Trent’s Last Case by E. C. Bentley
I’m a big fan of podcasts and when I listened to one recently called Shedunit about the detective genre, I was delighted to be introduced to this novel. The podcaster, as a lockdown project, had decided to look back at the 20<sup>th</sup> century and had chosen and talked about an important example of the genre from every decade. The 1910s were represented by Bentley’s book which was extremely popular in its day and twice turned into a film.
It features Philip Trent, an artist and amateur detective. Don’t be fooled by the title as this is the first novel in which this character appeared. At the start of the book he is commissioned by a Fleet Street press magnate to investigate the mysterious death of Sigsbee Manderson, a famous American financier, who has been shot dead in the grounds of his English country house. He is briefed about the case by the police’s investigating officer, Inspector Murch, and it is clear they have worked together fairly amicably in the past.
Both investigators are agreed that Manderson has been murdered. He has left behind a beautiful young English widow as well as potential gangland enemies in the states – Manderson is an extremely influential figure, with a buccaneering approach to the stock markets in his youth, and could be likened to a less scrupulous George Soros.
Halfway through the book, Trent comes up with a beautifully reasoned and logically plausible solution to the mystery. Yet for complicated reasons, he withholds informing the police and returns his fee to the newspaper owner. However, he remains disturbed by the case even as he travels to France to allow his second passion for painting to distract him. When he returns to Blighty, though, he is drawn back to the case and the lives of Mrs Manderson, and the other suspects he had originally questioned. Nearly a year after the murder, people begin to open up about what happened on the fateful night when Manderson was discovered with a bullet through his eye, fully dressed apart from his uncharacteristically untidy cuffs and minus his false teeth. As Trent gets nearer to the full truth, he understands that his brilliant deduction was close to unravelling the ingenious crime but inaccurate in some small, crucial areas. However, two twists (the last near to the final page) prove him wrong in a way that leads to his and the readers’ full satisfaction.
I loved this book but it is one for people who like whodunits that are a combination of well-constructed puzzle and social history. Trent displays some rather outdated chivalric behaviour and we are in a world of good chaps who are comfortable with their place in the social hierarchies of pre-first world war England. Trent is a charming, well-meaning and extremely well-educated sleuth. His close observations are mixed with literary quotations and the odd aphorism. He’s in it for the intellectual workout and the sport. So, as you can see, all rather unrealistic but this is a curious bygone time that is quite a nice place to be in for a few hours.