Death on the Aisle

Death on the Aisle

A Mr. and Mrs. North Mystery

Frances and Richard Lockridge

With an Introduction by Robert E. Briney

MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

C
AST OF
C
HARACTERS

AND THE PAGES ON WHICH THEY FIRST APPEAR

W
ILLIAM
W
EIGAND
, professional detective, amateur martini-drinker

D
ORIAN
H
UNT
, Weigand's fiancée, who wants to get married—murder or no murder

A
LOYSIUS
C
LARENCE
M
ULLINS
, assistant to Weigand

P
AMELA
N
ORTH
, amateur detective, professional martini-drinker, who almost becomes a victim of her own enthusiasm

G
ERALD
N
ORTH
, Pam's husband, publisher, and mixer of martinis

D
R
. C
ARNEY
B
OLTON
, Broadway “angel,” man of “affairs,” and corpse

A
LBERTA
J
AMES
, actress, in love with Humphrey Kirk

H
UMPHREY
K
IRK
, director of “Two in the Bush”

P
ENFIELD
S
MITH
, author of “Two in the Bush,” who had reason to hate Bolton

J
OHN
H
UBBARD
, actor, whose cue supplies a clue

A
RTHUR
C
HRISTOPHER
, an impatient scenery designer

M
AX
A
HLBERG
, producer of the play, who has no love for his “angel”

M
ARY
F
OWLER
, a costume designer with pop-eyes

F. L
AWRENCE
T
ILFORD
, actor

E
LLEN
G
RADY
, brilliant and beautiful leading lady of “Two in the Bush”

R
UTHMARY
J
ONES
, actress, colored maid in the play

E
VANS
, custodian of the theatre who seemed to be deaf at the wrong moments

I
NTRODUCTION

There have been many husband-and-wife detective teams in mystery fiction, going back at least to Agatha Christie's Tommy and Tuppence Beresford (
The Secret Adversary
, 1922). In his final novel,
The Thin Man
(1934), Dashiell Hammett introduced Nick and Nora Charles, who went on to appear in six very popular films, a long-running radio series, and a TV series in the late 1950s. But in the print medium there was no competition for the husband-and-wife team of Pam and Jerry North, the protagonists of
Death on the Aisle
. The charm and sparkle of the characters and the longevity of the series—twenty-six novels over a period of twenty-four years—set the Norths apart. They also had stage and film incarnations, as well as successful radio and TV series.

Mr. and Mrs. North first appeared in the pages of
The New Yorker
in a series of brief stories (some little more than amusing anecdotes) by Richard Lockridge, starting with “Domestic Setback” in the issue for September 19, 1931. Over the next ten years, nearly fifty of these stories appeared. In 1936 forty-one of them were gathered together and published in book form as
Mr. and Mrs. North
. Some of these were written especially for the book and did not appear in
The New Yorker
. In these vignettes, slight and charming but sharply observed, the characters of the Norths were developed. Mrs. North is kindhearted, giddy, but stops short of being outright scatterbrained, and is often more sensible and acute than a first impression might indicate. Mr. North is more settled, the often bemused observer of his wife's behavior and thought processes, but not immune to impulsive acts himself. (In one story he suddenly decides to climb up onto the roof of their weekend cabin to look at the full moon and is then made to feel embarrassed when no one else understands the impulse.) They have a comfortable marriage. Mrs. North often communicates in an elliptical conversational style that Mr. North understands but which takes some effort for new acquaintances to follow. (In some of the mystery novels this is carried to an extreme for humorous effect, to the annoyance of some readers. For many others, it is part of the charm of the books.) The Norths are firm believers in the cocktail hour, especially when it manifests itself in the form of very dry martinis, and they enjoy good food, though they are not obtrusive about it. They often spend weekends or vacations in the country, usually in the area around Brewster in Putnam County, north of New York City.

In 1939 Frances Lockridge decided to write a detective novel. She was unable to resolve some plot difficulties and called on Richard for help. The trouble was never satisfactorily cured, but Richard now succumbed to the mystery-writing urge. He kept many of Frances's plot elements, and decided to use Pam and Jerry North as the main characters. The result was
The Norths Meet Murder
(1940). This and the twenty-five subsequent North books carried the joint byline of Frances and Richard Lockridge. (For the later series about Captain Heimrich of the New York State Police, the first names were switched and the byline was Richard and Frances Lockridge. To make things more interesting, all of the British editions of the Lockridges' books have been published as being by “Francis Richards.”) All of the Lockridges' collaborations began with a story conference, out of which came a four- or five-page summary of the book. Frances contributed plot elements, bits of action, dialogue, and characterization, but the actual writing was, by agreement, done by Richard.

While the first Mr. and Mrs. North mystery was still enjoying popular success in the bookstores, Richard Lockridge collaborated with Owen Davis on a stage adaptation.
Mr. and Mrs. North
, with Peggy Conklin and Albert Hackett in the title roles, ran for 163 performances at the Belasco Theater, from January 12 to May 31, 1941. It might well have run longer, but it had the misfortune to open on Broadway one day after
Arsenic and Old Lace
, and the undoubted virtues of the North play were overshadowed by the success of its more flamboyant competitor. The North play subsequently went on tour and was for many years a favorite in summer stock. It was quickly turned into a film by MGM, starring Gracie Allen as Mrs. North. (Lockridge considered this a bad case of miscasting, and indeed the script and performance emphasized Mrs. North's scatterbrained aspect over her nicer qualities.) Shortly after the appearance of the movie, the Norths were presented for the first time on radio. The first series was a domestic comedy, with little or no mystery element. Mrs. North was played by Peggy Conklin, who had played the role on stage. This series disappeared quickly. The “Mr. and Mrs. North” mystery series, with Alice Frost and Joseph Curtin in the title roles, debuted on NBC on December 30, 1942. Within a year it was rated one of the most popular mystery shows on the air. The half-hour program was broadcast on Wednesday nights (sponsored by Woodbury Soap and Jergens Lotion) until 1947, when it switched to Tuesday nights on CBS (sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive). In the early 1950s the show changed to a fifteen-minute nightly serial, with the leading roles played by Barbara Britton and Richard Denning, who would shortly assume the same roles in a successful television series.

There had been a short-lived and not very successful TV adaptation of the Norths on NBC in 1949. The much more successful series, starring Barbara Britton and Richard Denning, was introduced on the CBS network on October 3, 1952; it transferred to NBC in January 1954 and then went into syndication later that year. A total of fifty-seven half-hour episodes were filmed.

It is undeniable that many more people encountered the Norths on radio or TV than ever read one of the North books. But the books, averaging one a year, continued to find a receptive audience. They sold well in the original hardcover editions, had consistent book club sales, and appeared in a variety of paperbound reprint editions. Some reviewers objected to the relatively slight plots and to Pam North's perennial habit of walking blithely into the villain's clutches and having to be rescued. Her intuitive leaps to the culprit's identity were also disparaged. But to a large number of readers these were forgivable faults. Much of the pleasure to be derived from the books lies in following the lives of the appealing characters: not only Pam and Jerry North but their police lieutenant friend Bill Weigand, his wife Dorian, and Sergeant Aloysius Mullins. Repeated visits to familiar settings are also part of the appeal: Charles Restaurant (a real place), the Algonquin Hotel lobby, the Greenwich Village neighborhood, the Broadway theater district. In addition to the recurring characters and locales, there are a wide variety of other settings (nightclubs, theaters, country cabins, publishing houses, museums, radio studios, cruise ships) and an assortment of murder methods, weapons, and motives. (The weapons range from a common ice pick to a prehistoric ax and an unusual but not obscure poison.)

Although some of the North books are primarily domestic comedies, many others, including the early ones, are structured as detective novels in the classic pattern. There are timetables and checklists of evidence and motives, and even an occasional gathering of the principals in a climactic session where the murderer's identity is revealed. Another aspect of the early North novels is a touch of the police procedural element, some years before that particular subgenre of crime fiction was identified and perfected by such writers as Lawrence Treat and Hillary Waugh. There are sections giving detailed descriptions of Weigand's investigations—careful analysis of physical evidence, descriptions of autopsies, accounts of the tedious legwork performed by Mullins and other police detectives, and Weigand's sifting of the results. This detailed police evidence often leads Weigand to the murderer's identity while Pam North's distinctive mode of reasoning is leading her in a similar (but not necessarily identical) direction. She is frequently right, but not always for the right reasons.…

Richard Orson Lockridge was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, on September 25, 1898. He studied journalism at Kansas City Junior College for one term and spent a year at Missouri College (University of Missouri). He joined the Navy in 1918 and, except for one shakedown cruise, spent the term of his enlistment on board the
North Dakota
at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He worked as a reporter on the Kansas City
Kansan
during 1921 and 1922 and on the
Star
in the same city in 1922. During this time he met a young reporter named Frances Davis. They were married in 1922 and moved to New York City.

Frances Louise Davis had been born in Kansas City, Missouri, on January 10, 1896. She attended the University of Kansas but did not graduate. From 1918 to 1922 she was a star reporter and music critic for the Kansas City
Post
.