Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy stories, where murder and magic mingle in an alternate-history Europe, being a closed set, I had never really thought to consider the gaps between them before now.

So here’s the last story on this blog before we take a little break and return to finish the canon next year, it’s…

‘A Matter of Gravity’ (1974)

When My Lord Jillbert, Count de la Vexin plummets from the window of the room in which he was definitely alone — the door barred behind him and guards on watch in the vestibule outside — it’s only a matter of simple observation (“…the body was eighteen feet from the wall. Glass spattered even farther…”) to establish that he did not merely fall from the window but was, at worst, thrown and at best jumping from it. So how could anyone have thrown him when there was no-one else in there? Or, if he jumped, from what was he jumping? Cue investigator Lord Darcy and his tubby Irish cliché sorcerer apprentice Master Sean O Lochlainn.

‘A Matter of Gravity’ (1974) reads at times like Garrett is becoming tired of these people and this universe, with little new that hasn’t already been picked over. He seems to have grown weary of small cases that evince great drama for the Empire, and haw now written three stories in a row where the motive is a simple matter of avarice of little consequence beyond the walls where the crime occurs. The scene-setting is lumpy…

“He knows we love each other, but he forbids our marriage, and insists that you marry Lady Evelynne de Saint-Brieuc — in spite of the fact that you do not love her nor she you. Is that concern for the individual or simply the desire to make an advantageous political marriage for you?”

…Darcy’s appearance is almost presented as serendipitous even though we’re told he’s been summoned, and the investigation and solution in no way justify the length gone to in this really quite straightforward case. I have a feeling this was the point where I parted from the series when I first read these tales, and rereading it for this post reminded me why.

And yet.

There are individual sentences in here that might be among the best stuff Garrett has ever written in terms of sheer — and forgive the unintended pun for a story about murder by defenestration — impact. The opening line is amazing, and the line that closes out that first scene is glorious:

Only two people saw him alive again, and then only for a matter of seconds.

Garrett paints the scene of the crime in a way that shows he is really enjoying this — “The Count and the courtyard met with fatal violence, and the sudden silence was punctuated only by the tinkling rain of shards of glass still falling from the ruined window above.” — and is putting more into the simple setup than his at-times dismissive tone would have you believe:

“Execution by defenestration, my child, is a peculiarly human act.”

Also fascinating is the discussion which renders our plummeted Count as a Materialist who refuses to believe in the proven existence of magic in this realm, mirroring the perspective in our own world of people who shun the existence of the intangible. It’s hardly genre-breaking stuff, but you really do get a sense of Garrett having the reins of this universe well within his control as he throws out casual line after casual line about the blindness of those who won’t see what’s on front of them, doing a good line in mocking the very Newtonian principles on which so much of our own science rests.

And yet for all these interruptions of occasionally brilliant writing — “Silence fell like a psychic fog, heavy and damp.” — the story feels casually deployed, including a scene where Darcy essentially gathers everyone involved and asks them all in turn ‘Hey, what do you think happened?’ only for them to go ‘Dunno, mate,’ and Darcy to more or less reply ‘Oh, then I’ll tell you’. What the hell was that about Randall? Running short on the word count, were we?

And then the explanation. Ye gods, that explanation.

It’s been said before, by people far more intelligent than me, that The Chinese Orange Mystery (1934) by Ellery Queen could do with a diagram or eight to explain its closing contortions. Well, add ‘A Matter of Gravity’ to the tail of that accusation, because I honestly have no goddamn clue precisely how the effect was achieved here, and would honestly have preferred a Pulp-y non-explanation to the overly-complex, impossible-to-follow one we get. Like the Queen, I get the essentials, and can explain in a sentence the broad idea, but, wow, technical writing was not the forte of these authors, and it shows.

Let’s finish then on a couple of points that eluded me first time around. Number one, Master Sean pulls out a “short, eighteen-inch wand” at one point, which means that every time from now on we’re not told a wand is short I’m going to imagine it’s of standard length and therefore a good three feet. The picture of our stout Irish mage twirling the equivalent of a band-leader’s mace at scenes of murder is going to keep me amused for years. Secondly, someone has “portions of eggs Boucher” for breakfast — a reference to the revered critic and author Anthony Boucher, do we think? A weird way to pay homage if so, but it’s not a style of cooking I’ve ever heard of. And someone having a style of cooking eggs I’ve never heard of is, frankly, very likely indeed.

So, yes, one comes away from this reflecting on the gap that followed it, with Garrett seeming a little off and perhaps needing not to force ideas into his well-realised setting. And it seems a fortuitously good time for us, too, to step away and return, like Garrett, hopefully renewed with enthusiasm for the rest of the canon in due course.

~

Contents:

1. ‘The Eyes Have It’ (1964)
2. ‘A Case of Identity’ (1964)
3. ‘The Muddle of the Woad’ (1965)
4. Too Many Magicians (1967)
5. ‘A Stretch of the Imagination’ (1973)
6. ‘A Matter of Gravity’ (1974)
7. ‘The Bitter End’ (1978)
8. ‘The Ipswich Phial’ (1976)
9. ‘The Sixteen Keys’ (1976)
10. ‘The Napoli Express’ (1979)
11. ‘The Spell of War’ (1979)