Silence Observed

Sir John Appleby #19

by Michael Innes

Respected Fine Art experts are deceived in one of the most intriguing murder cases Inspector Appleby has ever faced, beginning with Gribble, a collector of forgeries whose latest acquisition is found to be a forged forgery! In the words of Appleby 'Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. Just a little mad, for a start. Inclined, say, to unreasonable jokes in the course of business. But later - well, very mad indeed.'

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Audiobook

Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Michael Innes was the pseudonym of John Innes MacKintosh (J.I.M.) Stewart (J.I.M. Stewart).

He was born in Edinburgh, and educated at Edinburgh Academy and Oriel College, Oxford. He was Lecturer in English at the University of Leeds from 1930 - 1935, and spent the succeeding ten years as Jury Professor of English at the University of Adelaide, South Australia.

He returned to the United Kingdom in 1949, to become a Lecturer at the Queen's University of Belfast. In 1949 he became a Student (Fellow) of Christ Church, Oxford, becoming a Professor by the time of his retirement in 1973.

As J.I.M. Stewart he published a number of works of non-fiction, mainly critical studies of authors, including Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling, as well as about twenty works of fiction and a memoir, 'Myself and Michael Innes'.

As Michael Innes, he published numerous mystery novels and short story collections, most featuring the Scotland Yard detective John Appleby.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Running the London police force is mostly an administrative job, so Sir John Appleby didn't expect to see two bodies in two days--or to see the same young man standing behind each corpse. It doesn't take Appleby long to posit a motive for the slayings, a motive involving forgery of art works. But the young man who has such a talent for finding bodies is involved with a real art work--an unknown painting by Rembrandt, worth a fortune. From discreet London clubs to Lady Appleby's dining room Appleby seeks clues that finally bring him to a decrepit mansion and to a speedboat that carries a valuable cargo.

[Bev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Silence Observed (1961) is the 19th entry in Michael Innes's Sir John Appleby series. Sir John has risen to the highest echelons of Scotland Yard and is concerned with purely administrative duties. But that doesn't prevent him from being pulled into an active role in the murder of a rare books seller. It all begins innocently enough in Sir John's club (whose motto makes up the title) when two of his friends approach him over "something that is just up [his] street." Charles Gribble produces a sheaf of papers--all forgeries of works purported to be by George Meredith. Gribble isn't complaining about the forgeries. No, indeed. It seems that he has been trying to corner the market on famous forgeries and he's quite gleeful about his purchase. Until he holds one of the sheets up to the light (to point out the cleverness of the forger's attention to detail) and he discovers that somebody has produced a forgery of a forgery. He's still not looking to prosecute, however, he's just going to talk to his "book man" and find out more about the providence of the papers.

Next up, is Sir Gabriel Gulliver, a renowned art expert, who tells Sir John of an odd incident involving an unknown Rembrandt. One of the services Sir Gabriel offers through his art gallery is free inspection of family heirlooms to see if someone has a treasure hiding among their pictures. A beautiful young woman arrives with a painting under her arm and both Sir Gabriel and his assistant, an athletic young art expert, immediately recognize the master strokes of Rembrandt. They try to get the woman to leave the painting for and official indepth evaluation, but she isn't having any. She wraps up the painting and leaves them. Sir Gabriel was intrigued enough to break tradition and try to contact the woman--but he finds that she has given a false name and a fictitious address.

Sir John doesn't see how he can justify any sort of investigation into the two incidents, but his instincts tell him that something is definitely afoot. He's proven right when Gribble's "book man" is shot to death and Sir Gabriel's young assistant is found standing over the body with a gun in his hand. Sir John takes on first-hand direction of the investigation when he discovers that the young art expert was the missing guest at the dinner part Lady Appleby had given that evening. There are just too many links to too many of Sir John's acquaintances for him to stay out of it. When he finds a scrap of a painting which shows only a strikingly familiar eye, it looks like a huge forgery operation is in play. He fully enjoys being back in the hunt and eagerly follows the clues...until his investigations get a little too close to the source and the killer decides to use Lady Appleby as a shield to ensure his/her escape.

This is an unusual police procedural--not that this should surprise regular readers of Innes. He does tend to do things a little differently. We follow Sir John around as he investigates, but he really is not following procedure much. He keeps what he finds close to his chest and doesn't share it with his lead detective inspector at all. Fortunately, for the reader, we are privy to everything he finds and can make the connections necessary to come to the same conclusion (if we're paying close enough attention). Poor Inspector Parker only knows what happens in the few witness interviews that Sir John holds while he's present.

I did enjoy the way Innes works the forgery theme throughout the book and I just generally enjoy the character of Sir John even though he's a bit eccentric at times. An enjoyable, if different police procedural. ★★★ and a half. [rounded up here]

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5★

This 19th entry in the Appleby series was a more traditional police-based mystery though I hesitate to call it a police procedural as very little procedure is followed! Sir John is drawn into investigating a potential case of forged forgeries (!) just as Sir Gabriel Gulliver, an old family friend of his wife, asks him to look into the willful disappearance of a beautiful girl with an unknown Rembrandt. Some aspects of the plot were a little predictable but there were enough twists to keep me satisfied.

[Dave]

DNF, because the book’s pages are crumbling and I am losing significant wordage. When I DO read this book, I will get a copy not published by Ballantine in the 70s with a ghastly yellow cover featuring two grammatical errors. WWTT?

[Adele · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another classic crime novel from my CoffeeAndCrime 2022 advent calendar this was an interesting case, across a small cast quickly resolved within just 156 pages.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

As always in the Sir John Appleby's books, the story is complex, full of twists and strange coincidences, eccentric behavior, obscure quotations... and the expectation that the reader has a general sense of (Western) culture. In this particular book, Sir John Appleby is accosted - in his club, no less, where the motto is "Silence is observed", and not less than twice in a single day!- by casual acquaintances, each of whom has a strange story to tell. The first is a collector of fake manuscripts (eccentric number 1), who is dismayed to find that the fake he has acquired, is faked! That it is: it was produced AFTER the faker whose work he's interested in, had died. He intends to take this up with his book dealer. A few hours later, a relative of Sir John Appleby's wife, Sir Gabriel Gulliver, who works in an art museum, comes to him with another strange tale: a gorgeous young woman has brought in a genuine Rembrandt for appraisal, but the second she noticed Sir Gabriel's assistant, Jimmy Heffer, she packs up her parcel and disappears. Strange, what?

Within hours the two stories converge: the book dealer from the faked fake manuscript is murdered, and found standing over him with a gun in his hand, is Jimmy Heffer. It takes some time before he can be exonerated, due to the eccentric behavior of the local charwoman (eccentric nr 2), but that is not the end of the saga. Sir John Appleby, now very high up at Scotland Yard and a paper shuffler, is secretly pleased to be on the case once more, even if it means that his wife's dinner parties are disrupted, he has to climb up and down the rooftops of London, and meets a malignant old miser (eccentric nr 3) in a decaying country mansion.

Good fun!

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent holiday reading if you enjoy Golden Age detectives and are prepared to meet Sir John Appleby who has risen high in Scotland Yard. The plots are a little formulaic and usually occur among elegant and aristocratic socialites, at dinner parties, in country houses, art galleries and London, but sometimes overseas. What I enjoy most here is the gentle satire directed quietly at the presumption and shallowness around many of these characters' conversation and social conventions.

Michael Innes, the pen name of J I M Stewart, was an Oxford university professor who wrote crime novels mainly for his colleagues entertainment and his own amusement. Like other writers of the era he occasionally pops in some classical literary quotations and references that are all pretty obscure to readers nowadays.

We are no longer schooled in Greek and Latin from an early age, so maybe we lose out. But this is another source of interest to follow up and I like to think of these dons all chuckling over the hidden jokes. But many of our modern writers will need annotated notes in future, as current references and in-jokes are lost in time. Who are we to complain of this author's fun?

We also get strange snippets of general knowledge in these books. In this one I learnt that mummified bodies were ground up to provide a source of paint pigment at one time. Will never look at a Titian now without recalling that rather grim fact.

If you enjoy this style of writing you will find many amusing, light treasures among this series by Michael Innes.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in March 1998.

The only other Michael Innes novel I have read to date is Operation Pax, which reminded me strongly of some of J.B.Priestley's thrillers, though I felt that Innes' pace was rather less well-crafted than Priestley's, particularly in the first half of the book. This novel, however, even though it shares the same detective, Sir John Appleby, reminds me rather more of one of Margery Allingham's Campion novels. Again, this resemblance is most marked in the early chapters, where Appleby acts in a most Campionesque (if there is such a word) manner.

Two people approach Appleby in his club one evening, with curious tales of the art world - one is a collector of forgeries, whose latest acquisition is a forgery of the work of a famous forger; the other is a respected dealer who has just been offered a previously unknown Rembrandt. This second man has a young assistant, who over the next two days is twice discovered with newly shot corpses, revolver in hand.

The book is certainly more along thriller lines than puzzle lines. There are not enough people seriously involved to make it difficult to work out the identity of the villain. By today's standards, the book is very gentle as a thriller, which makes it a pleasant, relaxing read.

[Judith]

I was going to lend this book to a mystery loving friend, but the dog got to it first, so it no longer has a cover. Readable, but not all that great.

[Andrew Darling · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of his best, which is going some