''They Wouldn't Be Chessmen'' is a 1935 British

detective novel Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as specu ...

A.E.W. Mason Alfred Edward Woodley Mason (7 May 1865 – 22 November 1948) was an English author and Liberal Party Member of Parliament. He is best remembered for his 1902 novel of courage and cowardice in wartime, '' The Four Feathers'', and is also known ...

. It is the fourth full-length novel in Mason's

Inspector Hanaud Inspector Gabriel Hanaud is a fictional French detective depicted in a series of five novels, one novella and one short story by the British writer A. E. W. Mason. He has been described as the "first major fiction police detective of the Twent ...

series.

Plot

Nahendra Nao, heir to the

Maharaja Maharaja (also spelled Maharajah or Maharaj; ; feminine: Maharani) is a royal title in Indian subcontinent, Indian subcontinent of Sanskrit origin. In modern India and Medieval India, medieval northern India, the title was equivalent to a pri ...

h of Chitipur, unwisely lets Elsie Marsh of the

Casino de Paris The Casino de Paris, located at 16, rue de Clichy, in the 9th arrondissement, is one of the well known music halls of Paris, with a history dating back to the 18th century. Contrary to what the name might suggest, it is a performance venue, not ...

wear his priceless ancestral pearls, which react badly to her skin. In order to restore their lustre, his secretary, Major Scott Carruthers, hires a resting young opera singer, Lydia Flight, to wear them while they heal. To provide cover, Lydia is to act as paid companion to a woman introduced by Carruthers, Lucrece Bouchette; while Oliver Ransom, an ex-Captain of the

Bengal Police Bengal ( ) is a historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Bengal proper is divided between the modern-d ...

, is added to the party to protect the pearls. Lydia and Ransom are immediately attracted to each other and become a couple. The party take a

houseboat A houseboat is a boat that has been designed or modified to be used primarily for regular dwelling. Most houseboats are not motorized, as they are usually moored or kept stationary, fixed at a Berth (moorings), berth, and often tethered to ...

on the

Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...

near

Caudebec-en-Caux Caudebec-en-Caux (, literally ''Caudebec in Caux'') is a former commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region in northern France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Rives-en-Seine. Geography Caudebec-e ...

, and make the acquaintance of Julius Ricardo. He senses an uneasy atmosphere, and is on his guard when Guy Stallard, an American millionaire, invites him and the houseboat party to a fancy dress ball at a large house he has rented nearby. While most of the guests are on the terrace watching a tightrope walker, Lydia goes upstairs to change her dress, followed by Ransom. She stumbles back downstairs, on the point of swooning, explaining later that she had been attacked in her room and the pearls taken from her. Shortly afterwards, Ricardo sees Ransom’s car being driven away at speed. When Carruthers reports the theft to Nahendra Nao, Nao calls in the famous investigator from the Paris

Sûreté (, but often translated to 'safety' or 'security') is, in some French-speaking countries or regions, the organizational title of a civil police force. Algeria The Directorate General for National Security is known in French as the Sûreté ...

, an old friend of Ricardo’s. Lydia arranges a meeting with Hanaud and promises to explain what happened to her, but when she fails to appear and Ransom cannot be found it seems that the pair may have been accomplices and thieves. Hanaud eventually discovers that Carruthers had for some time been plotting to steal the jewels, to frame Lydia, and to blackmail Nao. He devised a meticulous plan and issued detailed instructions to his associates Lucrece (his lover), George Brymer (an ex-convict posing as Guy Stallard), and several servants. But things go awry – resulting in Lydia being kidnapped and Ransom murdered – when Carruthers' co-conspirators refuse to act as his chessmen, taking their orders instead (as Hanaud points out) "from their lusts and hates".

Principal characters

* Inspector Gabriel Hanaud of the

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

* Julius Ricardo, old friend of Hanaud * Nahendra Nao, heir to the Maharajah of Chitipur * Major Harvey Scott Carruthers, secretary to Nahendra Nao * Elsie Marsh, dancer at the Casino de Paris * Lydia Flight, young opera singer * Oliver Ransom, invalided Captain of the Bengal Police * Lucrece Bouchette, lover of Major Carruthers * Guy Stallard (George Brymer), blackmailer posing as American millionaire * Nick Furlong (Mike Budden), chauffeur and ex-convict

Critical reception

Writing in 1952, Mason's biographer Roger Lancelyn Green reported that many readers considered ''They Wouldn't Be Chessmen'' to be the best of all the Hanaud novels, in spite of the fact that the book does not fulfil all the usual rules of a detective story. Green agreed, calling the novel one of Mason's most completely successful books. He particularly praised the "clever and impelling study of conflicting characters built around the striking and original idea of the perfect crime ... going all awry simply because the people concerned were ordinary human beings". In their ''

A Catalogue of Crime ''A Catalogue of Crime'' is a critique of crime fiction by Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor, first published in 1971. The book was awarded a Special Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1972. A revised and enlarged edition w ...

'' (1989)

Barzun Barzun may refer to: * Jacques Barzun Jacques Martin Barzun (; November 30, 1907 – October 25, 2012) was a French-born American historian known for his studies of the history of ideas and cultural history. He wrote about a wide range of subje ...

and Taylor noted that "Young women abound, one of them (as usual) a ruthless vixen."

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

Text of ''They Wouldn't Be Chessmen''
at Gutenberg Australia {{A. E. W. Mason 1935 British novels British detective novels British mystery novels Novels by A. E. W. Mason Hodder & Stoughton books Novels set in Normandy