I was one of many Golden Age fans who was quite excited when Orion’s now-defunct Murder Room acquired the rights to the novels of Henry Wade. And I was one of many Golden Age fans who signally failed to buy any of those titles and read and review them, which in part resulted in the aforementioned defunctness. But when titles began to vanish from availability, I snapped a couple up, including Constable, Guard Thyself! (1934) on the understanding that it presented an example of my favourite subgenre, the impossible crime. So, now that you can’t buy it for yourself, I’m here to say that, yeah, it’s fine, and that Wade, like J.J. Connington, presents enough of interest in his procedural approach to warrant further reading.

Some 20 years after being jailed, he claims wrongly, for the murder of a groundskeeper, Albert Hinde is released and heads to Brodbury to confront policeman Captain Scole, the man whose evidence put him away. Sending threatening letters and confronting Scole on his journey home, however, don’t seem to be enough for Hinde, who apparently makes his way to the police station and shoots Scole in the head. The only problem is that, due to Hinde’s threats, security around Scole had been increased recently, and there was no way he could have approached the station unseen, much less entered it or have gotten out unnoticed, especially in the furore following two gunshots in the building. So…howdunnit?

Before long, Scotland Yard are called in in the person of Detective Inspector John Poole, who initially balks at the idea of “routine work which called for more thoroughness than imagination”, preferring the opportunity of “spectacular distinction” — a pleasing change from the assiduous approach of the usual fictional professional policeman of this era. Not, however, that Poole will lack for meticulousness, picking through the Hinde case with a care that brings more than a few unusual details to light.

Constable, Guard Thyself! is, in essence, about seven chapters too long and rather ponderous going at times. The mildly attentive reader will have spotted the key ideas early, and despite some good obfuscation by Wade — that the position of the bullets doesn’t make sense, say, or the genuinely excellent way two examinations of those bullets end up contradicting each other — there’s little to shake the conviction that will soon settle. The investigation, however, is commendably painstaking, and allows Wade to flex both his plotting and his dryly humorous muscles:

In the locked drawers below the writing-table, Venning found a file of papers which sorely tempted him to linger — papers concerning police matters in the county so confidential that they were probably not even seen by the Chief Clerk… There was even an indexed dossier, kept by the Chief Constable himself, which, had its existence been realised, would have caused a scandalised fluttering of patrician dove-cotes.

The book is most successful as an example of minute character moments, such as schoolboy Jack Wissell “clutching a silver [coin] from which nothing would ever induce him to part”, Superintendent Venning’s treatment of the brigadier (“[T]hey’d got to be allowed to run themselves down…”) and scorn for calling in “The Yard”, followed by Poole’s realisation that Venning “[had] ‘passive resistance’…written all over him” in their early dealings. Barely a chapter passes without some excellent observation or interesting in a minor personage, like the greengrocer Prinkle, and it’s to the novel’s credit over and above the somewhat ponderous plotting.

The war, too, looms large, as is to be expected given Wade’s own service, tinged with both cynicism (“General Cawdon appreciated loyalty in a superior officer to his subordinate. It was not a universal virtue in the services.”) and a sense of horror:

“I’m thirty-three; been a bit lucky in the way of promotion. You’re not so much more than that yourself, are you?”

“I’m thirty-eight; old enough to have seen this bit of trouble,” [Tallard] pointed to the ribbons on his tunic, “which I guess you missed.”

“I did. I suppose you’ll say I was lucky.”

“You were,” replied Tallard succinctly.

Interesting, too, to see the writing distinguish between contractions involving “would” and “had”, so you get lines like “…as you’ld known if you’d studied your Field Service Regulations”. It happens throughout and I don’t ever remember encountering it before; I like it so much, however, that I’m tempted to adopt it into my own writing going forward. Also the saying “kick against the pricks” originated far earlier than I realised, and means something else entirely to what I understood. How about that?

An overlong, overcautious, flawed book, then, but an interesting one that bodes well for Wade’s later career given that he went on to write at least one masterpiece for the ages. And while I could do without his tendency to make up place names so obviously based on actual towns and counties — Brancashire, Chassex, Greymouth — I’m intrigued to read further into Wade’s output, firmly believing that he’ll have learned from the care exhibited here and will have gone on to lean more recklessly into the genre’s many conventions. Let’s hope he resurfaces in lovely, affordable paperback editions soon. Which I will buy, I promise.