It begins in an
alleyway in London’s West End theater district. It’s raining heavily, the
theaters’ performances are at the halfway point, and no one seems to notice the
old bus, the kind with curtains at the windows, pull into an alleyway. The few
who see the bus notice only the elderly couple sitting at the very front.
But then there’s
a murder in a nearby building. And the bus seems to vanish. Or perhaps no one notices
it leaving because of the rain. The crime remains unsolved.
Eight months
later, Chief Superintendent Charles Luke of Scotland Yard is visiting with a
friend, Albert Campion, who often helps the police in their investigations. A
policeman on the beat has made a possible connection between the unsolved
murder and a small, rather eccentric museum in his patrol area. He had seen a
young woman, Annabelle Tassie, in a nearby park, was struck by her loveliness,
and rather pleasantly surprised when she asked for directions to the museum. The
young woman had been waiting for a friend, Richard Waterfield. She’s looking
for the museum because of a letter sent to her family by the owner, the wife of
Annabelle’s great-uncle.
Through these
rather disparate strands – a bus, a murder, a museum, a young couple – Golden Age
mystery writer Margery
Allingham (1904-1966) fashions one of the most chilling Albert Campion
mysteries she had written. In Hide
My Eyes, first published in 1958, Allingham creates a villain utterly
without moral scruple, one who lies as a matter of ordinary behavior, kills
when it’s of benefit, and uses people ruthlessly as long as they are of some
use.
 |
| Margery Allingham |
The novel is
less a mystery and more of a psychological thriller. The reader knows who the
villain is; the question becomes how, and if, he will be caught, and what havoc
he’ll wreak in the meantime.
What adds
immeasurably to this mystery novel is Allingham’s ability to evoke fear and
uneasiness through scene description. What she does with the rain in the
opening scene is amplified at a London junkyard at night. And the museum of
eccentricities is downright creepy. All had greatly to the gripping psychology
of the story.
Hide My Eyes is an Albert Campion mystery, but
Allingham’s famous detective plays a relatively small if important role in the
story. We see most of the story through the eyes of the young couple, Annabelle
and Richard (and it wouldn’t be an Allingham story without a love interest). It’s
a fascinating story that is difficult to put down.
Related:
Top photograph: an old English bus,
similar to the one that plays a role in the story. Note the window curtains,
which in the story were all drawn.
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