A review of Power on the Scent by Henrietta Clandon – 240307

I seem to be on a random sort of thematic chain at the moment. Having just finished two books that involved a poison despatched by dart I now have two books, of which this is the second, where a wasp, one actual and in this case putative, make an appearance.

Originally published in 1937 Power on the Scent is another novel that John Vahey, better known as Vernon Loder, published under the name of Henrietta Clandon and is one of four novels reissued by Dean Street Press. I found it the weakest of the four for a number of reasons. It reads more as a social comedy than a murder mystery, nothing wrong in that per se, but the detection or gathering of information and clues takes a form of leisurely chats in social settings which, given their lack of variety, get a little tedious.

It also suffers from a lack of focus as there are too many sleuths involved. We have husband and wife detective writing duo who have an interest in criminology, Vincent and Penny Mercer, and Penny acts as narrator, penning her story under the name of Henrietta Clandon, a neat trick. The side of the well-meaning amateurs is completed by Mr Power, a lawyer-cum-detective. For the police we have Inspector Voce and Sergeant Bohm from the Yard and the local police led by Captain Hollick, who resents the presence of amateurs on his patch, and Inspector Hollick, both anxious to avoid local scandals.

Added to that the murder mystery itself is not very compelling. A retired stockbroker, Montague Mercer, is found dead in his own garden, wearing a Rose which bears traces of cocaine. Mercer has an allergy to the drug and did he sniff the rose and with it the cocaine, causing his death? And who laced the rose and why? The irony is that Mercer was a famed amateur horticulturist who had developed the particular type of rose, the Rennavy Rose, which he named after his erstwhile secretary and the village’s femme fatale, Mrs Davy-Renny. Mrs Davy-Renny sent the rose to Mercer via her made which had come from a bouquet bought for her by the local policeman, Inspector Kay.

As Power discovers during the course of the investigation, the Rennavy Rose has a particular characteristic which meant anyone who knew about it, especially its creator, would not be disposed to sniff it. The post mortem shows that Mercer had abdominal injuries, which, after the ingestion of a heavy breakfast, were probably serious enough to kill him. This suggests that his death was murder but by whom and why?

Mrs Davy-Renny is the honey pot around whom the local eligible men buzz. Was the murder incited by a lover’s jealousy? And what of the mysterious behaviour of Stibbins, the main beneficiary of his uncle’s will and client of Mr Power, seen snooping around the gardens with a camera?        

The sleuths discover that Mercer was involved in a  dodgy share promoting scheme with Tressey-Withers and that several of the key suspects had had their fingers burned and the expected beneficiaries of Mercer’s estate, Stibbins and Mrs Davy-Renny, are facing a significant reduction in their anticipated legacies. Mr Power, as all lawyers should, he sees justice is done.

As to Mercer’s murder, the death of Jolson, a retired bank manager and a shrinking violet, who owns a boisterous Great Dane, seems to confirm Voce’s suspicions. We are treated to an amusing analysis of the shape of bruising caused by a Great Dane’s and a human’s head, which together with a recollection of how a school bully was dealt with, seems to seal both the culprit and the method. Using a hat in the summer as an ornament for the hand rather than sitting on the head also becomes highly relevant.

The local police’s unwillingness to create waves means that the case fizzles out with a whimper. Clandon’s style is witty, not least in its title, and there some acerbic asides, particularly about the writing industry and some in jokes which with the passage of time lose their bite, but, sadly, it was not a book with which I felt particularly engaged.