For the #1937Club: Bats in the Belfry, A London Mystery by ECR Lorac

This is a story of upper class people in late 1930s London. 

They do not think like us. They do not talk like us. I have to say at the outset that I found each and every one of them, apart from Inspector Macdonald and his detective, awful. They are rude, racist, sexist and snobbish, with few if any redeeming features.

Having got that lot of my chest, I will now attempt to put my revulsion to one side and write about the events ECR Lorac presents to us. 

Bruce Attleton is a writer who has failed to live up to his early promise and is now only able to enjoy a very comfortable lifestyle thanks to his wealthy actress wife, the glamorous Sybilla,

',,an exquisite figure in silver lame with a short ermine cloak round her shoulders, (she) lighted a Balkan Sobranje, and made a little face at her husband.'

There is no love lost between these two; they now lead separate, unfaithful, lives. Sybilla would like a divorce but Bruce is refusing to co-operate; he knows which side his bread is buttered, or more likely caviared....

Bruce has no money of his own, and is being hassled by phone calls from a foreigner called Debrette, a sculptor. Bruce is not amused,

'If he rings up again, tell him I'll bash his bloody head in. Got that?'

When Bruce sets off for a trip to Paris but fails to arrive, his friends, is being blackmailed, and asks Robert Grenville to see if he can trace Debrette - because obviously, if a foreigner is hanging around he must be up to no good...

'"Quite frankly, I want to find out who this Debrette johnny is."'

'"It sounds like a penny dreadful - a dago with a beard uttering crazy warnings...besides, it's second rate."'

Grenville is willing to help because he hopes it'll bring him into better standing with Bruce, who is so far refusing to let him marry his ward, Elizabeth Leigh. She is all of seventeen and Bruce wants her to see a bit of life before settling down. Grenville is unimpressed,

'"Well, I call it damnable! Elizabeth does know her own mind now, and he's just giving her the chance to get unsettled. I hate all this feminist club business. Sybilla is...no sort of example to an unsophisticated girl like Liza...Wouldn't it be better for Liza to be married and have a home of her own, than go trailing around with all these over-sophisticated, man-hunting, pseudo-intellectual females who see life all awry?"'

Meanwhile stockbroker Thomas Burroughs has his own take on Elizabeth's behaviour,

'"Club indeed! You want spanking and sending to bed!"'

See what I mean? Delightful people.

So Grenville tracks Debrette down to a studio in a dilapidated old house in Notting Hill, and from there the plot goes from complicated to virtually incomprehensible. Grenville is assaulted, Attleton's suitcase is found in the basement, Elizabeth's car is tampered with, Burroughs is arrested for skulking around the Belfry studio and refusing to say why he's there, Sybilla disappears then reappears, and Debrette pops up from time to time in various parts of London. 

Into all this muddle come Inspector Macdonald and Detective Reeves. Macdonald is patronised and insulted by just about everyone - I was truly amazed at how freely these people challenged and disobeyed the police. Would the upper classes still do this today? I somehow doubt it. But here we have Grenville, who has deliberately ignored traffic lights, walked in front of a motorbike and caused the rider to suffer a broken leg and concussion, refusing to take any responsibility whatsoever,

'"He'll probably bring a case against you for damages, sir" said the...sergeant.

"Look here, if there's a law prohibiting His Majesty's subjects from walking on the King's highway, tell me when it was put on the statute book," said Grenville, indignantly....

"The other gentleman's got a wife...and she says she's going to take out a summons against you."

"Be damned to her!"'

And on being told to call the Yard and request back up for Macdonald, 

'"You don't fancy being left here alone, Scotty. Cold feet?"'

And Thomas Burroughs, on being caught by the police attempting to enter the Belfry, far from being embarrassed or frightened, says,

'"What the devil's it got to do with you what I'm doing here? ...When  it comes to that, what are you doing here? Up to no good, I'll swear!"

And on being reminded that his apprehender is a detective,

'"What the deuce do you mean? You can't play tricks like that on me. I won't stand any of your nonsense, understand that!"'

The language used by most of the characters in this book is presumably a true reflection of how people like them spoke almost 90 years ago, but I did wonder how anyone else ever knew what they were talking about. They speak in a kind of code; here's Elizabeth, telling Grenville she's tougher than she looks,

'"Oh tosh! You can't live among theatrical people and keep the Virginibus Pueresque touch.'

Remember Elizabeth is just seventeen years old. 

And Grenville sums Macdonald up thus,

'"Scot to his fingertips. Pragmatic and prosy may be. A fine upstanding fella', in good training, hard as nails. Reckon he'd enjoy clapping the darbies on anybody."'

Macdonald and his team eventually solve the crime(s), but as is so often in these mysteries, they only really get there when someone confesses. As is almost always the case, the motive for the crimes is money, and as is also almost always the case in these mysteries, someone turns out to have a concealed relationship to one of the victims. Maybe there were clues to this; if so I missed them. In the meantime the real reason for one character's refusal to explain himself turns out to be something quite repugnant to modern day readers, while not appearing to be intended to shock Lorac's original audience much at all. 

Many people have enjoyed Bats in the Belfry. I think I have come to the conclusion that most Golden Age crime, with its convoluted and unlikely plots and virtually non-existent character development, simply isn't for me. Now I just need to harden my heart to those beautiful British Library Crime Classic cover illustrations.

Bats in the Belfry by ECR Lorac was originally published by Collins in 1937.