The Hindenburg Murders

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Despite the elegant surroundings, it had all been vaguely demeaning-thirty-six well-heeled passengers scheduled to board the airship Hindenburg, herded into the main dining room of the Frankfurter Hof by Zeppelin Company representatives, quasi-military in their midnight-blue uniforms. There amid the hotel’s tall mirrors and burnished mahogany columns, under the unforgiving eyes of customs officials in Nazi-style black-and-gray uniforms, baggage was screened by bulky X-ray machines, suitcase linings frequently knifed loose; sealed packages were rudely unwrapped, shaving kits disassembled, bon voyage candy boxes slitted open, perfume bottles uncorked, flashbulbs and flashlights and other dry-cell battery-operated gizmos seized like contraband. The suspects at the end of a murder mystery were treated with more dignity.

That was a subject with which Leslie Charteris was well acquainted-murder mysteries-as the dapper Englishman was the creator of the popular “Saint” stories. At a muscular six-foot-two, with his monocle, Clark Gable mustache, and jet-black, brushed-back hair, Charteris could easily have posed for book-jacket representations of his fictional Saint-Simon Templar, the “modern Robin Hood” who extracted booty (and vengeance) from criminals.

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