Review: The Melody of Death

The Melody of Death by Edgar Wallace
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An odd one, and not my favourite of the Wallaces I've read.

There's a significant amount of relationship drama, which is a bit unusual for Wallace. A controlling mother pushes her daughter to marry a man who she believes is wealthy, or at least the heir to wealth, and neither of these things is true (his eccentric uncle having disinherited him on a whim). In turn, he believes that his bride-to-be has money of her own and that money has nothing to do with her wanting to marry him, and neither of these things is true either. He doesn't pick up on the clear signs that she doesn't love him whatsoever and is probably (reading between the lines) mainly marrying him to escape from her awful mother. They do talk honestly, after rather than before the wedding, and set up a household in which they live as, basically, flatmates with a growing non-romantic friendship, but it's still awkward, because they each feel they've let the other down.

Also, on the evening of their wedding, a violinist plays a tune outside, and he turns pale and won't say why.

Meanwhile, he's going out a lot at night and, again, not explaining why. And there's a rash of safecracking burglaries going on. And he's given up his job, but now has money. Coincidence? We think not!

But also not what it looks like. There's a gang of safecrackers who are cleverly avoiding the police, but we know he's not one of them.

The explanation turns out to be far-fetched. (view spoiler)[He suspected he had cancer, and went to a doctor in another city, and, because he couldn't face hearing the diagnosis directly and didn't want the doctor to know who he was, devised an elaborate system where the doctor would send one of two cards to a violinist the young man knows, asking him to play one of two melodies outside the man's house, depending on whether he had cancer or not. But the doctor unaccountably messes up and sends the wrong card (saying that he has cancer when he doesn't), and then, not having any way of contacting him, can't correct the error.

Having, he thinks, nothing to lose, and loving his wife even if she doesn't love him, and having always had a fascination with the idea of being a thief but being too law-abiding to actually do it, he sets out to steal from the thieves, and in a highly unlikely turn of events, manages to turn the money into more than twice its value by clever stock speculation, so that he can pay back the victims and the thieves and still have some for himself and his wife. He's captured by the robbers; locked up to prevent him interfering in their next hit - on his uncle; fortunately rescued when a fire happens to break out next door, and foils the robbery, winning his uncle's approval and his wife's love. (hide spoiler)]

There's a diamond necklace McGuffin, there are armed confrontations and a shoot-out, all of the machinery is there, but because the explanation for the odd events is just so unlikely I felt let down by the reveals. Still enjoyable, but not up to the usual standard for Wallace.

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