The Murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey
-- by John Dickson Carr
I have just finished re-reading this book (after its sitting on my
bedside table for months after my marathon re-reading of all Carr's
other books last year -- this was just too fat and loaded with
footnotes). A mistake, because this is one of the finest productions
he ever did.
Whether or not he 'solved' the murder, with or without help from
Muddiman and other sources, his solution is totally logical and
convincing. No doubt, more 'serious' historians can refute it, even
support one of his other theories: he very generously gave us 12
alternate solutions (which I think cover all the bases, unless
somebody comes up with a totally new proposition, not just a
combination of parts of Carr's own scenarios). His own pick not only
works as a detective story, which this book really is as presented,
but seems a lot more convincing than the Popish Plot or the other
reasonable alternatives:
(a) Suicide, which by forensic evidence, though possibly inaccurately interpreted, even with the crude state of that science at the time, is ridiculous given the disposition of the body and various woundings, but it could have been possible considering that Godfrey was what one would now call a manic-depressive, had reportedly been very down in the days before, and the body bruises can be explained away (albeit not convincingly).
(b) Family murder or cover-up of a suicide disguised as murder to conserve the
estate such as it was (not that much, a coal merchant business; Carr mentions briefly that Godfrey may have been involved in some financial juggling with his bookkeepping, but with no proof, just rumors. But in those days a suicide's estate was forfeited to the government) -- which theory many suspected then and it was even brought up at the coroner's inquest.
(c) Some real political plot involving his duties as a magistrate. One could go on and on about this, as they did then and as Carr did in the book.
(d) The actual official result, the conviction of those obviously innocent servants at Somerset House, who were named by informers being paid by various parties.
(Those poor slobs were executed on the basis of evidence that would
be laughed out of court these days -- and this is practically the only thing historians agree on, that they were railroaded to the gallows.)
I can offer only one other
proposal, which he mentions but glosses over: Sir Edmund was mugged
(after all, this obvious toff was wandering around aimlessly near the
waste land of Primrose Hill), died accidentally in that robbery, and
the 'perps' covered their crime very crudely but cleverly, having
realized who the victim actually was and wanting nothing more to do
with it than to cover up by hiding the body for a couple of days and
diverting suspicion to the Papists or anybody else. In fact, that
seems very probable, in my mind, even though it is not a proper
detective story solution. (You can't say 'street people' and common
muggers are too dumb to do something like that. That's just
condescending snobbery.)
In any case, this is an excellent book, very well reasoned,
beautifully researched, brilliantly written and structured (here one
has to recognize some manipulation in a fiction-author sense, because
he organized his material very carefully, even burying clues about
his selected villain in seemingly irrelevant spots in the narrative,
including his alternate solutions -- well, that's Carr, and more
power to him!). The dialogue is impeccable, well-chosen, and defines
the characters, even though when he used documented verbiage he often
put it out of actual context. This really is a masterpiece.
What is even more gripping than the mystery is the 'analysis' of the
events of the Popish Plot, which takes up most of the book. However
Carr romanticizes Old Rowley and villainizes Shaftsbury, which is
understandable given his perceptions and predilections, one has to
say that this period saw one of the most horrendously unfair witch-hunts
in English history. The fact that trials and punishments were
totally biased toward the prosecution and barbarous in modern terms
(except under Stalin) is somewhat irrelevant. That's the way it was,
and Habeus Corpus wasn't even a right until a few years later. Yes,
some Catholics were in fact subversives and fanatics. Most of them
were not, had nothing to do with any plots, just became scapegoats to
the mob -- public opinion, whatever you want to call it -- as Carr
points out, this was the beginning of modern politics, as had not
been seen since Roman times, with campaign speeches, captive
journalists, and rabble rousers. Does this strike you now, about how
Arabs and other 'wogs' are now regarded in a lot of places?
Grobius, May 2002
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