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THE PONSON CASE, first published in 1921, is Freeman Wills Crofts’ second book. Crofts had blazed onto the scene the previous year with his debut novel, The Cask. Far outselling Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, published in the same year, Crofts went on to become a cornerstone of what we now regard as the Golden Age of detective fiction, the period between the two world wars.

Together with his great contemporaries, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, Crofts could not only tell an engaging and entertaining story, but paid the reader the compliment of assuming they were intelligent enough to engage with the logical working out of the mystery.

Crofts respected his readers; he always plays fair (an important quality in Golden Age crime) so that the reader has the same information as the detective. We, the reader, along with the detective, are invited to find a solution to the mystery. An important point, which demonstrates the quality of Crofts’ writing, is that the solution is always credible. Not for Crofts, the ‘infernal ingenuity’ that P. G. Wodehouse, a devoted mystery reader, complains of in his excellent essay, ‘Thrillers’. Instead the criminal, although ingenious, always acts in a way which makes perfect sense

His meticulous approach to plotting is recalled in a letter written by F. T. Smith, Crofts’ editor at Collins in the 1920s, to the Chairman of the company, Billy Collins. Although the letter was written in 1973, Crofts evidently made a lasting impression on Fred. The book in question isn’t named, but it’s a fair assumption that he is discussing The Ponson Case:

‘In Crofts’ case he loved criticism. He always wanted to come in and devote about three hours to a detailed discussion. How could he possibly require this? Well, I remember one case in which the body of the victim was discovered washed ashore on the banks of a river. I innocently had queried the time of the discovery and made a pencilled note on the margin. Crofts arrived with a suitcase for a discussion. He produced three large Ordnance Survey maps showing the course of the river, a very full county history, two reports on flooding in the county, one report on the effect of the current on the river banks and lastly a batch of correspondence with a medical officer of health showing how to tell how long a body had been in the water. Now all this trouble to prove that the body thrown into this particular river at a certain point would be washed ashore at another place at a more or less definite time.’

Freeman Wills Crofts was an Irishman, born in Dublin in 1879. He was named after his father, a British army doctor, who died in Honduras before his son was born. His mother married again when Crofts was three and the family moved to the small village of Gilford, Ulster, where his stepfather, Reverend Harding, was the vicar. Gilford village had been founded in 1641 by a Captain John Magill. Crofts was later to borrow Captain Magill’s name for one of his best books, Sir John Magill’s Last Journey, which draws heavily on his Ulster background.

When Crofts was eighteen, he was apprenticed to his uncle, Berkley Dean Wise, the Chief Engineer of the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway. An outstanding civil engineer, Berkley Dean Wise made a huge contribution to railway travel, boosting tourism in and to Northern Ireland, and the young Crofts flourished under his care.

Railways, in that great age of steam, enthralled Crofts, as they have captured the imagination of so many others. Hardworking, creative and intelligent, he rose to become Chief Assistant Engineer. One of his projects which still stands today is the massive ten arch Bleach Green viaduct.

Crofts, however, was always dogged by poor health. It was during a long illness in 1919 that he wrote The Cask and, granted his background, it’s hardly surprising that he chose to make his detective heroes professional policemen.

To a modern reader this may seem an obvious decision, but in 1920, in the shadow of Sherlock Holmes, the gifted amateur was at his (and occasionally her) height of popularity. The sole purpose of a policeman in many Golden Age mysteries is to provide a foil to show the almost supernatural brilliance of the amateur. These are often great fun to read, but Crofts, the trained railway engineer, had a deep respect for the hard work a profession entails

In his fifth book, Inspector French’s Greatest Case, Crofts went on to to create his best known character, Inspector Joseph French of Scotland Yard. Fair minded, decent and achieving his results through sheer dogged persistence, Inspector Tanner of The Ponson Case is, in many ways, a blueprint for French.

‘There were already plenty of “character” detectives,’ wrote Crofts in his essay ‘Meet Inspector French’, ‘the lineal descendants, most of them, of the great Sherlock. I tried to make French a perfectly ordinary man, without peculiarities or mannerisms. Of course he had to have some qualities, but they were to be the ordinary qualities of ordinary fairly successful men. He was to have thoroughness and perseverance as well as a reasonable amount of intelligence, just the qualities which make for moderate success in any walk of life.’

This accent on the ‘ordinary’ has led to the charge that Crofts is a ‘humdrum’ writer and his policeman heroes are humdrum (aka boring) characters. This is unfair. It would be far better and a much truer assessment of his books to see his detectives as Everyman characters.

‘French,’ he wrote, to quote once more from ‘Meet Inspector French’, ‘does not leap to his conclusions by brilliant intuition. He begins a case by going and looking for information in those places in which he thinks information is most likely to be found. When he gets the information he swots over it until he grinds out some sort of theory to account for the facts. Very often this turns out to be wrong, but if so, he simply tries again until he thinks of something better.’

If this sounds daunting, don’t worry—it isn’t. One of the great qualities of Crofts’ writing is that it is very enjoyable to read. He loved travel and used a great variety of locations in his books. All of Crofts’ heroes have an engaging interest in the locations they find themselves, from the round Britain cruise of Fatal Venture to the construction of the A3, lovingly described in The Hog’s Back Mystery. In The Ponson Case, for instance, Inspector Tanner ends up in Portugal, where his insular British prejudices are overthrown by the sight of the glittering city of Lisbon.

Crofts doesn’t, thank goodness, go over the same ground again and again, but leads us forward through the story as new facts are discovered and fresh discoveries are made. His style is simple, easy and accessible. There aren’t any literary fireworks but he tells the story in ordinary, everyday language.

In 1929 Crofts, who was always dogged by ill health, retired from the railways. This was made possible by the great success of his books. Together with his wife, Mary, he moved from Northern Ireland to Blackheath in Surrey. He had always loved the countryside, as is evident from the opening of The Ponson Case. ‘A fine old house, finely set on the summit of a low hill and surrounded by wonderful old trees, it seemed to stand symbolical of the peace, security and solid comfort…’

The peace doesn’t last long.

DOLORES GORDON-SMITH

July 2015