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bound hand and foot. To avoid being exposed as a fraud to Mme
Dauvray and to her lover Harry, Celia agrees to co-operate, believing she can quite easily extricate herself. On the night, however, she is bound far more professionally and tightly than she had anticipated and, when unexpectedly secured to a pillar and gagged, realises that she is a prisoner. Seeing a man stealing in at the french window and recognising Harry Wethermill, Celia rejoices and expects release. But all he does is to check that her bonds are tight. Celia is unable to escape or to cry out as he strangles Mme Dauvray.
232:, and that of her maid who had been found bound and chloroformed in her bed. He looked up the French newspapers and read the accounts of the real-life trial, keeping them tucked away in his mind for future use. The character of Celia came from a recollection of a conjurer and his daughter whom Mason had seen once or twice in provincial concert-rooms. A detail in the novel which fixes the time of the murder â a passing policeman closes a door and later finds it standing open again â came from a murder trial that Mason had attended at the
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276:âa landmark of the genreâ in which real-life source material is blended with phoney spiritualism, baffling but logical detective work, and an unexpected villain. Its main flaw, he thought, was a lopsided story structure in which the murderer is revealed part way through the novel, with the later chapters amounting to an extended flashback.
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AdÚle Tacé (who calls herself Mme
Rossignol) is a practised criminal who has come to Aix specifically to steal Mme Dauvrayâs jewels. In league with HĂ©lĂšne Vauquier, she professes disbelief in spiritualism and goads the old lady into holding a sĂ©ance in which Celia will be expected to perform while
164:
when he is asked by a young
Englishman, Harry Wethermill, to investigate the murder of a wealthy widow, Mme Dauvray. Mme Dauvray has been strangled and her valuable jewels, which she wore âwith too little prudenceâ, are missing. Her maid HĂ©lĂšne Vauquier has been discovered upstairs,
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Wethermill, HĂ©lĂšne and AdĂšle search without success for the jewels, and are forced to suspend their efforts when they hear footsteps outside. HĂ©lĂšne voluntarily allows herself to be chloroformed, to avoid suspicion falling on her. Celia, meanwhile, is abducted and taken to
204:, being kept alive solely so that she can tell the gang where the jewels are hidden. When the newspapers report that the missing jewels have been found by the police, the gang have no further use for Celia and they prepare to drug her and dispose of her body in
321:
as
Wethermill. It was reported to be unusual in that the identity of the murderer was revealed from the start but with the tension maintained until the end. The play was a success with 227 performances, and became the most profitable of any that Mason wrote.
173:, Celia Harland, who has vanished. Celia is in love with Wethermill, and the latter pleads with Hanaud to take on the case in the unshakeable conviction that in spite of appearances Celia is innocent of the crime. Hanaud agrees to do so.
152:. The story became Mason's most successful novel of his lifetime. It was adapted by him as a stage play in 1920, and was used as the basis for four film adaptions between 1920 and 1940.
265:
Barzun and Taylor were more critical; they called the characters 'cardboard' and felt that the author's skill in plotting and telling did not compensate for the book's period faults.
228:, Mason's attention was drawn to two names that had been scratched by a diamond ring in a window pane: Madame FougĂšre, a wealthy woman who had been murdered the year before at
248:
On its publication in book form in 1910 the novel received a warm reception, and it achieved a circulation greater than any other of Mason's novels. According to
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from the spirit world - which she did by acting and trickery. Hanaud discovers that she was to have conducted a séance on the night of the murder.
236:. He recorded that the story, "detective and all, rolled itself out" over the course of two or three evenings while he dined in a restaurant in
252:, it was "one of the best, most artistic, most engrossing detective stories ever written", with other papers also echoing its praise. In 1940
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serial. Mason himself presented an introductory talk on the book's genesis, then read it (in abbreviated form) over five succeeding nights.
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In July 1926 the novel became the first to be transmitted over the air as a
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The villainous stage : crime plays on
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Inspector Hanaud, the well-known French detective, is on holiday in
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called it "The best detective novel of the last thirty years".
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and part of Celiaâs role as companion had been to stage
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The novel has been adapted four times for the screen:
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126:The Affair at the Semiramis Hotel
979:The Courtship of Morrice Buckler
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309:, London, on 10 July 1920, with
85:The Musson Book Company (Canada)
568:. London: The British Library.
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215:Cover of first Canadian edition
208:. Hanauld arrives just in time.
390:"British Library Item details"
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1:
776:The Mystery of the Villa Rose
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1153:Hodder & Stoughton books
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1043:The Witness for the Defence
599:public domain audiobook at
356:Le mystĂšre de la villa rose
184:for her and, as a supposed
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492:Lachman, Marvin (2014).
462:Barzun & Taylor 1989
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259:However, in their 1989
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313:in the role of Hanaud,
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88:Charles Scribner's Sons
987:Miranda of the Balcony
928:The House of the Arrow
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831:The House of the Arrow
821:La Maison de la Fléche
811:The House of the Arrow
679:The House of the Arrow
537:. London: Max Parrish.
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144:by the British writer
81:Hodder & Stoughton
971:A Romance of Wastdale
531:Green, Roger Lancelyn
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1163:Novels set in France
544:A Catalogue of Crime
262:A Catalogue of Crime
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419:, pp. 122â124.
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244:Critical reception
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359:(in French, 1930)
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319:Harcourt Williams
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315:Kyrle Bellew
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1051:The Summons
1011:The Truants
736:adaptations
280:Adaptations
1132:Categories
995:Clementina
746:Villa Rose
450:Green 1952
429:Green 1952
417:Green 1952
372:References
234:Old Bailey
220:Background
140:is a 1910
801:the Arrow
514:903807427
171:companion
77:Publisher
1107:The Drum
601:LibriVox
564:(2017).
533:(1952).
399:20 April
226:Richmond
206:the lake
49:Language
272:called
182:séances
52:English
1118:(1942)
1110:(1937)
1102:(1936)
1094:(1933)
1086:(1932)
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1062:(1923)
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915:(1910)
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351:(1930)
238:Geneva
202:Geneva
186:medium
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39:Author
890:Works
650:Works
297:Stage
285:Radio
113:Pages
108:Print
67:Genre
734:Film
570:ISBN
548:ISBN
510:OCLC
500:ISBN
401:2018
330:Film
156:Plot
100:1910
90:(US)
83:(UK)
892:by
639:'s
291:BBC
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