New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1922-07-02

I Pienty OF time to escape; and that,
when the lfe Of the girl you love might
depend on his capture! But If we'll
begun is half done, here is a so per
cent efficient mystery story.
IN 1.-THE Secret Partner" Miss Frazer
seems to have aimed at a
psychological study Of the strong man
Of Proverbs, who though he might
take city, carnot govern himself
Unfortunately, her aim is uncertain.
klaggett King-thc very name has an
intentional ring, like a steam-hammer
on GRANTEES power in Wall Street
and domestic tyrant, but he gets his
come-uppance when he tines to defy
the laws of nature. In gaining his
success he has murdered sleep, and
finds himself keeping wake with the
corpse.
1t is not conscious remorse that af-
tilcts him; he is very we'll pleased with
himself, and sees no reason whatever
10 change his ways. But he has
strange recurrent dream of a strugple
in the dark with an enemy whose face
he cannot see. Always in the dream
the enemy eludes him, but always the
dream preludes success in some waking
enterprise, and usually also the ruin
or an opponent. The symbolism is
probably plain as pikestaff to a
student of the Freudian meaning of
dreams; but to the lay reader it Is not
so clear, not even with the elucidation
offered in the final chapter, when
Klaggett King at last closes with his
dream enemy and finds death In VIC
tory That is sheer melodrama, verg-
ing on burlesque.
Altogether, here is an interesting
question begged; for Klaggett King
never quite convinces. No doubt a
certain touch of ruthlessness is es-
sential to large achievement Of a ma
terial kind but no big man is so hard
boiled and iron-clamped as King. Big
men 60 softly, and, as Bernard Shaw
has betrayed, the hero in public breaks
down and weeps on his wife's shoulder
an private. AS for the love story of
Celia King, Klaggett's daughter, it is
incidental and irrelevant, thrown in
for the sake of the plot. The tale, as
a whole, is not very we'll constructed;
Miss Frazer has tried to make the
technique of a short story do for a
novelette,. 1t is sramped in spots, and
sprawls when it gets out of hand.
q MADlAME VALcoUR's LoDGER,"
I'VE by Florence Olmstead (Scrib-
ner's), is story built upon much the
same lines as the novels of Jane Aus
ten. For the plot of the book is slight.
the action is inconsiderable and the
authors chief attention is given to the
development Of character and the crea-
ton of an atmosphere and background.
in this undertaking she is decidedly
successful, though her work lacks
much of the keenness and point of that
Of Jane Austen. At the basis of the
plot is a love story which takes the
usual course that such stories follow in
fiction, though it is retarded by one or
two unusual and not altogether plaus-
ible complications. S. A. C.
THE RED CAVALIER BY GLADYS Edison
Locke. The Page Company, Boston.
'k'HE threads of action in this COM
pllcatsd mystery story center about
the repeated appartions of a cavalier
in the costume Of the seventeenth CEN
fury. These apparitions, finally Gull
minating in the murder Of an Indian
prince, throw the members of house
party in Yorkshire castle into state
Of mingled perplexity and panic.
The trail of the mystery has so many
turnings that it is not easy to follow.
The investigators stumble across all
sorts of apparently unrelated clews;
the theft of a jewel from a Hindu
shrine, the debts of a young prodigal,
the temperance of the undesirable
husband of an unhappily married
woman.
In the end the pieces of the puzzle
are successfully fitted together, the vii
lains are punished pretty much in con-
fornity with their deserts and the way
is cleared for happy love affair. The
author has at her disposal all the ap-
paratus of horror tale: lonely cas-
tie by the sea, family ghost and an
outraged Oriental divinity. And she
makes reasonably good use Of her ma
terial. The action of the story never
drags and the solution of the puzzle
comes with genuine element Of sur
prise. ". d. G.