it doesn’t rely on any gimmicks, elusive wordplay, or outlandish mechanical contraptions. I don’t want to go into too much detail about this aspect of the story because it is very well plotted with lots of cleverly planted clues- but it’s tough to figure out what’s red herring and a hint. I did manage to piece how it was done together, but the motive behind the crime escaped me.
Thankfully, Dr. Gideon Fell was there to explain everything in the end because I felt that I didn’t solve the crime without understanding the motive. Dr. Fell has a light touch in crime solving- he’s not out gathering physical evidence or running around the village half out of his min trying to interview suspects like Dick Markham (and me). Dr. Fell is more like a repository of information that others bring to him. He asks a few penetrating and boggling questions and says something vague and reproachful before fading into the background. If there’s anything to quibble about, it’s frankly how negligible Dr. Fell’s role in solving the crime besides elucidating his brilliant conclusions. I wanted to see Dr. Fell struggle with the offense more, to have more of a hand in sifting through everything, and less of an aloof man on a pedestal that can instantly figure out what’s happening because he has a stupendous brain (and is basically a stand-in for Carr) but that wouldn’t make this a Gideon Fell mystery, would it?
I highly recommend Till Death Do Us Part; it’s the rare type of book that you wish you could read for the first time again and again because it’s so good.
Till Death Do Us Part Reviews
My British Crime Classics Bingo Reviews
My British Library Crime Classics Reviews
The Body in the Dumb River by George Bellairs (1961)
Murder in the Basement by Anthony Berkeley (1934)
The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley (1929)
Death on the Riviera by John Bude (1952)
The Cornish Coast Murder by John Bude (1935)
Antidote to Venom by Freeman Wills Crofts (1938)
Mystery in the Channel by Freeman Wills Crofts (1931)
The Hog’s Back Mystery by Freeman Wills Crofts (1933)
Murder by the Book by Martin Edwards (2021)
Fell Murder by E.C.R. Lorac (1944)
Post After Post-Mortem by E.C.R. Lorac (1936)
These Name Make Clues by E.C.R. Lorac (1937)
Golden Age of Detective Fiction 
Leave a reply to British Crime Classics Challenge July 2023 Wrap-Up – The Book Decoder Cancel reply