Evening star., 1934-09-16

VIRGINIA FAULKNER, AUTHOR
OF FRIENDS AND ROMANS"
young people, under the guidance of
the Cape celebrity, Zeruah Minis, for
fishing trip. Thus begins that June
day; it ends with two murders,
house party of suspects and the ar
rival of Asey Mayo. There are many
queer things about the situation. One
murdered man is found il the boat
house, the other, Caleb Frost himself
buried in the sand of the dunes. East
Pochet has had gay night when II
went wet" and lobsterman's shack
was wrecked. Who did it? Among
the guests at the cottage is writer
of detective stories, about whose iden-
tity even his publishers are in igno-
rance How does he come into the
picture? Asey is besought by all Ca
leb Frost's friends to investigate the
case, for they have no confidence In
the State police. He makes some
shrewd guesses, as usual, takes some
chances with Yankee bluff, and dis
covers the murderer. Phoebe Taylor.s
mystery stories are really far above
the average. This is not merely a
polite statement. Her style is clever
Asey is much more of an individual
than most of the hastily concocted
detectives of fiction and the Cape Cod
setting is vivid and convincing.
THE DEAD MAN AT THE WINDOW.
BY Jean Toussaint-Samat. Trans
lated by Elizabeth Abbott. Phila-
delphia: j. B. Lippincott Co.
lean TOUSSAINT SAMAT won
fame in the mystery field by the
prize winning mystery, Shoes That
Walked Twice. This new one is as
ingenious as the prize winner. The
setting is a quiet farm house near the
village of Martigues, in Provence. Its
terrace, lovely with lawn and flowers
and adjoining fine peach orchard.
has been the scene within 80 years of
a murder and five suicides. Now there
is more trouble for M. Levert, police
COliillAoolOllCl VI x1dl tAB QCo, WIN WOuAd
have been glad to doze little longer
on the morning of November 25. 1881.
for he had been fishing most of the
night. But he is awakened at o'clock
by the shout Of Sergt. Reboul outside
his window: Monsieur lie commits
saire, you had better come down!
There's another dead man at Monsieur
Malroger'sl" The dead man is a
stranger to all the Mslroger family
and to the townspeople. He has fallen
on a flower bed, evidently from some
sort Of seizure, and cut his forehead
on the tiles of the curbing in falling
The doctor, who soon follows the COM
missioner to the farm, thinks death
may easily ahave been caused by an
embolism. But Levert discovers that
the dead man has come to the terrace
from a punt on the seashore in his
bare feet and that one foot is crippled.
Why the bare feet? He begins to dis
trust the embolism theory. Also, he
believes from the evidence Of a cane
and certain articles of attire of the
dead man that he was a citizen Of
South America and wonders if he may
not have come to the neighborhood of
the farm by the new airline from
BuenoS Aires to Marignane, the air.
port for Marseilles. Clues multiply
and finally lead to the temple of the
ancient Aztec goddess of the moon
and her altar of human sacrifices.
Probability is a minor consideration in
most mystery stories and is no consid-
Grafton in this one.
X
THE MAN WITH THE WAX FACE.
BY Richard Wormser. New York:
Harrison Smith & Robert Haas.
A WALL STREET broker is killed at
his desk and the New York DO
lice. with all the actual machinery
they use in real life, begin the search
for a man with a wax face. Sergt.
Dixon Is assigned to the case, which,
If successfully brought to a conclusion,
will make his career Grant Gray
don has received in his morning mail
the terse. unsigned message: when
the end comes, it will be sudden.
3-X." Before 4 o'clock in the after
noon Graydon's partner, Quinn Han
ley, Is shot at his desk in the Offices
of the firm on the twelfth floor of a
skyScraper. The trail of the murderer
leads the police to raid on a radical
headquarters and a deal in Wall
Street. Dope flends, pacifists, mill
tariStS, reporters of sensational news.
jugglers of business ledgers, are ali
brought together in this decidedly
"hard-boiled" mystery.
X X X
THE BADDINGTON HORROR. By
Walter S. Masternan. New York I:
E. P. Dutton & Co.
SCOTLAND YARD has always been
- capable of imparting a thrill, ever
since Conan Doyle discovered its lit
erary mystery possibilities. This is
another Scotland Yard case by the
author of The Wrong Letter." THE
Curse of the Reckavilles" and "The
Mystery of Fifty-two" A retired
| judge. Sir Ernest Ferber, Bart, is
found shot in his private garden at
Baddington Court, near the little vii
lage of Baddington. in Markshire.
Beside him is the body of an ex-
convict, Banks, sentenced to penal
servitude by Judge Ferber Is years be-
fore and released from prison only
the day before the murder. The con-
clusion of every one who reads the
news in the evening papers is obvious,
that the ex-convict has gone straight
from prison to murder the man VINO
sent him there, and has then COM
mitted suicide. But if that conclusion
had been correct there would have
been nothing from which to make
this mystery story. The case is much
more complicated than that, and the
murderer Is not the ex-convict who
should logically have committed the
crime. The famous detective, Sir
Arthur Sinclair, an old Scotland YARD
favorite, handles the case and from
the first suspects another man lhan
Banks. The clues are unusually oaf-
fling, but he untangles them all and
sees the heroine happily married.
X X
THE WOMAN HE CHOSE. BY j. H.