I’ve already looked at one story with this title this week, so let’s complete the set, eh? This Blind Man’s Bluff (1943) is the fourth of Baynard Kendrick’s mysteries featuring Captain Duncan Maclain, and the second to be reprinted in the American Mystery Classics range. Having previously enjoyed The Odor of Violets (1941), I’m pleased to report that this is a stronger mystery, with a steadier core plot and enough unusual ideas stirred in to make a third visit with Maclain, should the AMC so wish it, rather appealing. The detective story and the pulp thriller have rarely meshed so well in my — admittedly, limited — experience, and I’m keen for more.

The plot this time around sees Blake Hadfield, the one-time president of the now bankrupt Miners Title and Trust Bank who was blinded six years ago by a disgruntled customer, arrange to meet various people — his son, his estranged wife, a lawyer — at the M.T. & T. building one evening for reasons unknown. And those reasons will remain unknown for the simple reason that, while his drunk son sleeps off a bender upstairs, Blake Hadfield plummets to his death from the eighth floor. The only problem? There was no-one besides Seth Hadfield and otherwise-occupied nightwatchman Dan O’Hare in the building…so Seth finds himself up on a murder charge.

There’s a key thread here which, for me, illustrates why Kendrick is so interesting as a writer. Without spoiling things, a new interpretation is put on events, and a lesser author would hold this sort of reveal back for the final third or so — but Kendrick puts it right under the reader’s nose the instant a whiff of this theme enters the plot, showing that he’s keeping up with the suspicions of the people at home. It’s only a minor factor, but mixed in with some other little puzzle plotting touches — some missing loose change, the clever interpretations put on a whisky glass — it heightens Kendrick’s milieu, and shows an intelligence of design behind the two-fisted attitude brought to events by his blind detective.

More deaths follow, including a defenestration from an otherwise-untenanted apartment, and so Maclain finds himself on the tail of “a man who had thought up, or stumbled on, a method of killing so simple and yet so complete that it furnished an impassable barrier to the electric chair”. And while not exactly fully rigorous in his investigations, the agonies that Maclain goes through are quite pleasing to see: it’s clear that Kendrick wants his protagonist to triumph against odds both mental and physical, but at times the almost preternatural capacity Maclain has despite his blindness puts him on the verge of superheroism…so it’s nice to see him struggle with a puzzle this time around, and some intelligent speculation and clever use of his dogs Schnucke and Driest establish the impossible nature of what he’s up against.

Kendrick also writes well, giving little moments like a policeman with “[g]ray eyes as non-committal as spots on a dress” moments in which to breathe, and finding some light humour in, for instance, Elise Sprague’s visit to high-end department store Covington’s in search of a replacement for a broken glass:

[The doorman] gave her such a look of sheer pleasure that Elise expected him to double up in a bow. She took the elevator wondering what type of greeting Covington’s gave you if you dropped in and announced you wanted to furnish a home.

A few light touches with history, too — the Wall Street Crash and Great Depression form part of the background, and Executive Order 9066 gets a passing mention — grounds us neatly, providing enough of a scent of the era without smothering you. 

All told, this feels more cohesive and more deliberately plotted than The Odor of Violets, only really stumbled for me because the guilty party happened to be the one character who, every time they appeared on the page, I could never quite remember who they were. One could also cavil that some of the setup doesn’t quite make sense — these meetings at the M.T. & T. building are surely taking a liberty — and that Kendrick hardly plays fair in the closing stages, but then you’d miss out on this neatly constructed little thriller and be robbed of its delightfully tense denouement. All told, this is another success for the AMC, and it’s to be hoped that we see more Maclain from them — TomCat recommends The Whistling Hangman (1937), incidentally — before too long.

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See also

TomCat @ Beneath the Stains of Time: Captain Maclain not only needs a clear and uncluttered mind to tangle with a very dangerous and clever killer, but also to make sense of wild array of strange, seemingly intelligible clues. Such as a misplaced ball of twine. A bottle of good whiskey thrown down an air shaft. A missing fountain pen and small change. A lowered Venetian blind and a vanished paperweight. A hallucination of someone falling down an elevator shaft. A smashed braille wristwatch and a heavy round watchman’s clock that the watchman carried on his rounds. So, yes, there’s a definite touch of Carr to the plotting and clueing recalling The Case of the Constant Suicides (1941) and Carr’s dark obsession with timepieces.

Kate @ Cross-Examining Crime: [T]he difficulty of the case does result in insufficient progress being made during earlier parts of the mystery. I felt like the reader did not have much to go on and that we were not being provided with much information during the middle of the book. Consequently, when it comes to the unveiling of the solution, the reader is hit with a lot of new information that they could not otherwise have known about.