The Three Coffins (1935)
(in Britain, The Hollow Man)
Blurb:
My review:
Map of upper floor of Professor Grimaud's house and dining-room
Modelled closely on the work of G.K. Chesterton, Carr’s masterpiece, like “The Invisible Man” and “The Dagger with Wings” (both of which it resembles), conveys an atmosphere of wonder and magic in the snowy streets—with more than a touch of the sinister. It is the first case in which Dr. Fell tackles an impossible crime, and “those of Dr. Fell’s friends who like impossible situations will not find in his case-book any puzzle more baffling or terrifying” than that of the hollow man who was seen to enter Professor Grimaud’s study, shoot him, and vanish from a locked and watched room, and who shot Pierre Fley dead in the middle of a snowy street without leaving footprints. These crimes have their roots in a sinister episode of treachery in Transylvania, a horrible crime worthy of G.K.C., and, as the wonderfully oracular and obscurantist Dr. Fell realises, have their solution in a painting, a chameleon overcoat, Grimaud’s dying words and (maestro!) the sound of church bells heard the day after the crime. The management of the complex plot is superb, as layer after layer is gradually removed, to the reader’s fascination and mystification. When the solution comes, it is utterly brilliant: a genuine surprise, a complete reversal of the situation as understood by the reader, with every step of the way, once explained by Dr. Fell, utterly logical: this is the Divine Thunderbolt of Revelation in all its glory, and this is Carr’s masterpiece.