The Devil's Caress Read online

  the devil’s caress

  June Wright

  Introduction by wendy lewis

  © 1952 June Wright

  © 2018 the Estate of Dorothy June Wright

  Introduction © 2018 Wendy Lewis

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Author’s Note: At no time in this book is any doctor, male or female,

  intended to represent a counterpart either living or dead.

  A Dark Passage book

  Published by Verse Chorus Press

  Portland, Oregon

  www. versechorus.com

  Cover design by Mike Reddy

  Interior design and layout by Steve Connell/Transgraphic

  Dark Passage logo by Mike Reddy

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Wright, June, 1919-2012, author. | Lewis, Wendy, 1962- writer of introduction.

  Title: The devil’s caress / June Wright ; Introduction by Wendy Lewis.

  Description: Portland : Verse Chorus Press, [2018] | “A Dark Passage book.” | Identifiers: LCCN 2018005475 (print) | LCCN 2018007343 (ebook) | ISBN 9781891241758 (ebook) | ISBN 9781891241437 (softcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: Physicians--Fiction. | Murder--Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PR9619.3.W727 (ebook) | LCC PR9619.3.W727 D49 2018 (print) | DDC 823/.914--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018005475

  by the same author

  Murder in the Telephone Exchange

  So Bad a Death

  Duck Season Death

  Reservation for Murder

  Faculty of Murder

  Make-Up for Murder

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  TO

  M.M.B.

  INTRODUCTION

  I love a good murder mystery, so it was only a matter of time before I came across June Wright. My interest turned to fascination when I realised how popular she had been in her time but how hard it was to get hold of her books! Well, some of her books. Of course, Verse Chorus Press is reprinting her novels in chronological order, so the first three were already out there. But I hit the wall with The Devil’s Caress (1952). Not online. Not in bookshops. Where on earth would I find it?

  I tracked down an original edition with dark blue hardcover in the State Library of New South Wales. And then, on a visit to Melbourne, I found another copy – complete with dramatically illustrated dust jacket and sensible plastic covering – in the Rare Book Section of the State Library of Victoria. I was thrilled to carefully turn the yellowing pages, visualise the action, and make notes about the characters – ‘as odd a collection of medicos as ever snatched an appendix’, as one reviewer put it at the time.1

  I had in mind that I would like to introduce June Wright to a new audience by adapting one of her works to the stage. But which one?

  Wright’s debut novel, Murder in the Telephone Exchange (1948) was a possibility. She was particularly proud of the setting – the Central Telephone Exchange in Lonsdale Street – which was refreshingly and unself-consciously Australian. It’s likely that the Literary Luncheon for the launch of her book at the Orient Hotel was the first ever such event in Melbourne, a city she clearly loved.

  Her second novel was set in ‘Middleburn’, based on Ashburton where Wright lived as a newly-wed. She wanted to call it Who Would Murder a Baby? but this was considered much too shocking by her publishers. The result was the more sedate and Shakespearean So Bad a Death (1949), which was serialised in Woman’s Day with superb Gothic illustrations by Frank Whitmore. Not bad, given that Agatha Christie’s Taken at the Flood had been serialised the year before.

  Much as I enjoyed both novels, they weren’t right for the stage. The settings and, in particular, the murder weapons and devious murder methods would fall flat – you’ll have to read them to find out why!

  Wright’s third novel, Duck Season Death (2014), was written in the late 1950s and not published in her lifetime, but it should have been. Set in ‘The Duck and Dog Inn’ somewhere in northern Victoria, it’s a wacky parody of the detective genre that is up there with my favourite June Wright novels. But for her theatrical debut I wanted something meatier (and less hilarious!).2 When I finally found The Devil’s Caress, I knew I was onto something…

  With The Devil’s Caress, Wright creates an atmospheric psychological thriller about doubt, madness, and the burden of responsibility. The setting shifts to a small township on the tip of a fictional peninsula near Melbourne (not too hard to identify). It is the summer home of the Warings, a rather god-like couple comprising the stately senior physician Dr Katherine Waring – known to all as Dr Kate – and her impulsive surgeon husband Kingsley Waring.

  This extraordinary couple live in a film noir-worthy cliff’s edge setting, complete with howling winds, crashing waves, and peculiar goings-on in the night. Dr Kate invites the bright young Dr Marsh Mowbray – isn’t that a sublime name? – to her home for a well-earned rest. Of course, there is the requisite gathering of interesting persons, mostly members of the medical profession. Uncannily, within twenty-four hours of Marsh’s arrival, one of the household is dead. Soon after, another suspicious death occurs and our spirited Dr Mowbray begins to doubt the innocence of her beloved mentor, Dr Kate. Could such a magnificent woman commit murder?

  ‘Doubt is the devil’s caress’, says Bruce Shane, the mysterious stranger in town, who manages to get some of the book’s best (as well as some of the most chauvinistic!) lines. Marsh Mowbray is fiercely loyal to Dr Kate, convinced that such a ‘remarkable woman’ is ‘certain to be the victim of envy and misunderstanding’. But when Dr Kate misses a crucial detail in an autopsy – an unthinkable lapse of professionalism – Marsh must face facts. Did Dr Kate miss it through negligence? Or did she miss it for some sinister purpose?

  As well as fighting her own fears, Marsh is up against four men who are all adamant that Dr Kate is a devil of a woman. Up-and-coming surgeon Larry Gair is certain Dr Kate has murder on her mind and takes every opportunity to chip away at Marsh’s defences (when he’s not flirting shamelessly!). Dr Kate’s only son Michael no longer respects his mother because of what he calls her ‘inhuman intelligence’ and seeming incapacity to care. Bruce Shane detests Dr Kate due to past circumstances, and even the local publican Todd Bannister mocks her: ‘I wish her luck, bless her ruthless heart’. It does not help that Dr Kate has a restrained, almost regal presence; perhaps these men would feel more warmly towards her if she cried. Or screamed.3

  At this point, I can’t resist drawing some parallels between June Wright’s life and the lives of her characters. The protagonist of her first two novels, Maggie Byrnes, is quick-witted and unafraid to speak her mind. Many people who knew Wright believed Maggie was based on her, although Wright always denied it. In The Devil’s Caress, I am certain June Wright is there, both in the youthful zeal of Marsh Mowbray and in the more considered wisdom of Dr Kate.

  Despite being at
the centre of this drama, Dr Kate is an emotionally isolated woman. Although June Wright had a very different life, running a busy household with six children, she was similarly ‘isolated’ in the sense that her commitment, time, and emotional energy were focused on her family. Wright acknowledged that she began writing for mental stimulation and as a respite from domestic duties, declaring that she would have kept on writing for her own amusement regardless of whether she was published or not.

  In The Devil’s Caress we come to see that Dr Kate carries a great burden of responsibility. June Wright also had a life of enormous responsibility for those in her care, and, interestingly, more than her fair share of dealings with medicos. After the birth of twin boys in 1946, one baby needed major surgery within days then developed pneumonia; the other was diagnosed with severe intellectual disability when he was four. Wright’s husband also had mental health issues. His decline was partially responsible for her ceasing writing to take on work that brought in more money. One positive note is that the Wright family’s pediatrician took a close interest in her writing; Wright’s dedication of The Devil’s Caress to ‘M. M. B.’ – Dr Mona Blanch – is testament to this.

  The resonance between the ‘real’ June Wright and her female characters is something that has shaped my approach to her writing. As I have worked on adapting The Devil’s Caress for the stage, I have read Wright’s books, been in touch with her (adult) children, read her memoirs, sifted through family photographs, looked up articles from the late 1940s, and formed my own mental image of her. I imagine June Wright shelling peas and finding a small advertisement for a Literary Competition on an old sheet of newspaper. I imagine her pounding away at a second-hand typewriter with faded ribbon, learning to type as she goes. I imagine her reading while she does the ironing; volunteering for community events not because she has the time but because she is asked. I imagine her seeing Bombe Alaska for the first time at her post-war literary luncheon and leaning towards her agent with a cheeky: ‘Why is it not now called Bombe Atomique?’. Most of all I see her as a strong, loving, hard-working, good-humoured woman of great faith, courage and talent. I never met June Wright but I have a gut feeling that she was all those things.

  I am absolutely delighted that The Devil’s Caress is in print again for the first time since 1952. I hope you enjoy reading it.

  Wendy Lewis

  Sydney, January 2018

  Sweeney Todd’s Crime Corner, The Argus (24 May, 1952), p. 14.

  I’m looking forward to adapting Duck Season Death next.

  Media treatment of the self-contained Lindy Chamberlain springs to mind as a contemporary parallel of a deeply misunderstood woman.

  Chapter One

  I

  It was on a wet windy day, the first Saturday in December, that Marsh drove down to Matthews. Melbourne Weather Bureau had described the beginning of summer as freak weather, but as seasons in Victoria south of the Dividing Range seldom run true to form, few regarded it as out of the ordinary.

  Wind shook the little car, and gusts of rain broke against the windscreen. Marsh put up a gloved hand now and then to ­manipulate the wiper. It was that sort of car. None of the lesser devices functioned properly, and the engine drank up the petrol as it battled against the head wind. A cheap little car which would bring in a few more pounds before she sailed for England the next week to commence a post-graduate course.

  She drove steadily and carefully, glancing once or twice at the map laid out alongside her on the seat. Dr. Waring had given it to her after Marsh had accepted the invitation to spend a few days at her summer residence at Matthews. The route had been marked in blue pencil.

  The invitation had been a surprise. Katherine Waring was the Senior Honorary Physician at the hospital where Marsh had been in residence for the last three years. Many times during that period she had followed Dr. Waring from bed to bed in the medical wards, absorbing and admiring the skill of the older woman until Marsh’s feeling towards her was not unlike a schoolgirl’s hero-worship for the head-girl. Not that she admitted it even to herself. She scorned emotions, however secret.

  In private life Katherine Waring was the wife of Kingsley Waring, a prominent surgeon. She was a distinguished-looking woman, and might even have been considered beautiful but for the peculiar impassiveness of her countenance. She rarely smiled, and her fine grey eyes were remote and impersonal. She attracted nothing so intimate as friendship, but occasionally a strange partisanship. Similarly, a few hated her for her cold aloof manner without further delving into the reason for their dislike.

  With her extraordinary medical ability and sublime detachment of disposition, she represented all that Marsh wanted to be—and would be in another fifteen years. There was a similarity between them of which the girl was unconscious, even as she strove to emulate her.

  It was the last Wednesday before Marsh resigned and she wondered if Katherine Waring knew. They were doing the rounds of the wards, Marsh with the charts in her hand and a stethoscope dangling from the pocket of her white coat. The ward sister, Amelia Gullett, a stout bawdy-tongued woman, brought up the rear. Marsh liked her, although she knew she was one of the few who hated Katherine Waring.

  Dr. Waring straightened from her bending position over a patient. She held out one hand for the chart. Marsh gave it to her and was surprised to see the honorary glance at her swiftly before she moved away from the bed towards the window. The other two followed obediently.

  “Are you tired, Dr. Mowbray?” the honorary asked, without taking her eyes from the chart.

  Marsh was startled. She owned privately to an accumulated fatigue, but it was dreadful that Katherine Waring had marked a flagging.

  “Your eyes have black shadows under them. Have we been working you too hard?”

  “I don’t think so,” the girl replied confusedly. “I like work.”

  “Yes, I believe you do. Your career is your whole life, is it not, Dr. Mowbray?” She handed back the chart. “And you leave for London next week?”

  Marsh felt an unaccustomed glow. So she did know!

  Then Katherine Waring sprang her surprise. “I would like to say good-bye and good luck before you go. Would care to spend a few days at Matthews? It will be very quiet, but the rest will do you good.”

  “I would like to—thank you, Doctor,” she stammered.

  No more was said about it, but later, when collecting her mail at the office, she was handed an unstamped envelope. In it was the map and a brief note from Katherine Waring, expecting her for dinner on the following Saturday.

  II

  The route branched away from the bay-side drive and wandered through the wide sweeping country of the peninsula. Matthews lay on its tip, facing the ocean. Marsh passed through one or two tiny hamlets, apparently deserted. The country was remote from the every­­day world. The desolation did not disturb her, but the continual wind and the rain increased her weariness of mind and body.

  About three miles from the township she slowed her steady speed. A car almost as battered as her own was drawn up at the roadside ahead, its bonnet open to the weather. A young man was bending into it. Hearing the approaching engine he straightened up. As Marsh cut it off and slid down the hill he moved to the centre of the road. The rain dripped from the limp hat-brim on to the sodden shoulders of his coat. He took up a pose and raised one soaking trouser leg to reveal a hirsute limb.

  “Can I help?” Marsh asked curtly, her foot hard on the uncertain brake.

  The young man grinned cheerfully. “To think that I have been brought to this! Asking assistance of a woman driver.”

  “What’s the trouble?” she inquired without enthusiasm.

  “To be quite frank,” the young man replied, “I don’t know. When I opened up the bonnet I had hopes some little voice would pipe and say, ‘Here I am, fix me.’ Do you think you would know?”
/>   “No,” said Marsh. “But I’ll give you a tow.”

  “No rope,” he said mournfully. “Mother wouldn’t let me join the Boy Scouts. I haven’t so much as a piece of string with me. What about you? Were you ever a Girl Guide?”

  Ignoring the facetiousness, she said: “Is Matthews the nearest town with a garage? I’ll take you there.”

  The young man promptly put one leg over the door of her car and settled his damp body on the outspread map. Marsh took a crank-handle from the floorboard and passed it to him in silence. He sighed loudly and got out.

  “The trouble with you and me,” he confided, when they were under way, “we don’t know enough about cars to afford buying cheap ones. Are you going to Matthews?”

  “Wasn’t that implied?” she said, putting up a hand to the wiper again.

  “What I mean is—will you be staying there?”

  “I am having a short holiday,” she enlarged.

  “Holiday?” He glanced out at the rain. “Great weather you choose! Great place too, for that matter. Unless,” he added, “you play golf. Do you?”

  “No,” said Marsh.

  “Fishing,” said the young man wisely.

  “No,” she repeated.

  “Walking?” he asked incredulously.

  “On occasions.”

  “Golf and fishing are the only recreations Matthews has to offer. If you don’t do either of them you’re in for a dull time. Do you play anything at all?”

  A slight smile came into the girl’s grave eyes. “The piano.”

  “Jazz, swing or boogie-woogie?”

  She shook her head. The smile had deepened.

  “You don’t mean Mendelssohn and fellers like that!”

  “I prefer Bach and Brahms,” Marsh replied, glancing down at her fingers gripping the wheel lightly.

  The young man sank back, stunned. He seemed to be considering something deeply. Presently he said: “Take a bit of advice from a local lad. Turn right around and go and have your holiday somewhere else. You can drop me off here. I will walk the rest of the way.”