Book Review//The Mysterious Mr. Badman: A Yorkshire Bibliomystery by W. F. Harvey
When at two o’clock on a sultry July afternoon Athelstan Digby undertook to keep an eye on the contents of the old bookshop in Keldstone High Street, he deliberately forgot to mind his own business.
Isn’t that an irresistible opening paragraph? Mr. Digby is on holiday and is waiting for his nephew, Jim, to join him. His landlord and the landlord’s wife must attend a funeral and Mr. Digby agrees to mind the shop. While he is in charge three separate individuals, a vicar, a chauffeur, and an out-of-town visitor, all ask for a copy of The Life and Death of Mr. Badman by John Bunyan. Mr. Digby is unable to find a copy and all three visitors depart empty-handed. Shortly after, a young boy arrives with a number of books he wants to sell. Mr. Digby is more than a little surprised to find a copy of the much-desired book in the stack on offer. He buys the book but shortly afterward it is stolen. Mr. Digby and his nephew are determined to discover just what is going on. Soon it becomes a case of murder as well as theft.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, mainly because I found Mr. Digby charming. I loved this description of him getting ready for bed.
The church clock struck eleven; he put out the lamp and crossed the landing to his bedroom. The process of undressing was with Mr. Diby an elaborate but unhurried ritual. He respected his long-suffering clothes. From his right-hand breast pocket he drew a bulky leather wallet, the typed minutes of the last Board Meeting of the British and Colonial Bible Society, a prospectus of the Central Sumatra Consolidated Rubber Company, and a cutting from the Times of a recent sale at Christie’s, where some of the works of his favorite Dutch Masters had changed hands at lamentably low figures. The contents of his right-hand pocket he arranged in a row on the dressing-table; the contents of his thirteen other pockets he methodically disposed of in a similar manner. A leather purse, a bunch of keys, three of which belonged to forgotten locks, a large knife, containing an implement for removing stones from horses’ hoofs (needless to say Mr. Digby had never removed a stone from a horse’s hoof) a bundle of string, and his trousers were disposed of. From his waistcoat came his watch and chain, a pair of surgical scissors, a fountain-pen, three elastic bands, and ten foreign stamps, neatly torn from the corners of their envelopes, which he was keeping for the first boy he should meet who was interested in stamps. From his ticket pocket came three unsurrendered railway tickets. He had had them for over a year, but some boys collected tickets as well as stamps. A pocket compass, a silver fruit-knife, and a folding lens completed the bill of lading. The three last items were in constant use when Athelstan Digby took a holiday. He liked to study the lie of the land; he enjoyed eating a ripe apple; and he was a more than competent field botanist.
If you can resist Mr. Digby after that paragraph then you are a tougher character than I am. That paragraph tells the reader so much about Mr. Digby. Plus, I am absolutely fascinated by the fact that he has 15 pockets. I am so jealous. The women of the world should revolt until we are all given as many usable pockets as Mr. Digby possesses.
This is a lighthearted mystery with the denouement easily seen well in advance. While the mystery is slight and doesn’t really hold up to intense examination, I definitely enjoyed this recent addition to the British Library Crime Classics list.
My thanks to the British Library for the review copy of this book.
