Classic Crimes

CLASSIC CRIMES BY WILLIAM ROUGHEAD ALSO BY W. ROUGHEAD: RHYME WITHOUT REASON TWELVE SCOTS TRIALS THE RIDDLE OF THE RUTHVENS GLENGARRYS WAY THE FATAL COUNTESS THE REBEL EARL MALICE DOMESTIC THE EVIL THAT MEN Do BAD COMPANIONS WHAT Is YOUB VERDICT? IN QUEER STREET ROGUES WALK HERE KNAVES LOOKINGGLASS MAINLY MURDER THE SEAMY SIDE NECK OR NOTHING RASCALS REVIVED REPROBATES REVIEWED Notable British Trials: DR. PRITCHARD DEACON BRODIE CAPTAIN PORTEOUS OSCAR SLATER MRS MCLACHLAN MAHY BLANDY BURKE AND HARE KATHARINE NAIRN J. D MERRETT J.W LAURIE CLASSIC CRIMES CONTENTS PREFACE: BY JAMES BRIDIE KATHARINE NAIRN DEACON BRODIE THE WEST PORT MURDERS To MEET Miss MADELEINE SMITH CONSTANCE KENTS CONSCIENCE THE SANDYFORD MYSTERY THE BALHAM MYSTERY DR PRITCHARD REVISITED THE ARRAN MURDER THE ARDLAMONT MYSTERY THE SLATER CASE THE MERHETT MYSTERY PREFACE THIS age of atheists, materialists and neopsychologists finds little place in its cosmogony for the entity Called Evil, By and large, we agree with the old Scotswoman who held that Whats naturals no nasty. By and large, the practical application of our theories seems to work even less satisfactorily than in the days when the personal Devil was a familiar and even popular figure, I am no great reader, but I get the impression that the few writers who still cherish His memory and seriously examine His works are a few English and French Roman Catholics and a handful of Calvinists north of the Tweed. I get the further impression that the Catholics are afraid of Him and that the Calvinists treat Him with the affectionate regard shown by pathologists to their favourite strains of streptococci. Before I expatiate on the greatest living exponent of the Calvinist attitude to Evil, may I be allowed a word or two on the Crime Novel? I have been reading a little of Cheyney and Charteris, who stem, I believe, rom a very flourishing American school. These books deal with the war of Society against its enemies without accepting explicitly or implicitly any idea of a moral Universe. Except from the point of view of physical beauty, there is little to choose between the athletic, ingenious, chainsmoking, whiskyswilling hero and the villains he socks, slugs, pokes in the kisser, outwits and finally rubs out Even the simple morality of the Queensberry Rules has no place in the fights. These are Ossianic in their primitiveness, as much as in their incredibility.