BURIED FOR PLEASURE:
SPIES AND FLIES 

Between 1938 and 1940, it seems reasonable to assume that Fen worked on some of the lesser cases eventually published in Beware of the Trains and Fen Country. As, however, Crispin remained maddeningly vague as to dates in most of cases narrated in these, we will leave them aside for now and concentrate instead on the more major of Fen's investigations.

To start with there is the maddening Caxton's Folly Affair. This is fleetingly referred to in Holy Disorders, with a throwaway ease that suggests it was something memorable and significant. Yet there appears nowhere in Crispin's archives. There are at least two possible explanations for this. The first is that Mr. Crispin in indulging himself in Watsonian playfulness — for Caxton's Folly read Ricoletti and his Club Foot. To be explicit, Crispin was aware of the details, put them aside for further use, but never got around to writing them up. The second explanation is that Crispin got confused somehow, and used this as a loose reference to Moving Toyshop.

As we have it on good authority that the last shall be first, let us look at this latter possibility. Erwin Spode, Richard Cadogan's publisher, and possible Missing Link, lived in Caxton's Folly, or so it seems reasonable to assume, as he invited Cadogan to stay with him there, to share his hospitality, and, if necessary, his wife. Perhaps, therefore, when writing Holy Disorders, which was published before Moving Toyshop, Crispin, unsure of how he would chronicle the Toyshop affair, and thinking of Spode and Cadogan, just jotted down any old thing. To be fair, this would not be the sort of thing one would expect from a biographer of his calibre.

The other possible is that there was another case, apart from MT, and Caxton's Folly was the scene of the crime. If this is so, then it seems reasonable to assume that Spode, having encountered Fen in MT, called on his aid. Which would place this after MT. The nature of the case is, I fear, forever shrouded in mystery. Could it have involved Richard Cadogan coercing Spode into a further £50 advance?

My conclusion, at present, is that there was indeed a Caxton's Folly case, and it took place sometime between Autumn 1938 and Autumn 1940.

The next of the detective don's cases related by Crispin was Holy Disorders. This is set in the cathedral town of Tolnbridge and is easily, albeit roughly, dated. Fen was there during the Battle of Britain, July to October 1940. And given that he is looking forward to returning to Oxford for the new term, and to the forthcoming new play by Robert Warner, the likelihood is that it takes place during September. This was the first of very few Secret Service type encounters that Fen is recorded as having, but see ‘The Missing Years’ below. Incidentally, that Fen’s reputation had grown in the two years since Moving Toyshop is proven by the psychoanalyst Peace, who said he had been told that Fen "has had a good deal of experience in these (criminal) matters."