Forgotten Book - Skin for Skin

Skin for Skin by Winifred Duke was published by Gollancz in 1935, and it earned a rave review from another Gollancz author, no less an authority than Dorothy L. Sayers. Duke was an expert in true crime who also wrote fiction, and this novel is based very, very closely on the Wallace case. The names have been changed - Wallace becomes Bruce, Liverpool becomes Salchester, and so on - but Duke didn't deny that she was fictionalising very recent events. Wallace was convicted of murdering his wife in 1931, but the conviction was quashed on appeal. He did not, however, enjoy his freedom for long.

In this story, it is made clear from the outset that Bruce deliberately set about planning to murder his wife. Duke was at pains to emphasise that she was not suggesting that this meant she thought Wallace guilty (and thus "lucky to get away with it"), although it's hard to believe she'd have written this book in this way if she believed he was innocent. Her argument, in effect, was that she was trying to imagine what would have motivated him if he had indeed been guilty. This argument does raise ethical questions, although I think it's a legitimate piece of work. Indeed, as the title (taken from the Book of Job) suggests, this is a book with a moral.

The writing is plain, but very readable, and I raced through the story. Even though I'm very familiar with the Wallace case, I found myself gripped by Bruce's story. I have some reservations about the book, but I can see why Sayers admired it. It's a very lucid piece of work. Faction, you might call it.

My greatest reservations concern not Duke's writing, but her fictional premise. I struggle to believe that Wallace was guilty. This is a case which I've had the pleasure of discussing with two considerable authorities, P.D. James (who thought he was guilty, though previously she'd thought him innocent) and Roger Wilkes (who wrote an important book seeking to establish his innocence). Sayers also wrote about the case in detail, and I share her view that Wallace's psychological profile was not that of a murderer. Duke does a good job, in creative fiction terms, of trying to explain his motivation, on the premise that he did decide to kill his wife. But even though I enjoyed reading the book, and can recommend it, I'm still not convinced. I think Wallace was a wretchedly unlucky man, who suffered a terrible injustice.

P.D. James and the Wallace Case - a Classic Murder Mystery

The murder of Julia Wallace in Liverpool in 1931 has fascinated people for over eighty years. Raymond Chandler was one of many crime novelists who was puzzled as to where the truth lay. Dorothy L. Sayers and John Dickson Carr were among the others, and Sayers wrote an important essay about the case, included in the Detection Club book Anatomy of Murder. John Rhode wrote two novels which drew on aspects of the case, and more recently John Hutton wrote an excellent novel inspired by it. Now it is the turn of Sayers' admirer P.D.James, herself a doyenne of the Detection Club, to investigate - and the outcome of her own detective work has appeared in The Sunday Times today.

First, a brief recap on the main facts. William Herbert Wallace was a middle aged, respectable and apparently happily married insurance agent who received a telephone message at the Chess Club where he played, from a prospective new client, R.M. Qualtrough. Wallace was asked to call at Qualtrough's home the following evening. He duly et out, but the address given to him did not exist. When he returned home, he found his wife dead. She had been battered to death. Wallace was found guilty and sentenced to death, but reprieved on appeal. However, he died not long after being released from prison.

Research undertaken by Jonathan Goodman and Roger Wilkes seemed to establish that the actual killer was a man called Parry.However,P.D.James has cast doubt on this conclusion. To follow her detailed reasoning, one has to read her essay very carefully(and it is behind a paywall). I think it's a truly fascinating piece of work.

The question she has presented us with is this - was Wallace in fact guilty, after all? She thinks he was. I think it's marvellous that she has reinvestigated the case, and her essay is intensely readable, as you would expect. Even for those who are not true crime fans, it's an engrossing mystery. I want to reflect on P.D. James' arguments before coming to any conclusions - that's the lawyer in me, I guess! - but I must say that my instinctive view is that I still believe Wallace was innocent. Anthony Berkeley said of the Crippen case (I'm paraphrasing, but only slightly) that a man "does not become a fiend overnight", and I think he was right. The psychological profile of Wallace doesn't seem to me to be that of a murderer, and there are one or two other aspects of the latest theory that don't instantly convince me. But - the debate is now reopened, and I would be extremely interested to know what others think about this enduring and extraordinary puzzle.