Robin Grey
occupies an unusual position with Scotland Yard. He is a policeman, but he’s
often involved in cases and situations unknown to most everyone else in the force.
He has a number of talents, one of which is the ability to remember faces.
Late one
evening, he’s waiting for the boat train at Waterloo Station in London,
scouting for someone the Foreign Office is particularly interested in. This
night, he sees something else – a young man exits the train, be accosted by an
older man, and flung onto the train’s electric tracks. Robin rescues and saves
the young man, and is rather astonished at the would-be murderer’s identity –
one of Britain’s best-known industrialists. The man quickly disappears into the
crowd.
As it
turns out, the young man who was nearly killed is said to be interested in
marrying a certain Jennifer Wren, a beautiful young woman whose father, Sir
Henry Wren, has ties to the industrialist in question. Miss Wren’s two previous
fiancées were both killed, and it looks like the third time was almost the
charm. Someone wants to make sure the woman doesn't marry.
Not
realizing who it was who saved the young man’s life until they meet and talk,
Miss Wren asks Robin Grey to investigate. But it’s too late to save the young
man; he’s been poisoned. So, to help the lovely Miss Wren because it’s love at
first sight for Mr. Grey, he suggests they pretend that they’re engaged, to see
what can be smoked out.
 |
| Margery Allingham |
The
Man of Dangerous Secrets,
written by Margery
Allingham under the pen name of Maxwell March, was originally published in
1933 (in Britain, where it was first issued, it bore the name of Other Man’s Danger). It’s filled with
car chases, kidnappings, conspiracies, a doctor who appears to be straight out
of a 1930s horror movie (Peter Lorre could have played him in a movie version),
a damsel in distress multiple times, and, because this is an Allingham novel, a
romantic sub-plot.
Allingham
(1904-1966) was a prolific writer during her career, producing 21 mystery
novels and short story collections involving her detective Albert Campion; 12
additional mystery works; and three under the pseudonym of Maxwell March. She
was one of the stars of the Golden Age of Mystery (1920s-1940s), along with
Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Josephine Tey, and several others.
The Man of Dangerous Secrets is high melodrama, very much a
product of its time but still a fun and absorbing ready today, some 84 years
after it first appeared.
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