I missed out on Tuesday on posting about places where they sang, but realizing this today thought it better to carry on with the usual Thursday series, and return to opera next week.
I had written a few weeks back about E Phillips Oppenheimer, described as his master by John Buchan, but then I was sidetracked first by Jennings from my distant schoolboy days and then by better known entertainments that were in full flood in the thirties. Though Oppenheimer wrote on in fact till the forties, he belonged to a much earlier period. He was born in 1866 and began publishing in 1887. Though the books I found in Roshanara came much later, they seem comparatively old fashioned, with hosts of stage villains as I described in Miss Brown of X.Y.O.
That was published in 1927 and the only other book by him that I found was from 1938, a collection of short stories called A Pulpit in the Grill Room. This is the most famous Grill Room in London, a nod I presume to the Savoy, and the pulpit is given to a former waiter who had been reduced to crutches after fighting for his native France in the First World War. But he had been useful to British intelligence, and the hotel at its behest gave him a perch in the room from which he could observe what went on, and report on anything untoward.
The stories are a strange bunch, all very gripping, some devoted to international intrigue, some to the peccadilloes of society figures. The opening story is about a gross financier who promotes war so he can sell armaments dear, with a whimsical denouement involving Irish insurrection. At the other end of the scale is a mad film director who plans to kill his leading lady, while we also have Russian exiles, a film director who kills himself when he cannot persuade a provincial lady who came up with her brother for a screen test from taking up acting herself, and a dramatic shooting at a cabaret which had involved an illusory killing too.
Holding these diverse thrilling tales together is not so much Louis the former waiter but their narrator, Captain Lyson who also works for the secret service and is targeted by a perfect masseur who intrudes himself but also intrudes a sister who goes through the Captain’s letters while he is being massaged. And then there is a not very prominent love interest between him and Louis’ daughter Julie, who helps out at times in solving problems. The last story involves a Russian Prince who tries to get Lyson to join him in plotting against the Bolshevik regime, and when Lyson returns the cheque he had been given for this tells him to keep it as a wedding gift. Lyson agrees, though typically adds, ‘if ever the occasion arises.’
I think it unlikely that I shall ever find anywhere again books by Oppenheimer, and though I had not heard of him previously I am sorry about that. He was a great entertainer, and the more enthralling for me because of his recreation of a long lost world, where even if the villains are caricatures the details of the settings are immense fun.