Line #8 Literature/SirHenryMerrivale


1	Sir Henry Merrivale is an AmateurSleuth who features in numerous novels and short stories by Carter Dickson (pen name of Creator/JohnDicksonCarr).
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3	!!This series contains examples of:
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5	* AbnormalAmmo: ''The Plague Court Murders'' involved a murder where the victim was [[spoiler:shot by a bullet carved from rock salt that dissolved in his body, leaving no trace]].
6	* AmateurSleuth: Sir Henry Merrivale.
7	* BatterUp: The killer in [[spoiler:''The Skeleton in the Clock'']] used a cricket bat.
8	* BelligerentSexualTension: The character arc between Monica Stanton and William Cartwright in ''And So To Murder''. Tilly Parsons, the experienced script doctor, [[ShipperOnDeck can see exactly what's going on]].
9	* BourgeoisBohemian: Sir Henry, as well as being a QuintessentialBritishGentleman, is also a Socialist.
10	* {{Claustrophobia}}: Pennik in ''The Reader is Warned'' is claustrophobic, so the prospect of being arrested (and therefore locked in a cell) terrifies him.
11	* CourtroomEpisode: ''The Judas Window'' takes place at the trial of James Answell for murder, with Sir Henry appearing as his defence counsel.
12	* CurseOfThePharaoh: In ''The Curse of the Bronze Lamp'', an archaeologist dies from a scorpion sting soon after unearthing a tomb. Two of his colleagues seemingly vanish soon after a prophet curses them.
13	* CutPhoneLines: In ''She Died A Lady'', the narrator arrives at the house where he's been invited for dinner, and is met by the owner grumbling that some vandal has cut the telephone line. Mysterious deaths follow before the evening is out. What puzzles the detectives is that the cut phone line doesn't seem to be related to the deaths in any way; even if this is a murder plot ([[AlwaysMurder it is]]) rather than a suicide pact, it doesn't seem to be a plot that requires the telephone to be out of action.
14	* ElectrifiedBathtub: This is the cause of death/murder method in [[spoiler:''The Reader is Warned'']]. Sir Henry, while delivering TheSummation, points out that the London County Council had banned electrical fittings in bathrooms for that reason.
15	* EvilGloating: The murderer in ''The Reader is Warned'' is kind enough to tell their latest intended victim (and hence the police, who are eavesdropping, and the reader), in detail, how they committed the crime.
16	* FairPlayWhodunnit: Carr's stories always showed you all the clues. The only problem was usually that the murder was ''impossible'' to begin with, so you couldn't figure out ''how'', much less who.
17	* {{Fauxreigner}}: Belle in ''She Died A Lady'' is actually from Birmingham, but affects an American accent and dialect for the benefit of the patrons at the dance club where she works.
18	* FingertipDrugAnalysis: Defied in ''The Plague Court Murders'' -- Sir Henry warns Inspector Masters not to taste the white powder he's just found. [[spoiler:Not because it's poisonous. It's salt residue from the AbnormalAmmo, and Sir Henry wants to keep that particular clue to himself.]]
19	* GetOut: In ''The Curse of the Bronze Lamp'', [[spoiler:John Loring survives a murder attempt at the hands of a trusted colleague who was stealing from him, then confronts the crook in his home after Fell makes a long summation while letting the villain think the murder was successful, largely to make him have a VillainousBreakdown about being hanged. John says that he won't press charges, but tells his formerly trusted friend to "get out", saying this three times in a row for emphasis.]]
20	* IJustShotMarvinInTheFace: Used in ''The Ten Teacups'', [[spoiler:in which the victim is wrongly assumed to have been shot at close range because he had a powder burn from when the killer "accidentally" shot him with a blank cartridge the previous day]].
21	* ImportantHaircut: In ''And So To Murder'', Tilly persuades Bill that if he's to stand a chance with Monica, he's got to shave - she can't stand beards.
22	* KickedUpstairs: Sir Henry dreads being elevated to the House of Lords, fearing it would mean the end of his career.
23	* LadySwearsALot: Belle Sullivan in ''She Died A Lady'' shocks the Devon locals with her unfiltered vocabulary.
24	* LockedRoomMystery: Carr, the acknowledged master of this back in the golden age of crime fiction, provided all sorts of different ways to accomplish this. If the detective is Henry Merrivale, there is an excellent chance you've got a locked room or impossible crime on your hands.
25	* MysteryWriterDetective: William Cartwright in ''And So To Murder'' is a detective novelist who performs the bulk of the investigation, though Sir Henry Merrivale is the one who finally resolves the case.
26	* NeedleInAStackOfNeedles: ''The Punch and Judy Murders'' has a [[spoiler:counterfeiter who hid the real money with the fake money]].
27	* TheNicknamer: Sir Henry is inclined to refer to people by nicknames he's given them (such as 'Horseface' or 'Lollypop') and expect everyone present to know who he's talking about.
28	* PsychicPowers: In ''The Reader is Warned'' Pennik boasts that he has telepathic powers, including mind-reading and the ability to kill with "teleforce". Nobody believes him... until people who accuse him of being a fraud start turning up dead.
29	* QuicksandSucks: The murderer in ''She Died A Lady'' gets rid of the victim's car by sinking it in quicksand. It comes as rather a shock for the person hiding in the back, who has to get free before the car goes under.
30	* QuintessentialBritishGentleman: Sir Henry Merrivale is a ZigZagged version. He technically has all the qualities associated with this trope, while also reversing or defying them:
31	** He's the holder of a three-hundred-year-old baronetcy... and his politics are socialist.
32	** He's a highly educated man, qualified as both a doctor and a lawyer, and peppers his speech with cultural allusions... and he also uses terrible grammar on purpose.
33	** He moves in high-class circles, knows tons of important people... and has so few social skills that it borders on AmbiguousDisorder.
34	* RevengePornBlackmail: ''The Judas Window'' had a plot point in which a female character was blackmailed using sexual photos of her taken with her consent by an ex-boyfriend.
35	* ShoutOut:
36	** In one story Sir Henry is compared to [[Literature/SherlockHolmes Mycroft Holmes]]. Like Mycroft, he's a member of the Diogenes Club.
37	** ''She Died A Lady'' makes some subtle allusions to ''Literature/TheMurderOfRogerAckroyd'', with the story being narrated by the kindly old family doctor and the early introduction of a character called Ferrars.
38	* SlapSlapKiss: Monica and Bill's FirstKiss in ''And So To Murder'' follows this pattern to the letter - two slaps from Monica, and then a series of passionate kisses.
39	* SlippingAMickey: In ''She Died A Lady'', the protagonist is on the point of setting out in search of vital evidence when he learns that a well-meaning character put a sleeping tablet in his Ovaltine. He decides to go anyway, in the hope that the drug won't take effect before he finds what he wants.
40	* SpearCounterpart: Sir Henry strongly resembles a genderflipped version of "Duchess" Agatha Alison in the Bencolin book ''Castle Skull''.
41	* TheSpymaster: Sir Henry's day job is a senior post in Intelligence.
42	* SuicidePact: At first, the murders in ''She Died A Lady'' appear to be this, before the police spot inconsistencies and suspect murder.
43	* SwitchingPOV: Nearly all of ''She Died A Lady'' is narrated by the kindly old local doctor, but the epilogue is narrated by another character because [[spoiler:the doctor was killed in an air raid before the truth came to light.]]
44	* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: In-Universe example in ''And So To Murder'' -- in a RunningGag, Mr Aaronson's film about the Duke of Wellington continually drifts further and further away from actual history.

Context Literature / SirHenryMerrivale