"The Sussex Downs Murder" by John Bude

John Rother and his brother William own a farm and lime-producing operation in rural Sussex, not far from the Channel coast and Brighton. John leaves one weekend for a short trip, leaving his brother and sister-in-law in charge. John’s car is found, with a smashed dashboard and blood on the seat and John’s bloody cap nearby. But there’s no trave of John or his body.

Superintendent Meredith is called to investigate the disappearance and likely death. From the beginning, it’s a frustrating investigation, with little to go on except a few clues and the oddity of less fuel in the car’s gas tank than there should be. A local shepherd also reports a mysterious man in a cloak and cap being seen walking across the fields about the time of the disappearance. Meredith dutifully keeps plodding away. And then part of a human hip bone is found at a local building project, buried in a load of lime. The lime is traced to the Rother operation.

And then John’s brother William is found dead, an apparent suicide with a note in his pocket. But Meredith isn’t satisfied. Something is clearly wrong.

The Sussex Downs Murder was originally published in 1936 and has been republished as part of the British Library Crime Classics series. It was written by John Bude, the penname for Ernest Carpenter Elmore (1901-1957).

Elmore was a theater producer and director in Britain who wrote 30 crime novels under the John Bude penname. Most of the John Bude novels involved Superintendent Meredith as the detective. He also wrote fantasy and children’s stories.

The hallmark of this mystery novel is not a brilliant detective. Instead, it is the detective’s understanding what happened, finding clues, formulating a theory, discarding the theory when new clues are discovered, or events force a change, and keep relentlessly at it. To his credit, Meredith keeps an open mind (most of the time), and gains clues and insights from farmers, shepherds, shopkeepers, and even his own teenaged son.

The solution to the mystery becomes somewhat obvious about halfway through The Sussex Downs Murder, but that doesn’t detract from the pleasure of watching a puzzle assembled and the mystery solved.

Related:

John Bude’s “The Lake District Murder.”

John Bude’s “The Cornish Coast Murder.”

Photograph of Sussex hills by Rucksack Magazine via Unsplash. Used with permission.

John Bude’s “The Lake District Murder”

A farmer is on his way home one night, and runs out of gas. A garage (what we would later call service stations) is not too far up the road, so he hikes the short distance to find his petrol. Instead, he finds one of the garage owners in a car, dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. It looks to be a suicide, with one problem: the young garage owner had no reason to kill himself.

Enter Inspector Meredith of the county police force. Meredith doesn’t accept the idea of suicide. Only a very few clues suggest otherwise, but Meredith doggedly stays at it. And more clues pointing to murder begin to surface.

The Lake District Murder, written by Ernest Carpenter Elmore (1901-1957) under the name of John Bude, was first published in 1935, the same year his first crime novel, The Cornish Coast Murder, was published (reviewed here on April 18). Both books were recently republished by the British Library.

The Cornish Coast Murder is a classic whodunit investigation, the kind widely popularized by Agatha Christie. The Lake District Murder is a very different kind of crime story. The focus is not so much on the identity of the murderer as it is the reconstruction of the crime and the process by which the police determine what actually happen.

And the murder is only the smallest part of the story. The author’s successful intention is to tell the story of painstaking analysis, investigation, footwork, wrong turns, new developments, tedium, hunches, and good fortune that is crime detection and investigation.  The novel reads more like a contemporary account than a book published almost 80 years ago.

The story centers on the geography of area involved in the criminal investigation (England’s Lake District) and the geography of the mind of Inspector Meredith. The reader travels the roads and lanes and small towns of the area, and travels with Meredith as he pieces his investigation together.

Kudos to the British Library for republishing these entertaining and fascinating novels by John Bude.

Photograph of a landscape in England’s Lake District by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission. 

John Bude’s “The Cornish Coast Murder”

John Bude was the pen name for Ernest Carpenter Elmore (1901-1957), a British theater producer and director. Beginning in the 1930s, he published crime novels under the name of John Bude, and managed to complete 30 of them by the time of his death. He also wrote fantasy novels and children’s stories.

The British Library has republished two of his crime novels, The Cornish Coast Murder and The Lake District Murder. In the introduction to The Cornish Coast Murder, crime novelist Martin Edwards said that the novel had a small print run when it was published in 1935, but Bude occupies a place in the golden age of the mystery and crime novel genre.

The story is fast-paced and intriguing. Julius Tregarthan, who occupies a home called The Greylings in Cornwall, has been murdered, shot in his study with a World War I service revolver. the crime doesn’t lack for potential suspects, including Julius’s niece Ruth and the man she’s in love with, Roland Hardy. Inspector William Merritt leads the investigation; he’s assisted by the local vicar, the Rev. Dodd. They soon discover that Ruth is hiding something and Roland Hardy has dis appeared.

The story isn’t exactly the classic country estate mystery; Julius Tregarthan has lived there year-round with his niece Ruth. But it has enough of the elements of the classic country estate mystery to make one expect to see Miss Jane Marple show up at any moment.

But it’s not a clichéd story. Actually, The Cornish Coast Murder is well written, with Bude keeping the reader engaged and intent upon learning where all of this is heading. A few minor quibbles the reader might have don’t detract from the overall story. It is of its time, the 1930s, but the writing quality keeps the story current and fresh.

And now I’m turning to The Lake District Murder.

Photograph: A Cornwall beach, by Mike Coates via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.