Henry Wade

• Born: September 10, 1887
• Birthplace: Leigh, Surrey, England
• Died: May 30, 1969
• Place of death: London, England

Types of Plot: Police procedural; inverted

Principal Series: Chief Inspector Poole, 1929-1954

Contribution

Henry Wade, who has been described as a “staunch advocate of the classical detective story in its purest form,” produced a total of twenty-one novels, some of them in the inverted rather than the classic form. Wade is often compared to Freeman Wills Crofts}, but his novels have deeper characterizations and their depiction of police procedure is more realistic. Wade’s novels frequently raise questions about the British legal system, and his strongly developed sense of irony, which seasons most of his work, finds its fullest expression in his criticism of the legal procedure. In his exposure of flaws in the legal system Wade anticipated and influenced a number of later writers. Many of Wade’s novels intersperse social commentary with clues, motives, and suspects, but his novels written between 1947 and 1957 take a particularly close look at the changing values in post-World War II England.

Biography

Henry Wade was born Henry Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher on September 10, 1887, in Leigh, Surrey, England, the eldest son of Sir Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher and Emily Harriett Wade Aubrey-Fletcher. (“Henry Wade” was a pen name that he adopted in 1926.) Educated at Eton College and New College, University of Oxford, Wade joined the Grenadier Guards in 1908, serving in the First Battalion until his retirement in 1920. He returned to active duty during World War II (1940-1945). Wade was wounded twice during World War I and was awarded both the Distinguished Service Order and the French Croix de Guerre.

In 1911, Wade was married to Mary Augusta Chilton. They had four sons and one daughter. Mary Augusta died in 1963; in 1965, Wade was married to Nancy Cecil Reynolds.

After retiring from the Grenadier Guards, Wade held a number of positions in Buckinghamshire, including justice of the peace, alderman, and high sheriff. He served as lord lieutenant of Buckinghamshire (the queen’s representative in the county) from 1954 until 1961 and was a lieutenant in the Body Guard of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (1956-1957). Wade succeeded to the baronetcy after his father’s death in 1937.

Wade began his career as a writer in 1926 with the publication of The Verdict of You All. His 1929 novel, The Duke of York’s Steps, introduced Detective Inspector Poole. During a writing career that stretched from 1926 until 1957, Wade produced a total of twenty-one novels (seven featuring Poole) and two collections of short stories, plus one nonfictional work, A History of the Foot Guards to 1856 (published in 1927 under his own name). Wade’s novels and short stories reflect his extensive experience with police business, as well as his dissatisfaction with the British legal system and its traditions. Wade’s work as a writer was interrupted by World War II, but he resumed writing in 1947 and produced seven novels following the war. He died on May 30, 1969.

Analysis

The Verdict of You All, Henry Wade’s first novel, and The Missing Partners (1928), his second, have been compared to novels written by Freeman Wills Crofts. Crofts, who is notable for having created one of literature’s least colorful detectives, the plodding Inspector French, has been called “the master of timetables and alibis” because of his frequent use of railway timetables—provided as frontispieces in his novels—and seemingly unbreakable alibis that could be broken by clues hidden in the timetables. Wade’s emulation of Crofts is most evident in his second novel, The Missing Partners, but both this novel and The Verdict of You All involve railways and clues in timetables.

Although comparisons between Wade and Crofts are inevitable, there are discernible differences, even in Wade’s earliest novels. For one thing, Wade’s novels have an authentic ring that is absent from the novels written by Crofts. Unlike Crofts, who knew little about police procedure, Wade could call on his own experiences as high sheriff and justice of the peace for Buckinghamshire when describing police procedure. This expertise gives an authenticity to his accounts of police work that sets him apart, even in his earliest novels. Another thing that sets Wade apart not only from Crofts but also from other writers of detective novels is the manner in which he uses irony in his criticism of the British legal system. Both The Verdict of You All, with its trial scene that ends in a questionable verdict, and The Missing Partners, in which justice nearly miscarries, raise questions about the entire legal system.

The Duke of York’s Steps

Although Wade’s subsequent works reveal his continued indebtedess to Crofts (as well as to other writers in the classic tradition), Wade began to find his own voice in his third novel, The Duke of York’s Steps. Considered by many to be Wade’s best, this novel introduces readers to Inspector John Poole, who would become Wade’s most frequently used character.

The Hanging Captain

Wade followed The Duke of York’s Steps with The Dying Alderman (1930) and No Friendly Drop (1931). The Hanging Captain (1932) is the most important novel of this period, not only because it marks the end of what some have called Wade’s apprentice period but also because it marks the full flowering of his sense of irony. In The Hanging Captain Wade is able to give clear expression to the ironic criticism of the legal system that was latent in his earliest novels. Such criticism became a hallmark of Wade’s writing, and it anticipated and influenced the work of writers such as Richard Hull, Cyril Hare, Henry Cecil, Raymond Postgate, Michael Underwood, and Roderic Jeffries.

The Hanging Captain deals with the problem of whether a certain captain has died by his own hand or whether he has been murdered. Once it has been determined that the captain has, in fact, been murdered, Superintendent Dawle, a thorough police officer, suggests to his chief constable, Major Threngood, that the high sheriff should be questioned as a suspect. Like many of the police officials in Wade’s novels, Threngood is chief constable purely by virtue of his military rank. Scandalized by Dawle’s suggestion, and fearing the uproar that would ensue if it became known that the high sheriff was a suspect, Threngood forbids the questioning. Superintendent Dawle defers to the constable but makes it clear that, in the interest of justice, the sheriff should be questioned. Wade concludes the conversation between Threngood and Dawle with an ironic comment that suggests trenchant questions regarding his country’s legal system:

The significant note in the Superintendent’s voice brought home to Threngood the responsibility of his position. For the first time since his appointment he realized that his office was something more than an interesting, well-paid job. It might carry with it the difference between life and death, justice and injustice; it was a terrible responsibility.

Wade’s censure of certain aspects of the British practice of law and justice is also implicit in the manner in which he brings the The Hanging Captain to its conclusion. When it becomes obvious that the questioning of the high sheriff cannot be avoided, Threngood decides to steer clear of responsibility for any scandal: He calls in Scotland Yard. In response, the Yard sends one of its most brilliant young men, Detective Inspector Lott. Lott, who has a low opinion of the rural constabulary, brings to the investigation the best of modern police methods. The reader expects that this representative of all that is modern will solve the case, but in the end it is the careful, rather undramatic work of the uninspired, old-fashioned Superintendent Dawle that brings the killer to justice.

This type of reversal is one of the characteristics of Wade’s best novels. In Mist on the Saltings (1933), for example, another chief constable with a military title, Major Fennel, describes the sound theorizing of Inspector Lamming as “special pleading” (that is, contrived). Lamming, as it turns out, is right. Similarly, in A Dying Fall (1955), the chief constable, Colonel Netterly, responds condescendingly to Detective-Superintendent Hant’s theory, based on solid police work, that Charles Rathlyn has murdered his wife. The irony of this rebuff is revealed in the last sentence of the novel—a sentence that, coming as it does at the end of Wade’s next-to-last novel, may express both Wade’s frustration with the British legal system and his own answer to the questions raised in his first two books.

After the success of The Hanging Captain, Wade turned from straight detective stories to experimentation with other genres. Some critics have commented that Wade liked to challenge himself with new difficulties as he planned each new work. Wade’s experimentation led to two collections of short stories: Policeman’s Lot: Stories of Detection (1933) and Here Comes the Copper (1938). It also led him to attempt a project that may have been too great a challenge.

Mist on the Saltings

Mist on the Saltings, which followed his first collection of short stories, is the result of Wade’s attempt to write a novel that would include elements of crime and detection yet would focus on the development of character. The attempt is something of a failure, primarily because Wade lacked the ability to sustain the suspense and develop the novel’s numerous subthemes at the same time. Each time he deals with the novel’s marital triangle, for example, suspense evaporates and the pace of the novel slows. The pace is also slowed by Wade’s style, which is sometimes forced, stilted, and artificial.

A Dying Fall

This problem with an unwieldy style plagued Wade throughout his career. A Dying Fall, for example, is marred by the kind of labored prose illustrated by the following passage:

In the meantime Charles and Anne Rathlyn were in that seventh heaven that is reserved for lovers from whose path insuperable obstacles have suddenly melted away. . . . Further than that, the nebulous plans that they had discussed on that afternoon when they had met in the woods and realised their mutual love had now developed into firm intention.

Wade’s best novels are those in which he was able to practice an economy of narration, avoiding the long descriptions that gave him so much trouble. Mist on the Saltings fails to achieve that economy and must therefore be judged as one of Wade’s least successful works.

Constable, Guard Thyself!

After Mist on the Saltings, Wade returned to the straight detective story with Constable, Guard Thyself! (1934). This novel, which features Inspector Poole, is a model of the classic detective story. Beginning with the standard accessory, a frontispiece showing the scene of the crime, it moves forward through a jumble of clues and possible motives to a conclusion in the detective-novel tradition. This is not to suggest, however, that the novel is merely a mechanical exercise in detective-story writing. Characteristically, Wade gives Constable, Guard Thyself! an added dimension by paying careful attention to characterization and by seasoning his narrative with social commentary.

Heir Presumptive

Perhaps to give himself another challenge, Wade made a dramatic departure from the classic tradition by following Constable, Guard Thyself! with an inverted story, Heir Presumptive (1935). Inversion is a difficult technique, but Wade masters it in this story of extermination for inheritance. Wade, whose strongly developed sense of irony has been noted, gives the story a wry twist at the end, but one of the outstanding features of Heir Presumptive is the way in which he is able to convey the irony involved in the murderous scheming of the heir. This is one of Wade’s best novels, even if there is some murkiness surrounding the explanation of the difference between “tail male” and “general entail,” two legal terms that are important to the plot.

Postwar Novels

Wade’s writing career was interrupted when he returned to military service at the beginning of World War II. When he resumed writing, it was to revise his last prewar novel, Lonely Magdalen (1940), for a 1946 edition. His first postwar novel, New Graves at Great Norne (1947), was followed by six more, concluding with The Litmore Snatch (1957). Only two novels of this period, Too Soon to Die (1953) and A Dying Fall, rank with the best of Wade’s prewar writing. New Graves at Great Norne is bloodier than most of Wade’s novels, and Diplomat’s Folly (1951), which features no detection, is reminiscent of Crofts. Social commentary, which is always present in Wade’s early novels, plays an even greater role in the postwar novels. A Dying Fall, in particular, takes a very close look at the changing values, especially among the “horsey set,” in postwar England. Many critics believe that Wade’s treatment of these changing values may be the best of that of any writer in the field.

Wade retired from writing after publishing his somewhat disappointing last novel, The Litmore Snatch, ending a productive career that has earned for him a place among the great writers of detective fiction. Innovative and willing to attempt a variety of genres, Wade produced a body of work distinguished by its plotting, its characterization, its situations, its social commentary, its questioning of the British legal system, and—most of all—its subtle undertones of irony. It is not surprising that The Times (London) called Henry Wade “the greatest English writer of detective fiction.”

Principal Series Character:

• John Poole , chief inspector, Criminal Investigation Department, New Scotland Yard, belongs to the new breed of police officers, college-educated and police academy-trained. Poole rises through the ranks to become the youngest inspector in the Criminal Investigation Department and eventually its chief. Personally charming and politically radical, Poole is clever, competent, and witty.

Bibliography

Barzun, Jacques, and Wendell Hertig Taylor. “Preface to The Dying Alderman.” In A Book of Prefaces to Fifty Classics of Crime Fiction, 1900-1950. New York: Garland, 1976. Preface by two preeminent scholars of mystery and detective fiction, arguing for Wade’s novel’s place in the annals of the genre.

Hausladen, Gary. Places for Dead Bodies. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000. This study of the settings of mystery and detective novels includes extended discussions of the police procedural subgenre and the specific importance of setting within police procedurals; provides background for understanding the works of Wade.

Horsley, Lee. Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Very useful overview of the history and parameters of the crime-fiction genre; helps place Wade’s work within that genre.

Shibuk, Charles. “Henry Wade.” In The Mystery Writer’s Art, edited by Francis M. Nevins, Jr. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1970. Essay devoted to Wade’s particular craft, his distinctive style, and their consequences for detective fiction.

Vicarel, Jo Ann. A Reader’s Guide to the Police Procedural. New York: G. K. Hall, 1995. Geared to the mainstream reader, this study introduces and analyzes the police procedural form, which Wade uses in his novels.