"The Return of Mr. Campion: Stories" by Margery Allingham

I’ve been a fan of Margery Allingham (1904-1966) and her fictional private detective Albert Campion since I first started reading her novels in the 1970s. Allingham was one of the queens of the Golden Age of Mystery (1920s-1940s), and her books remain in print more than half a century after her death. 

Allingham began publishing in 1923 when she was only 19. But it was The Crime at Black Dudley in 1929 that established her as one of the best mystery writers of the era. That story introduced Campion, a private detective who has assumed his name because he’s actually a title in one of Britain’s leading aristocratic families. His “man” or butler, Magersfontein Lugg, a convicted felon who has seen the inside of prison, also contributed to Allingham’s success. 

Campion lives in a flat on Bottle Street in Piccadilly in London, right above a police station. Bottle Street is a fictitious cul-de-sac, but real institutions close by include the Royal Academy of Arts, Fortnum & Mason, and the Ritz Hotel. Piccadilly Circus is close by on the east, as is Green Park on the west.

The recently published The Return of Mr. Campion is a collection of 13 stories by Allingham, not all of which feature the detective. In fact, most of them don’t include her star character. The stories are all good ones, and the non-Campion stories help display the broader extent of Allingham’s talent. 

In “The Case is Altered,” Campion travels to the estate of friends for a weekend house party, and a letter suggesting a late-night tryst at the fountain in the garden ends up in the wrong hands. “The Dog Day” involves the detective accidentally overhearing the name of a dog, which turns out to be something of a spoiler.

In “The Wind Glass,” a Japanese gentleman studying in Britain falls in love with a young English woman in his class. He formally asks her father for her hand in marriage, and the English family reacts as if insulted. The man is humiliated and sends a gift of wind chimes that will almost be the family’s undoing. “The Beauty King” is about a hairdresser who develops a secret process that can transform women, but he doesn’t realize his greatest triumph. In a similar story, “The Kernel of Truth,” a man is willed a punch recipe that creates a phenomenal sense of well-being, if it’s mixed exactly right. 

Campion is back in “The Black Tent,” and during a party he sees a beautiful teenaged girls use a knife to jimmy open a library drawer – which will lead to the apprehension of a trans-Atlantic blackmailer. In “The Curious Affair in Nut Row,” Campion is merely a listener to a story told by a policeman. “What to Do with an Aging Detective” is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek story, involving both an elderly Campion and an even-more-elderly Magersfontein Lugg. “Tall Story” finds Campion again listening to a policeman’s story about a crime that appeared to be impossible to commit and prove.

Margery Allingham

“Sweet and Low” is something of a love story, involving horses, country estates, and the hero almost ending up with the wrong fiancée. In “Once in a Lifetime,” a well-known actress is on a train, arranging her large number of bags to discourage others from sharing her compartment. One man, however, barges in, and she hopes he doesn’t recognize her as his first young love. Or does she? “Happy Christmas” is about a young family, unexpectedly left to themselves for the holiday, who learn what the spirit of the season actually means. “The Wisdom of Esdras” is a ghost story, set in a large cottage in the country, with a guest who becomes almost desperate to help a ghostly girl. 

The collection includes two non-fiction articles by Allingham. “My Friend Mr. Campion” describes how the author came to invent the detective, explaining how he appeared in the first novel that featured him. And the introduction, “Mystery Writer in the Box,” is a delightful essay on the art of writing mystery stories. 

The Return of Mr. Campion is a welcome addition to the published novels and stories of one of the big names of the Golden Age. It also works by itself and could serve as an introduction to Allingham’s work.

Related:

Campion at Christmas by Margery Allingham.

Dancers in Mourning by Margery Allingham.

The White Cottage Mystery by Margery Allingham.

Two by Allingham: an almost Gothic and a Campion.

More Work for the Undertaker by Margery Allingham.

The Mind Readers by Margery Allingham.
The China Governess by Margery Allingham.

The Beckoning Lady by Margery Allingham.

The Allingham Casebook by Margery Allingham.

Margery Allingham’s The Case of the Late Pig.

Margery Allingham’s Flowers for the Judge.

Margery Allingham’s Death of a Ghost.

Margery Allingham’s Black Plumes.

Margery Allingham’s Look to the Lady.

Margery Allingham’s Police at the Funeral.

The Essential Margery Allingham Collection.

Margery Allingham Box Set #2.

Margery Allingham’s The Fashion in Shrouds.

The Margery Allingham Society.

Top photograph: British actor Peter Davison as Albert Campion in the 1980s television series.

"Dancers in Mourning" by Margery Allingham

As William Farraday writes his memoirs, he realizes that much of his life has been something less than exciting. So, he embellishes a bit. Even more than a bit. When the book is published under the title “Memoirs of an Old Duffer,” it becomes a hit. And then it becomes a successful musical in London’s West End, starring one of the top performers in the business, Jimmy Sutane.

For one performance, Farraday brings his friend Albert Campion. The purpose is for Campion to meet Jimmy Sutane after the show. Someone has been playing pranks on Sutane, and the pranks are becoming increasingly vicious.

Campion visits the Sutane home, 20 miles outside London, and discovers tensions simmering just below the polite surface. He also finds Sutane’s wife, Linda, and Campion finds himself complicating what he’s supposed to be doing by falling in love. The other guests are all connected to the theater and “those theatrical people” are always overly dramatic.

And then a dancer is killed in what appears to be an accident. More deaths follow. Because of Linda, Campion tries to avoid getting entangled. But his entanglement is inevitable.

Dancers in Mourning was first published by Mystery Golden Age writer Margery Allingham (1904-1966) in 1937. The mark of an Allingham novel is a good mystery combined with a touch of romance, but it’s surprising that the romance in this story involves Campion and the wife of one of the suspects.

Margery Allingham

Allingham began publishing in 1923 when she was only 19. But it was The Crime at Black Dudley in 1929 that established her as one of the best mystery writers of the era. That story introduced Campion, a private detective who has assumed his name because he’s actually a title in one of Britain’s leading aristocratic families. His “man” or butler Magersfontein Lugg, a convicted felon who has seen the inside of prison, also contributed to Allingham’s success, and in this story Campion loans him to Linda when her butler quits.

Dancers in Mourning is an excellent mystery, one that jeeps the reader guessing (and Campion himself guessing) all the way to the end.

Related:

The White Cottage Mystery by Margery Allingham.

Two by Allingham: an almost Gothic and a Campion.

More Work for the Undertaker by Margery Allingham.

The Mind Readers by Margery Allingham.
The China Governess by Margery Allingham.

The Beckoning Lady by Margery Allingham.

The Allingham Casebook by Margery Allingham.

Margery Allingham’s The Case of the Late Pig.

Margery Allingham’s Flowers for the Judge.

Margery Allingham’s Death of a Ghost.

Margery Allingham’s Black Plumes.

Margery Allingham’s Look to the Lady.

Margery Allingham’s Police at the Funeral.

The Essential Margery Allingham Collection.

Margery Allingham Box Set #2.

Margery Allingham’s The Fashion in Shrouds.

The Margery Allingham Society.

Top photograph: the Palace Theatre in London’s West End, which first opened in 1891.

“More Work for the Undertaker” by Margery Allingham

It’s the late 1940s. Apron Street in London is an aging little neighborhood, with its bank, its chemist shop (drug store), its attorney’s office, its funeral home, and other businesses. And at one end sits Portminster Lodge, the ancestral home of the Palinode family. The home, like the street and the neighborhood, has seen better times. It’s now owned by a retired dance hall actress who operates it as a boardinghouse. Members of the aging Palinode family still occupy a few rooms, and still act as if time stopped 50 years earlier.

But two of the members of the family have died, under suspicious circumstances. The body of one is finally exhumed, and it’s discovered she was poisoned. Private detective Albert Campion, at the request of the police and his old friend the retired dance-hall actress, moves in to see if he can determine what’s happening.

Campion discovers all kinds of unusual things happening – strange goings-on at the funeral home, unusual activities by the boardinghouse residents, an unexpected visit by a high government official asking campion to ignore one aspect of the investigation, a young man getting attacked, people watching each other in the streets in the dark hours of early morning. The detective’s own butler and jack-of-all-trades Magersfontein Lugg is slipped a Mickey Finn in his drink by his brother-in-law, the proprietor of the funeral parlor.

In More Work for the Undertaker by Golden Age mystery writer Margery Allingham (1904-1966), Campion has to sift through all the different strands to determine not only what is happening but whether or not the strands are even connected.

In one sense, More Work for the Undertaker, first published in 1948, is classic Allingham. A decaying old family, her famous detective Albert Campion, a significant role for his manservant Lugg (one of the most original characters ever created in mystery fiction), an almost convoluted mystery, a spot of romance – these are all characteristics of Allingham’s novel written from the 1920s to the 1960s.

Margery Allingham

In another sense, however, this one also has something akin to the magical, complicated plots of British writer (and Inkling with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien) Charles Williams (1886-1945), almost as if Allingham had just read The Greater Trumps or All Hallow’s Eve right before she wrote her story. Her plot is complex, and it needs a close reading to follow everything that is happening.

The manservant Lugg, however, as is often does, almost steals the show. His language, his knowledge of criminal activity and villains (based on his own past), and his ability to see right through pretense serves Campion well in his own investigations.

More Work for the Undertaker is one of Allingham’s more challenging reads but well worth the effort.

Related:

The Mind Readers by Margery Allingham.
The China Governess by Margery Allingham.

The Beckoning Lady by Margery Allingham.

The Allingham Casebook by Margery Allingham.

Margery Allingham’s The Case of the Late Pig.

Margery Allingham’s Flowers for the Judge.

Margery Allingham’s Death of a Ghost.

Margery Allingham’s Black Plumes.

Margery Allingham’s Look to the Lady.

Margery Allingham’s Police at the Funeral.

The Essential Margery Allingham Collection.

Margery Allingham Box Set #2.

Margery Allingham’s The Fashion in Shrouds.

The Margery Allingham Society.

Top photograph: a London street in the 1940s, similar to the fictional Apron Street in the story.