What Happened at Hazelwood?

 What Happened at Hazelwood? (1946) by Michael Innes (J. I. M. Stewart)

Hazelwood is your standard country house in a murder mystery. Chock full of nasty characters--most of whom are related to Sir George Simney, the particularly despicable lord of the manor. Sir George has quite a reputation for despoiling the local ladies and he treats his family abominably. Including those born on the wrong side of the blanket. The unsettled household is even more unsettled when relatives from Australia show up announced--suddenly there are more shouting matches than usual and Owden the butler seems to have developed a habit of dropping cut glass decanters and wine glasses at the most inopportune moments. 

When Sir George is found murdered--his head bashed in from behind--no one is really surprised. 

In fact, this bad baronet has died true to the condition of his kind--mysteriously, in his library, at midnight, while a great deal of snow was falling in the park outside.

What is baffling is who could have done it? The door to the library was under observation during the relevant period and, though there are footprints leading to the trellis by which someone has obviously climbed to the library window, it appears that no one who conceivably has a motive could have gotten to the trellis. But Inspector Cadover and his sidekick Harold (who if he got a rank and last name, I completely missed it), are on the job and soon discover all sorts of goings on that some might have killed to keep covered up. There's blackmail. And evil deeds in the past. And a case of misappropriated identity. And...if the Reverend Deamer is to be believed a visitation from the Devil himself. Cadover is going to have to sort out who's who if he's going to find out whodunnit.

It seems to me that Innes was having a grand old time with a send up of Golden Age mysteries. He takes the standard country house mystery and gives it all kinds of little twists. Cadover is an over-the-top clever copper who constantly says that he sees things, can't believe that Harold doesn't see them too, and then, of course, won't tell us what he sees. He plays things closer to his chest than Holmes at his most inscrutable. We also have a play on the locked room mystery as well as the idea of identity. And, of course, we have the final wrap-up scene where Cadover goes through all the different scenarios of who could have done it and why before the solution is finally revealed. 

I have to say that this is a mixed bag for me--I thoroughly enjoyed Harold's narration of the second part of the story and many of his comments on both the Simney family and his boss Inspector Cadover. And I thought the basic premise of the sleight-of-hand with identity was good. But I found the solution to be overly complicated and unrealistic--involving more people than necessary in a rather bizarre turn of events. And yet I did enjoy myself--Innes's sense of fun must have spilled over. A solid, middle-of-the-road read for me. ★★★

First line: Nobody could have predicted just what has happened at Hazelwood, and at the moment it appears as if nobody can elucidate it either.

If George was no fool he certainly was no student either, and there seemed small reason why he should a study any more than a smithy or a laboratory or a consulting-room. Tradition of course, decrees something of the sort. A baronet must have a library, a study, and a gun-room just as certainly as his wife must have a drawing-room and a boudoir. (p. 50)

Lady Simney looked like having quite an obtrusive alibi, and no C.I.D. man likes that. Perhaps this is just the influence of fiction. Certainly we spend a lot of time trying to convince ourselves that in regard to this or that person the laws of space and time just don't apply. (p. 118)

Last line: "Now, look here," he said--and his tone was at once ingratiating and aggrieved--"about that bally trick your father played us over Dismal Swamp..."

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Deaths = 7 (one hit on head; one strangled; one shot; three train accident; one natural)