Deep Waters; mysteries on the waves – Edited by Martin Edwards (2019)

With thanks to the publishers for this review copy.

Laid up still and in pain, this pleasingly chunky collection of short stories by a host of Golden Age Crime writers was just what I needed. I have always loved the sea, I love the sea more than I love boats, though I am quite partial to those little trips they do around the bay at the seaside in summer. All the stories in Deep Waters, concern water of some kind – not always the sea, and many of them concern boats or ships, though we have rivers, canals, garden lakes and a swimming pool too and I was delighted to have a story set in a lighthouse. Edited by Martin Edwards this is a fantastic collection, so completely engrossing, I fairly gulped these stories down.

The collection of sixteen stories opens with The Adventure of the Gloria Scott by Arthur Conan Doyle in which Sherlock Holmes relates one of the stories from his past to Watson. Holmes recalls his old friend; Victor Trevor from his student days, and his father, and a man from the past who turns up and upsets everything – and a letter which seems to bring about Trevor senior’s death.

One of my favourite stories was The Echo of a Mutiny by R. Austen Freeman,it’s a satisfying length too at something like forty pages. Set in a lighthouse – which I found especially pleasing, there s a fantastic tension throughout the story which makes it very compelling. It concerns two old enemies, a terrible secret from the past, and a seemingly perfect murder. In part two we discover how Freeman’s medical detective Thorndyke is able to solve the mystery using meticulous detective work and forensic science.

“It was shortly after passing the buoy that the gaunt shape of a screw-pile lighthouse began to loom up ahead, its dull-eyed paint turned to vermillion by the early afternoon sun. As we drew nearer, the name Girdler, painted in huge, white letters, became visible, and two men could be seen in the gallery around the lantern, inspecting us through a telescope.”

(The Echo of a Mutiny)

The Gift of the Emperor by E W Hornung, is another compelling adventure. Hornung’s famous gentleman thief Raffles is on the trail of a pearl of great price. He and accomplice Bunny end up on board ship, sailing toward the Mediterranean. However, Raffles’ old enemy is on their tail.  

In The Turning of the Tide by C S Forsterwe see everything from the perspective of the potential murderer. Middle aged solicitor Slade has thought of everything, particularly the difficulty of disposing of a body. He feels he has no alternative than to kill the man who knows about his misappropriation of client’s money, if his colleague lives, he will be ruined. There is a marvellously chilling twist in the conclusion of this story.

“Slade thought of other defaulting solicitors he had heard of, even one or two with whom he had come into contact professionally. He remembered his brother-solicitors’ remarks about them, pitying or contemptuous. He thought of having to beg his bread in the streets on his release from prison, of cold and misery and starvation. The shudder which shook him was succeeded by a hot wave of resentment. Never, never would he endure it.”

(The Turning of the Tide)

The Pool of Secrets by Gwyn Evansconcerns a lake in the grounds of a country house. The house has recently passed to the Canadian nephew of Sir Charles; the former owner. Sir Charles’s cousin had reason to be very upset when this new heir was discovered, and the goings on up at the hall has been the subject of local and press speculation. One story that won’t go away is that of the ‘Silver Bride’ that said to haunt the lake at the hall. As Quentin Drex; former secret service man buys a drink in the village pub, a local man stumbles in, telling a terrible tale of the silver bride, who he says has claimed the life of his dog. Drex determines to find out the truth behind the story of the silver bride – and it is rather surprising.

In other stories we find criminals planning their ingenious escapes from their floating crime scenes, victims succumbing to dastardly plans and murderers being caught out by very clever men (I wish they weren’t always men – but oh well). There is poison in a glass of cognac, the ingenious theft of gold bullion, the hard to explain death of a man on his river boat, among other things, plenty of the usual Golden Age ingredients that readers so enjoy. All in all, this was a marvellous anthology of watery stories, each of which is prefaced with a page of biographical information about their authors.