The Silk Stocking Murders

Self-satisfied amateur detective Roger Sheringham did not exactly cover himself with glory during his previous outing, Roger Sheringham And The Vane Mystery, but here Anthony Berkeley allows him to redeem himself---albeit in his own inimitable way, one not always easy for the reader to take. In his capacity of crime expert on a London paper, Roger is contacted by a distressed vicar, who tells him that after moving to London to find work, his daughter, a steady, reliable girl, has ceased to contact her family. Looking into the matter as requested, Roger discovers to his dismay that the girl has committed suicide, hanging herself with her own stocking. When a second girl kills herself the same way, Roger is surprised but happy enough to show more get an article about "suggestibility" out of it; but when a third young woman dies, he is convinced that these are not suicides, but murders... The Silk Stocking Murders is a creepy, uncomfortable book, which lingers on the details of the women's deaths, including their more fetishistic aspects: most notably, the stocking in each case is one the victim was wearing, such that she is found with one stocking on and one bare leg. There is also unusual emphasis, for this period, upon the subsequent condition of the bodies - Roger is allowed to look on during the police surgeon's initial examination of one of the murdered girls - and it is fairly frank about the sexual underpinnings of the crimes. Moreover, exposing the killer ultimately requires a re-enactment of the deaths---complete with a live model... As he begins to look into the first three deaths - and there will be others before the case is closed - what strikes Roger is the lack of motive for suicide: the vicar's daughter, for instance, found a good job; while another of the young women was on the verge of marriage. After realising that the police are not satisfied either, Roger puts aside his hurt feelings from their previous collaboration and teams up once again with Inspector Morseby to look into the deaths; but it is the amateur trio that he forms with the sister of the first victim and the fiancé of the third that begins to make headway. Although one of the victims is (we gather) a prostitute, the others would not have let a stranger into their rooms---which implies not just that that the killer is someone the victims knew, but that he knew all of them. By comparing lists of friends and acquaintances, Roger and his collaborators find three names into common, three prime suspects---which presents Roger with something of a moral dilemma, since one of them - the one on whom the police are focusing - happens to be a friend of his, too...

Roger had seen plenty of violent death during his service in France during the war, but dead men are different from dead girls, and girls dead through slow strangulation different from any others. He shuddered in spite of his efforts to control himself as his gaze rested on the distorted face. She may have been pretty in life, but she certainly was not pretty in death. By her sides lay her hands, tightly clenched.
She was a small girl, not much more than five feet in height and slightly built, and she was dressed in her underclothes only, with a light-coloured silk stocking on one leg; the other stocking still lay, though now loosely, round her neck... show less

Novelist and amateur detective Roger Sheringham sets out to investigate the death of a country vicar's daughter turned London chorus girl. The coroner declares the girl's death (she was found hung from her own silk stocking) a suicide, but Roger begins to have his doubts. Those doubts grow into a certainty that there's been murder done when first one girl and then another die in the same unusual way. Roger, as loquacious, conceited and peremptory as ever, launches an independent investigation, enlisted new-found acquaintances and old-school chums along the way. While you'll discern the murderer before Roger does, his detection remains pretty clever and the denouement is very suspenseful.

You can't help but like Roger, even if he is show more thoroughly conceited and a bit too fond of letting his presuppositions run wild. Anthony Berkeley applies such a light touch as he pokes fun at Roger and the conventions of the early 20th century detective novel that you'll find yourself grinning and laughing throughout at Berkeley's wit. I found this novel, the fourth in the Roger Sheringham series, probably his best. Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed The Poisoned Chocolates Case (the next novel in this series) and loved Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery (the previous one in the mystery series), where Roger blunders about on quite a few wild goose chases before he learns who murdered two people. But Roger's acumen is particularly clever in The Silk Stocking Murder, and it's great to savor Roger's triumph. I will be reading every single novel in this delightful British cozy series. I've already bought the Kindle edition of No. 6 in the excellent series, The Second Shot.

CAVEAT: Berkeley published The Silk Stocking Murder in 1928, and the attitude toward Jews is very mildly anti-Semitic. (A Jew, portrayed sympathetically as very honorable and generous, is nonetheless stereotyped as a shrewd and fabulously wealthy businessman.) show less

I enjoyed it thoroughly until I got hit over the head by the 'hero characters' clear and spoken antisemitism. The tragedy is that there was no push back against the antisemitism in the story which shows that this attitude was not shocking to at least a majority of the readers.

An entertaining mystery ruined by anti-Semitism.

Big Ship
7 June 2015

Miembro, junto a Dorothy L. Sayers o Agatha Christie, del selecto club de escritores de misterio de los años treinta, Anthony Berkeley aportó al género hondura y refinamiento psicológicos y creó un detective atípico e inolvidable: Roger Sheringham, novelista de éxito y detective amateur a sus horas. En esta ocasión, Sheringham se ve envuelto en un estremecedor y complejo caso que une el suicidio de la hija de una corista, la desaparición de la hija de un párroco de pueblo y la muerte de tres chicas que aparecen ahorcadas con medias de seda. Con su sagacidad psicológica y su original método deductivo, Sheringham acabará desvelando el mapa de los asesinatos que se esconden tras el misterio.

Qualche indizio in più durante la narrazione...

"Facilis descensus taverni"
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