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Doctor Manson #11
Death of a Frightened Editor: A Golden Age Mystery
Alexis Mortensen rose from his chair in the first-class Pullman and walked into the corridor.
None of the remaining occupants noticed that he had left them until after Death, travelling at 60 miles an hour, had reached out for him . . .
Seven men and a woman were in the first-class coach of a train from London to Brighton. They had travelled together each evening for months. That night one of them, Alexis Mortensen, editor of a scurrilous newspaper, died from strychnine poisoning. Strychnine acts inside fifteen minutes, but Mortensen had had nothing which could have contained the poison for an hour before his death. An unbelievably grotesque story from the past was to be uncovered before the case was solved.
“Tip-top form” Coventry Evening Telegraph
“One of their best books” Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers
None of the remaining occupants noticed that he had left them until after Death, travelling at 60 miles an hour, had reached out for him . . .
Seven men and a woman were in the first-class coach of a train from London to Brighton. They had travelled together each evening for months. That night one of them, Alexis Mortensen, editor of a scurrilous newspaper, died from strychnine poisoning. Strychnine acts inside fifteen minutes, but Mortensen had had nothing which could have contained the poison for an hour before his death. An unbelievably grotesque story from the past was to be uncovered before the case was solved.
“Tip-top form” Coventry Evening Telegraph
“One of their best books” Twentieth Century Crime & Mystery Writers
- GenresMystery
299 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1959
12 people are currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
E. Radford
43 booksEdwin Isaac Radford, 1891-1973, b. in Staffordshire
See also Edwin Radford
See also Edwin Radford
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 13, 2021
This is a 1959 book by English husband-and-wife author Edwin Issac Radford & Mona Augusta Radford (writing as E & M.A. Radford). The couple did not start their writing career until they were in their 50s. This book is book 11 of their long running Doctor Harry Manson series. Dr. Manson was a police detective at Scotland Yard and the Head of Crime Forensics Research Lab at the Yard (our modern-day Head of Forensic Lab). Manson’s police career advanced as the series progressed. In this story, he was a Superintendent and the Chief of Homicide Squad at Scotland Yard. Manson is in a way similar to the more famous Dr. John Thorndyke created by R. Austin Freeman, both used their medical and scientific training in solving crimes using a heavy forensic approach. I find this police procedural book very enjoyable. It is an impossible crime with a strong and intricate plot and counterplot but not over twisty so that readers will get lost. The kindle edition I read (published by Dean Street Press) has a very good introduction written by Nigel Moss which provided a history of this lessor known writer couple, how they got into writing, and the history and development of the Manson series. This very excellent introduction also provided a lot of mystery history, including a list of other husband-and-wife novelists like G.D.H. and M. Cole (Douglas and Margaret Cole); Kelley Roos (Audrey Roos and William Roos); and the much more famous Frances and Richard Lockridge. Some has considered this book is one of the best in the Manson series. When Herbert Harris was talking about the Radfords in his book “Twentieth Century Crime and Mystery Writers” (1980), he gave special praise to this book as one of their best. One thing I also like about this book is the team approach. Instead of having Manson being the one superman detective who did all the thinking, he has a team with competent detectives who thought independently and took actions to further the case along.
Spoiler Alert. This impossible crime is about a baffling poisoning of a gossip newspaper editor Alexis Mortensen on a London to Brighton train called the Brighton Belle. The setting is in London and Brighton in late 1950s. For the last 6 or 7 months, eight people have decided to commute together five evenings a week in a First Class Pullman coach on the 5:20pm train from Victoria station in London to Brighton. They were fellow commuters but were not really friends of each other but they liked to hang out together on the train. On October 11 (a Friday evening) Mortensen was found dead in the lavatory of the train, poisoned with strychnine. While the death initially looked like a suicide, Manson were soon able to rule that out. Then it became an impossible crime because Mortensen had not had any food or drink during the hour before he died and strychnine would kill in 15 minutes. When Manson and his team looked into Mortensen’s life and did some solid forensic accounting work into his books, they discovered he was actually a blackmailer. By using his gossip newspaper as a front, he bought rumors and other compromising information from maids and servants of the rich and famous. He either used the materials he bought to blackmail the victims, or if necessary, he would have his mistress Mary Ross use a fake name to get a job inside the victim’s house to steal compromising letters. It turns out seven out of the eight passengers on that train (all except newspaperman Edwin Crispin) travelling with Mortensen were victims of Mortensen and all were paying Mortensen. However, the difficulty remained as to how was it physically possible to use strychnine to poison someone and yet have the person not show any symptom for an hour. After some very solid police work, Manson figured out an intricate plot.
The murderer was fellow passenger Mrs. Freda Harrison, assisted by another passenger, newspaper crime reporter Edwin Crispin. One of Manson’s officers, Superintendent Jones, with some solid police work, discovered that Crispin was the illegitimate son of Harrison and Arthur Moore (who now called himself Alexis Mortensen. In late 1950s, Freda Harrison has become a well-known activist, championing a cause of helping “fallen women” to start a new life. If it became known that she had an illegitimate son, her career would suffer. Mortensen had been blackmailing her and was bleeding her dry. Therefore, she finally decided to kill him.
Mortensen has a habit of taking bismuth tablets to help with his indigestion. Since he always had an early supper on the train before it leaves the station, he has a bottle on bismuth tablet on his train table all the time and would take two tablets from the bottle after the meal. Harrison decided to take advantage of that habit. She first acquired the strychnine by extracting them from some old Battle’s vermin killer, an old pest control substance that has been banned in England since 1934. She then put the strychnine powder into a metal mold to compress the powder into a pill with the same shape as a bismuth tablet. She then coated the poison tablet in a chemical that would delay the tablet from being dissolved in the body for a few hours. She arranged a meeting with Mortensen on the train that day before other passengers arrived and substituted her bottle with the poisoned tablets with the bottle on the table. After Mortensen has taken his daily two bismuth tablets (now substituted with poison), the plan was to have Crispin stop by Mortensen’s table to swap the one with the doctored pill with the original bottle Harrison has stolen. If everything went according to plan, Mortensen would not absorb the poison until more than an hour later when he would be home by himself. Police who subsequently test the bottle would find only harmless bismuth tablets. Unfortunately for Harrison and Crispin, Mortensen (who never drinks on the train), decided to have a whisky that day. The alcohol dissolved the coating on the strychnine tablet so Mortensen died sooner than expected, destroying Harrison’s well-planned alibi.
Spoiler Alert. This impossible crime is about a baffling poisoning of a gossip newspaper editor Alexis Mortensen on a London to Brighton train called the Brighton Belle. The setting is in London and Brighton in late 1950s. For the last 6 or 7 months, eight people have decided to commute together five evenings a week in a First Class Pullman coach on the 5:20pm train from Victoria station in London to Brighton. They were fellow commuters but were not really friends of each other but they liked to hang out together on the train. On October 11 (a Friday evening) Mortensen was found dead in the lavatory of the train, poisoned with strychnine. While the death initially looked like a suicide, Manson were soon able to rule that out. Then it became an impossible crime because Mortensen had not had any food or drink during the hour before he died and strychnine would kill in 15 minutes. When Manson and his team looked into Mortensen’s life and did some solid forensic accounting work into his books, they discovered he was actually a blackmailer. By using his gossip newspaper as a front, he bought rumors and other compromising information from maids and servants of the rich and famous. He either used the materials he bought to blackmail the victims, or if necessary, he would have his mistress Mary Ross use a fake name to get a job inside the victim’s house to steal compromising letters. It turns out seven out of the eight passengers on that train (all except newspaperman Edwin Crispin) travelling with Mortensen were victims of Mortensen and all were paying Mortensen. However, the difficulty remained as to how was it physically possible to use strychnine to poison someone and yet have the person not show any symptom for an hour. After some very solid police work, Manson figured out an intricate plot.
The murderer was fellow passenger Mrs. Freda Harrison, assisted by another passenger, newspaper crime reporter Edwin Crispin. One of Manson’s officers, Superintendent Jones, with some solid police work, discovered that Crispin was the illegitimate son of Harrison and Arthur Moore (who now called himself Alexis Mortensen. In late 1950s, Freda Harrison has become a well-known activist, championing a cause of helping “fallen women” to start a new life. If it became known that she had an illegitimate son, her career would suffer. Mortensen had been blackmailing her and was bleeding her dry. Therefore, she finally decided to kill him.
Mortensen has a habit of taking bismuth tablets to help with his indigestion. Since he always had an early supper on the train before it leaves the station, he has a bottle on bismuth tablet on his train table all the time and would take two tablets from the bottle after the meal. Harrison decided to take advantage of that habit. She first acquired the strychnine by extracting them from some old Battle’s vermin killer, an old pest control substance that has been banned in England since 1934. She then put the strychnine powder into a metal mold to compress the powder into a pill with the same shape as a bismuth tablet. She then coated the poison tablet in a chemical that would delay the tablet from being dissolved in the body for a few hours. She arranged a meeting with Mortensen on the train that day before other passengers arrived and substituted her bottle with the poisoned tablets with the bottle on the table. After Mortensen has taken his daily two bismuth tablets (now substituted with poison), the plan was to have Crispin stop by Mortensen’s table to swap the one with the doctored pill with the original bottle Harrison has stolen. If everything went according to plan, Mortensen would not absorb the poison until more than an hour later when he would be home by himself. Police who subsequently test the bottle would find only harmless bismuth tablets. Unfortunately for Harrison and Crispin, Mortensen (who never drinks on the train), decided to have a whisky that day. The alcohol dissolved the coating on the strychnine tablet so Mortensen died sooner than expected, destroying Harrison’s well-planned alibi.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 23, 2021
A fun read, but not fair play
Maybe British readers in the mid 20th century would get the slender clues presented toward the end of the story. I did not. But, murder and blackmail are a classic mix and this murder on the train mystery was a good read, my favorite Radford so far. Recommended
Maybe British readers in the mid 20th century would get the slender clues presented toward the end of the story. I did not. But, murder and blackmail are a classic mix and this murder on the train mystery was a good read, my favorite Radford so far. Recommended
April 28, 2020
This has a very interesting, if somewhat unlikely set-up, and, ultimately it is difficult to understand why the murderer chose to poison their way out of a difficult situation.
3.5 stars
3.5 stars
May 30, 2020
Some odd pyschology, and I tink that initially there was some slight cheating with a technical part of the murder.
June 11, 2020
This is a really enjoyable who-dun-it. It twists and turns and is difficult but not impossible to solve. I hope some more of E Radford and wife are published soon.
January 18, 2022
I enjoyed it as much as I did the first time many years ago
April 23, 2020
For my full review click on the link below:
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews