"The Mazaroff Murder" by J.S. Fletcher

Mervyn Hoyt is a former army officer in World War I. He’s drifting a bit, not sure what he’ll do next. The war has been over for more than three years when a friend encourages him to answer an advertisement. Salim Mazeroff, a wealthy man from South Africa, is in Britain and seeking a traveling companion around the country. Hundreds of people apply, but Hoyt is the one selected. 

Mazaroff is obviously and almost naively wealthy. He peels money from a wad he carries in his pocket. He’s known to carry loose diamonds, the business where he made his fortune. In fact, one of the reasons he’s in Britain is to sell a pair of blue diamonds, and he’s carrying one of them around with him. 

 

They reach northern England, not far from the Scottish border. While staying a few days at a country inn, Mazaroff tells his traveling companion than his real name is Merchion, that he grew up in the area, and that, 20 years before, he abruptly left his wife after only a month of marriage because neither of them really loved the other. And there’s a daughter. 

 

J.S. Fletcher

A might later, Mazaroff goes for a walk, and he doesn’t return. Search parties are sent out, and his body is found. All of his valuables – cash, loose diamonds, watch – are missing, presumably stolen. It takes a day or two to learn, but Mazaroff was also carrying his last completed will. It’s also missing.

 

The Mazaroff Murder by J.S. Fletcher was first published in 1922. It’s a fast-paced, something-is-always-happening kind of story, with each chapter surprising the reader with something new and unexpected. The second half of the book moves the narrative to London, with even more surprises in store. And for good measure, Fletcher throws in a budding romance between Hoyt and the daughter Mazaroff never knew he had.

 

Fletcher (1863-1935) was a British journalist who began writing detective novels in 1914. Over the next 20 years, he wrote more than 100 of them, and is considered today one of the great writers of the Golden Age of the mystery and detective novel (roughly 1920s to the 1940s). He also wrote more than 130 other works, including poetry and non-fiction, but he is best remembered for his mysteries.

 

Related: 

 

My review of J.S. Fletcher’s The Middle of Things.

 

My review of The Middle Temple Murder by J.S. Fletcher.

J.S. Fletcher’s “The Middle Temple Murder”

It is late June of 1912. Frank Spargo is a newly-promoted sub-editor at the London Watchman, and he’s on his way home at 2 a.m. after helping put the next-day’s paper to bed. He’s walking from newspaper row on Fleet Street through the Middle Temple area, on his way home to Bloomsbury. He suddenly sees a policeman he knows standing at Middle Temple Lane, and is told that a body is lying at the entrance of one of the buildings.

Sprago had been thinking of sleep, but now is instantly alert on the scent of a story. And there is a body lying at an entrance, a body without a shred of identification upon it. An older man has had his head bashed in, and there are no identification papers or even jewelry on the body, except for a small scrap of paper with a young and brand-new barrister’s name on it.

And so begins J.S. Fletcher’s The Middle Temple Murder, first published in 1919 and still a great mystery story.

Fletcher (1863-1935) was a British journalist who began writing detective novels in 1914. Over the next 20 years, he wrote more than 100 of them, and is considered today one of the great writers of the Golden Age of the mystery and detective novel (roughly 1920s to the 1940s). He also wrote more than 130 other works, including poetry and non-fiction, but he is best remembered for his mysteries.

J.S. Fletcher

The first part of The Middle Temple Murder is devoted to Sprago and the police trying to discover the dead man’s identity. Then the story focuses on the “why” of the crime, and Sprago (more enterprising than the police detective in charge of the case) will eventually find the motive buried deep in the past. The story includes a touch of possible romance and Sprago doing his best to protect the ward of the dead man. But villains abound in unexpected places, and Sprago will both find and sometimes stumble over them.

It’s an enjoyable mystery, as good (if not better) than one previously reviewed here, The Middle of Things.

Related: My review of J.S. Fletcher’s The Middle of Things.

Top photograph: the Middle Temple Gardens in London, near Fleet Street.

J.S. Fletcher’s “The Middle of Things”

Viner (whose first name we never do learn) is a young gentleman of leisure who lives with his aunt in a comfortable house in the Bayswater. They have at least two daily rituals – after dinner, he reads a murder mystery aloud to his aunt. When they’re finished and she retires, he takes a short walk before returning home and going to bed.

One evening, the reading finished, he chides his aunt as to her preference for mystery stories he considers wildly improbably. She counters with real-life examples of situations – disappearances and murders – that were even wilder than those in the stories they read. He smiles knowingly, she retires to bed, and he goes on his walk.

And runs smack into exactly one of those wildly improbable murders he has been admonishing his aunt about. He sees a young man run running from the alley behind his row house, and then he finds what the young man is running from – a body. A neighbor has been stabbed to death and apparently robbed. The police investigate, and the next day the young man is arrested trying to pawn one of the dead man’s rings. Yet what seems like an open-and-shut case turns out to be something else, something as wildly improbable as one of the aunt’s stories – long-ago disappearances, a possible impersonation, a young woman who may or may not be an heiress, and a considerable amount of general skullduggery.

This is The Middle of Things by J.S. Fletcher (1863-1935), originally published in 1922 (when automobiles were still called motorcars). Fletcher was one of the best-known writers during mystery’s Golden Age (roughly 1920-1950), and this mystery novel helps explain why – numerous twists and turns, witnesses suddenly turning up, and the reader left guessing until almost the very end.

J.S. Fletcher

The son of a clergyman, Fletcher was raised by his grandmother on a farm in Yorkshire. He became a journalist and extremely prolific author of some 237 works. He first published poetry, and eventually began writing mysteries. Amazon Kindle has Fletcher’s The Complete Works (15 mystery novels) for $2.99.

Viner teams up with the dead man’s lawyer to investigate what the police won’t. He’s convinced that the man charged with the crime didn’t do it; as it turns out, Viner attended school with him (and an old school boy would never commit a murder). Viner and the lawyer travel to the middle of England and track down witnesses and evidence. And they begin to uncover a nefarious plot.

A product of its era, The Middle of Things is still a highly entertaining story.

Related:

The Yorkshire Post: How fame eluded a man of many words

Photograph: London alley at night via Spitalsfield Life.