Standard and Travesty

SHADOWED!--Hilaire Belloc--37 Drawings by G. K. Chesterton--Harper ($2.50).

The Collaborators. G. B. Shaw's theory is that Chesterton and Belloc are not two persons, but one mythological monster, "the Chesterbelloc," a combative, capering elephant. Both write brilliantly, voluminously--history, biography, fiction, indifferent poetry, essays on religion and ethics, essays on morals and manners; both champion ecclesiasticism, traditionalism, medievalism; both revile socialism, woman's suffrage and G. B. Shaw.

Detective Writer Joseph Hilaire Belloc is French by birth (1870), English by naturalization (1902). Arrogant, self-assured, his parliamentary career was remarkably unsuccessful. A devi for work, he is a genius for play, bringing to it tremendous energy, gargantuan exuberance.

Caricaturist Gilbert Keith Chesterton, born in London 54 years ago, deserted art school for "literary work." His genius is for turning platitudes into epigrams and vice versa; his reputation, for making paradoxes. Indolent, jovial, fat, he has been described as a "hansom cabful"; and the story runs that one day in a tram he rose, offered his seat to three women.

Of such are the men that produced:

The Story. In 1979 a chap with a scar was traveling to England, there to sell to the highest bidder priceless mineral deposits of his native West Irania. In the same year, another chap, without a scar, was traveling to England, there to see the world. Of Chap I the name was whatever happened to be convenient; of Chap II the name was Richard Mallard--he having no reason to conceal his identity.

The story of these two gentlemen exists solely by reason of the excessive sleuthly caution of Sleuth Evans of the Truth and Justice Private Enquiry Co., New York. Having smartly overheard the man with the scar mention to the steamship agent his cabin number, he smartly withdrew, lest he appear to be what he was, a sleuth. By his very caution he missed the fact that cabin number 136 was being surrendered, not engaged.

Chap I, with the scar, took a later steamer, and was marooned for some weeks on the coast of Labrador. Chap II, without a scar, fell heir to the canceled cabin and arrived in England to receive, as inmate of cabin 136, the attentions of Sleuths A, B, C and D, respectively employed by a newspaper magnate, an industrialist, and Her Honor, the Prime Minister of England. Each of these worthies was scheming to prevent the sale of West Iranian minerals to either of the others, though nothing was further from the confused thoughts of poor Mallard. Harassed, indignant, he escaped to France, only to be welcomed by Sleuth E (with an accent).

But at last the chap with the scar descended from his Labrador crag, sold the concession to the British government--and all that remained was for the female administration to hush up the scandal.

The Significance. Chesterton's pencil sketches add immeasurably to the fun-- "Lady Caroline Balcomb plumbing the Depths of European Affairs" through a lorgnette; "Richard Mallard expressing his incapacity for surprise." The text is a sparkling satire on "our old and complex society," and a bitter burlesque of politics in general and female politicians in particular. It is also an excellent travesty on the standard detective story. The slight plot--international intrigue in the later 20th century--is a mockery, and the countless detectives a taunt.

Other Mysteries. As if to escape the Chesterbelloc ridicule, Footprints by Kay Cleaver Strahan (Doubleday, Doran, $2) is a detective story with practically no detective. Murder, rope hanging from the window--but no footsteps in the snow: members of the family suspect each other, one even suspects oneself. Ingenious idea, admirably executed.

As for international intrigue, later 20th century, Author Richard Keverne poaches on E. Phillips Oppenheim's preserves. Mystery runs so high, so thick, so fast, that it is guaranteed by a sealed ending--money back if you can resist breaking the seal of The Havering Plot (Harper, $2).

Detectives from Scotland Yard being perennial favorites, Author George Dilnot catalogs their technique; and includes, gratuitously, a murder, escape, poison, embezzlement, beautiful heroine, mad villain --all in The Black Ace (Houghton-Mifflin, $2).

The proverbial amateur detective proves his excellence in the face of five ship's passengers who confess to the murder, and several others who are under suspicion, in Murder at Sea (Minton, Balch, $2).

Author E. Phillips Oppenheim's latest detective justifies himself, and the author, by spinning his own yarn, The Treasure House of Martin Hews (Little, Brown, $2), packed with murderers, shocks, electric gadgets.

That incomparably prolific and reliable writer of detective stories, J. F. Fletcher, publishes four stories simultaneously, all highly readable: The Ransom for London (Dial, $2) is scientific crockery on the grand scale--death comes mysteriously to the Prime Minister's prize bulls and to a party of 19 toffs, before the Deadly Three are scotched without their ransom. The House in Tuesday Market (Knopf, $2) has for clues three cigars and a scrap of pink paper, but psychic waves, deadly chemicals, and amateur theatricals find them sufficient. The Secret of Secrets (Clode, $2) is a purely scientific invention, and yet the most improbable people seem to have stolen it--quaint rustics, fake priest, German spy, vamp. The Diamond Murders (Dodd, Mead, $2) reeks with dope and gore for the sake of the Maharanee of Dahlcurrie's necklace; is nevertheless pleasantly credible.