Tags
Albert Campion, Charles Luke, Magersfontein Lugg, Margery Allingham, More Work for the Undertaker, World War II
So apparently it’s time to read books I’ve already read a thousand times already. I have at least 5 new books on my nightstand, including the sequel to The School for Good and Evil that my daughter is dying for me to read, but do I read them? Nooooo.
Instead, I’m back to familiar Allinghams and Christies. I finished Allingham’s More Work for the Undertaker (again) the other day. This book takes place a few years before The Estate of the Beckoning Lady, just after World War II. Campion has just been released from his official war/espionage work, and has been asked to govern an unnamed island in the Caribbean.
But he turns this down and pops off to a quickly decaying corner of London to solve a series of mysterious deaths in a quickly decaying family. The Palinodes were once the “first family” of the district but they’ve lost their fortune and live in their ancestral home as boarders with a motley crew of other characters. Who is poisoning them off, one by one? And why is the local undertaker creeping around in the wee hours of the night? And who keeps sending people nasty anonymous letters about it all?
Of course, Campion solves the mystery, a satisfyingly complex problem chock-full of the sophisticated eccentricity that Allingham is known for. The characters are all at once strange and completely believable – the stolid, blustery, ingenuous undertaker; the youthful-looking, excitable out-of-work actor; the worried, over-serious bank manager; and the Palinodes themselves – all complete cranks, but none caricatures.
But I think my favorite thing about this book is that it introduces us to Charles Luke, Campion’s new Scotland Yard contact (now that his old buddy Superintendent Oates has retired) and his partner in most of the other post-war novels. Luke makes an impression from the start:
The D.D.I. (Divisional Detective Inspector) was a tough. Seated on the edge of the table, his hands in his pockets, his hat over this eyes, his muscles spoiling the shape of his civilian coat, he might well have been a gangster. There was a lot of him, but his compact and sturdy bones tended to disguise his height. He had a live dark face with a strong nose, narrow vivid eyes, and his smile, which was ready, had yet a certain ferocity. “Good to see you, sir,” he said, and conveyed distinctly that he hope to God he was.
Luke is in his mid-thirties in this book, “sensationally young for his rank,” and his success is primarily due to his energy and his curiosity. Campion notices it right away. When Campion’s manservant Lugg first meets Luke, he tells his boss that Luke will go far in the police force. When Campion asks why, Lugg observes:
“Well, ‘e can’t leave it alone, can ‘e?” The black eyes were sardonically amused. “No five-day week for ‘im. E’d have apoplexy waitin’ for Monday mornin’.”
One of Luke’s most fascinating habits is to talk very quickly, almost telegraphically, pushing home his points with gestures and faces that bring people and places alive for the listener.
Charlie Luke spoke without syntax or noticeable coherence but he talked with his whole body. When he described Dr. Smith’s back his own arched. When he mentioned the shop front he squared it with his hands. His tremendous strength, which was physical rather than nervous, poured into the recital, forcing the facts home like a pile-driver. Campion was made to share the doctor’s scandalised anxiety. The man talked like an avalanche.
It’s such a pleasure to meet Luke, and make him a friend. Just another wonderful character in the Allingham stable of wonderful characters.