"That Doesn’t Look Much Like Self-defense. It Looks Like Murder."

WHAT HAPPENS when an accomplished musician turns to writing classic detective fiction? You get little gems like . . .

(1) "Death and Aunt Fancy."

By Edmund Crispin (Robert Bruce Montgomery, 1921-78; Wikipedia HERE and the GAD Wiki HERE).

Gervase Fen No. 16.

First appearance: The Evening Standard, February 26, 1953.

Reprinted in Collier's, April 25, 1953 (today's text).

Illustration by Anthony Saris (1924-2011).

Collected in Fen Country, 1979.

Other reprints:

John Creasey’s Mystery Bedside Book, 1969

Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, December 1974

“We Know You’re Busy Writing . . .”: The Collected Short Stories of Edmund Crispin, 2023.

Short short short story (1 page).

Online at UNZ (HERE).

   "I don't know what she wants, you see. I don't know why she's doing this."

Main characters:

~ George Gotobed, Miss Preedy, Aunt Fancy, and Dawkins (in absentia).

(2) "The Unloaded Gun."

(a.k.a. "Humbleby Agonistes.")

By Edmund Crispin (1921-78).

Gervase Fen No. 4.

First appearance: The Evening Standard, October 16, 1950.

Reprinted in The Saint Detective Magazine, September 1955 (today's text).

Collected in Beware of the Trains, 1953, as "Humbleby Agonistes."

Short short story (7 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

   "Everything about the affair fits and is quite innocent, excepting just one thing."

Main characters:

~ Detective-Inspector Humbleby, Gervase Fen, Garstin-Walsh, Jourdain, Saul Brebner, and Weems.

References:

- "like pneumoconiosis in coalmining" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "the first war" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "batman" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "there’s no such thing as attempted manslaughter" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "delayed shock, or post-traumatic automatism" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "Gross (Wikipedia HERE) and Taylor and Sydney Smith (Wikipedia HERE)."

Resources:

- Wikipedia has an article about Gervase Fen (HERE).

- TV's mildest-mannered detective also encountered a case involving an incriminating bullet hole in the wall (WARNING! SPOILERS! The Columbophile Blog HERE).

- We've visited rather extensively with Edmund Crispin several times: The Moving Toyshop (HERE), Fen Country (HERE), and Beware of the Trains (HERE).

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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"Disaster Was Indiscriminate. And It Had Taken Murder Out of My Hands."

(1) "The Shock."

By C. K. M. Scanlon.

First appearance: Popular Detective, October 1936.

Short short short story (1 page).

Online at The Pulpgen Archive (HERE).

   "Perfect crime? Far from it!"

YOUR mama probably never said there'd be days like this:

  "Without warning the floor beneath me cracked open like a coconut rind. A savage, rending sound, magnified into distance, pressed about my eardrums. The walls cavorted and split, and shattering glass exploded like doom opening for the cohorts of hell. Screams rose up all around me. A weight dropped loose from the suddenly cobwebbed ceiling, and my head took the full impact. I lost consciousness at once...."

Principal characters:

~ Inspector Shelting, Randolph, Tess, the head physician, and the unnamed narrator.

References:

- "Long Beach, California" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "Catalina Island" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "the strength of a Samson among the Philistines" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "March 11th, 1933" (Wikipedia HERE).

(2) "Filed in Person."

By C. K. M. Scanlon.

First appearance: Popular Detective, February 1939.

Short short short story (1 page).

Online at The Pulpgen Archive (HERE).

(Parental note: Mild profanity.)

   "There was the scrape of a match and a soft gasp from the girl. It was now or never."

THE D.A. gets conked, a material witness gets menaced, and a desperado gets buzzed. Case closed . . .

Principal characters:

~ John Barstow, Diana Wayne, and Gunner Overholt.

Resource:

- "C. K. M. Scanlon" didn't just write fiction but was "himself" a fiction. A story with the Scanlon byline could have been by any of the following, as FictionMags informs us:

  Scanlon, C. K. M. (fl. 1930s-1950s); house pseudonym used by Joe Archibald (1898-1986), W. T. Ballard (1903-1980), Robert Sidney Bowen (1900-1977), D. L. Champion (1902-1968), Edward Churchill (1902-1960), Ray Cummings (1887-1957), Tom Curry (1900-1976), Norman A. Daniels (1905-1995), Lester Dent (1904-1959), Laurence Donovan (1885-1948), George Fielding Eliot (1894-1971), Whitney Ellsworth (1908-1980), G. T. Fleming-Roberts (1910-1968), Charles Greenberg (fl. 1920s-1960s), Frank Gruber (1904-1969), Donald Bayne Hobart (1898-1970), Henry Kuttner (1915-1958), Johnston McCulley (1883-1958), George A. McDonald (fl. 1920s-1940s), Sam Merwin, Jr. (1910-1996), Frank Philipp (fl. 1990s), Jean Francis Webb (1910-1991) & Manly Wade Wellman (1903-1986).

- Previous Scanlon stories that caught ONTOS's attention: "Footprints" and "Blood for Breakfast" (both HERE) and "Page the Murderer" (HERE).

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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"Yonder Is the Wolf That Makes This Spoil"

"Wolf in the Fold."
Story by Robert Bloch (1917-94; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; and the IMDb HERE).
Adapted by James Blish (1921-75; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; and the IMDb HERE).
First appearance: Star Trek 8, 1972.

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Novelette (32 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).

   "The viewer was a riot of changing colors. Figures began to emerge from them. Serpents writhed through pentagons. Naked women, hair streaming behind them, rode astride the shaggy backs of goats. Horned beasts pranced with toads. Rivers boiled, steaming. Above them, embraced bodies drifted down fiery winds. Human shoulders, pinioned under rocks, lifted pleading arms. Then the red glow, shedding its bloody mist over the screen, gave way to the deathly whiteness of a cold, unending snow. Up from the glacial landscape rose a towering three headed shape, its mouths agape with gusts of silent laughter. A cross, upturned, appeared beside it. The shape crawled up it, suspending itself upon it in an unspeakable travesty of the crucifixion. Its vast, leathery wings unfolded . . ."

A therapeutic shore leave turns into a nightmare for Mr. Scott when he becomes the prime suspect in not one, not two, but three murders. And he's as prime as a suspect gets, being found in every case hovering over the victims with the murder weapon in his hand. For Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy it's going to take some real doing to clear their friend . . .

Main characters:
~ Kara, Scott, Kirk, McCoy, Mr. Hengist, Jaris, Sybo, Karen Tracy, Tark, Morla, Spock, Boratis—Kesla—Redjac, Tancris, Sulu, the nurse, and the Transporter Chief.

(Our title is from Henry VI, Part 3, Act 5, Scene 4.)

References:
- "Venusberg" (Wikipedia HERE)
- "The few polyesters" (Wikipedia HERE)
- "fleshpots" (Merriam-Webster HERE).

Resource:
- Well over a decade ago we dealt with the TV episode (HERE).

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.
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"Anyone Knows You Don't Go Buck-Hunting with the Idea of Killing a Man"

MURDER is usually an indoor sport, but today's two tales of misadventure take us into the Great Outdoors . . .

(1) "Blood Money."

By Owen Cameron (1902-60).

First appearance: Collier's, September 6, 1952.

Illustrated by Saul Tepper (1899-1987; Wikipedia HERE).

Short short short story (3 pages).

Online at Archive.org starting (HERE; page 48) and finishing (HERE; pages 50-51).

   "He was about sixty feet off when I reached into the pickup, and got my rifle and shot him. In the head. I didn’t think, just pulled the trigger; and he kind of jerked and laid over the saddle horn and stayed like that a minute and then slid sideways without ever saying a word."

THEY may all be neighbors but that doesn't necessarily make them friends, and one of them is a murderer . . .

Principal characters:

~ Clyde Matson, Ruth Matson, Lloyd Fells, Joe Gruber, Jake Metterman, Hap Powell, Adam Burns, Parker, and Milly Powell.

(2) "The Quick and the Dead."

By Owen Cameron (1902-60).

First appearance: EQMM, May 1945.

Reprints:

Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine “Overseas Edition for the Armed Forces” #22, May 1945.

Shocking Tales, 1946.

Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (Australia) #27, September 1949.

Short short short story (3 pages).

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; go to text pages 96-98).

   "Too slow, I'm always too slow."

THEY say that guns don't kill people; people kill people. Basically it's often just a matter of finding the right occasion . . .

Principal characters:

~ Ed May and Clarence.

Reference:

- "a .300 Savage" (Wikipedia HERE).

Resource:

- FictionMags's thumbnail about Courtney Owen Cameron: "Born in Oregon; settled in California; short story writer and novelist."

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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"People Are Reading History, but We Shall Know It; We Shall Do More Than Know It, We Shall Change It."

TODAY'S story was published in 8 B.G., that is, eight years Before Gernsback inaugurated Amazing Stories, the first magazine devoted exclusively to science fiction. We thought at first that it might be a mystery story in the modern sense, but it turns out to be a mystery in the 19th century sense, a comprehensive category that included pure fantasies, ghost stories, and "scientific romances" of the kind produced by Verne and Wells. While we think that the story is ingenious and compelling despite its faults, both the author and the editor could 

have been a bit more diligent, and tighter editing on both their parts would have greatly 

improved . . .

"The Haunted Corridors: A Mystery Story Based on Science."

By William Hamilton Osborne (1873-1942).

First appearance: Mystery Magazine, October 1, 1918 (cover story).

Short story (12 pages; 2 illos).

Online at Archive.org (HERE; go to text page 3).

(Note: Text very faded.)

   "With his electric flash he hastily adjusted his machine, swinging into place the concentrator cone, and with a rapidity that had come from long practice, he carefully fitted the accelerator, the aggravator with its super-magnifier, and finally the reverberator. Then he adjusted the dial screw with careful accuracy, and pulled the lever."

POLONIUS advised Laertes to "Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice." A brilliant inventor has done Shakespeare one better; he can get every man to give their voice 

to his ear . . .

Comment: Science fiction requires a willing suspension of disbelief, and, believe us, 

you're going to need a lot of it.

Main characters:

~ Gum-shoe Mixley, McMurtry, Garthwaite, Paul Champenois, Virginia Garthwaite, Iras, Cleopatra, Ptolemy, and the landlord.

Typo: "Your rear"; "tngues"; "crcoked"; "substittue".

References:

- "the just and the unjust":

  "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." (Matthew 5:45; Bible Gateway HERE.)

The rest of these are linked to Wikipedia:

- "the anxiety of a Paul Revere" (HERE)

- "Thackeray (HERE), Dickens (HERE), Balzac (HERE)"; "Meredith" (HERE)

- "lamp chimneys" (HERE)

- "wireless telegraphy" (HERE)

- "the Spanish war" (HERE)

- "Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden" (HERE)

- "Cleopatra" (HERE)

- "Queen Elizabeth" (HERE)

- "Charles Martel" (HERE)

- "Salome" (HERE); "Herod" (HERE); "Saul of Tarsus" (HERE)

- "bastinado" (HERE)

- "Mark Antony" (HERE)

- "Ptolemy" (HERE).

Resources:

- The New Jersey Historical Society's archives have this thumbnail of William Hamilton Osborne:

  "A native of Newark, N.J., Osborne studied law at Columbia University Law School, began to practice as an attorney in the 1890s and subsequently served as counsel for the Authors League of America. Osborne began his literary career in 1902 by writing short stories for such magazines as Harpers Monthly Magazine, McClure's, the Saturday Evening Post and many others. The collection includes numerous manuscripts, galley proofs, and published versions of Osborne’s novels, plays, motion picture scripts, essays and short fiction ranging from love stories to detective tales written between 1902-1937. The correspondence in the collection consists primarily of business letters between Osborne and his publishers. A detailed inventory is available." (The New Jersey Historical Society HERE.)

- Isaac Asimov also considered eavesdropping on history with "The Dead Past" (HERE; go to text page 6).

- Bob Shaw had a similar idea but used a different medium with his "Light of Other Days" (WARNING! SPOILERS! Wikipedia HERE).

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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"The Great Experiment Will Take Place at Once! I Have Locked the Door; You Cannot Get Out."

"The Man Who Stopped the Earth."

By Henry J. Kostkos (1900-77; ISFDb HERE).

First appearance: Amazing Stories, March 1934.

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Short short short story (3 pages).

Online at The Pulpgen Archive (HERE).

   "You have truly evolved a stupendous theory. And I have unwittingly proved it for you, though there be none left to profit by it."

IT isn't just in war that a Pyrrhic victory can be achieved, as that self-described "great scientist" Kirkland Rizzert is about to prove . . .

Principal characters:

~ Markrum, Rizzert, and Wirrtel.

References:

- "atom isolagraph":

  No idea.

- "galvanometer":

  "A galvanometer is an electromechanical measuring instrument for electric current. Early galvanometers were uncalibrated, but improved versions, called ammeters, were calibrated and could measure the flow of current more precisely. Galvanometers work by deflecting a pointer in response to an electric current flowing through a coil in a constant magnetic field. The mechanism is also used as an actuator in applications such as hard disks." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "wave atomic theory":

  When our story was published, whether atomic particles were solid or waves was still unsettled:

  "In 1924, Louis de Broglie proposed that all particles—particularly subatomic particles such as electrons—have an associated wave. Erwin Schrödinger, fascinated by this idea, developed an equation that describes an electron as a wave function instead of a point. This approach predicted many of the spectral phenomena that Bohr's model failed to explain, but it was difficult to visualize and faced opposition. One of its critics, Max Born, proposed instead that Schrödinger's wave function did not describe the physical extent of an electron (like a charge distribution in classical electromagnetism), but rather gave the probability that an electron would, when measured, be found at a particular point. This reconciled the ideas of wave-like and particle-like electrons: the behavior of an electron, or of any other subatomic entity, has both wave-like and particle-like aspects, and whether one aspect or the other is observed depend upon the experiment." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "Our earth moves in a complex path; it rotates, travels in its orbit around the sun, the sun carries us through the galactic system, the galactic system speeds us amid the spiral nebulae":

  "Earth orbits the Sun at an average distance of 149.60 million km (92.96 million mi), or 8.317 light-minutes, in a counterclockwise direction as viewed from above the Northern Hemisphere. One complete orbit takes 365.256 days (1 sidereal year), during which time Earth has traveled 940 million km (584 million mi)." (Wikipedia HERE.)

  "The Solar System travels alone through the Milky Way in a circular orbit approximately 30,000 light years from the Galactic Center. Its speed is about 220 km/s. The period required for the Solar System to complete one revolution around the Galactic Center, the galactic year, is in the range of 220–250 million years." (Wikipedia HERE.)

  "How fast is Earth's orbit around the sun?

  "Earth orbits around the sun at a speed of 67,100 miles per hour (30 kilometers per second). That's the equivalent of traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Cape Town (or alternatively London to New York) in about 3 minutes.

  "Other than in its orbit, how else is Earth moving through space?

  "As well as moving around the Sun, the Sun and Earth are orbiting around the dense center of our galaxy at some 447,000 miles per hour (200 km/s). Our galaxy, in turn, is moving relative to the other galaxies around us, and so all the mass in the universe is continuously dancing around." (Space.com HERE).

Click on image to enlarge.

- "the night wind outside whistled under the eaves of the frame building. A flash of lightning foretold the coming of a storm and distant thunder rumbled menacingly above the tearing of the wind"; "By this time the storm outside raged with fury. The laboratory was lit up brilliantly by flashes of lightning. The three old men instinctively drew closer together."

  These are examples of the pathetic fallacy:

  "The phrase pathetic fallacy is a literary term for the attribution of human emotion and conduct to things found in nature that are not human. It is a kind of personification that occurs in poetic descriptions, when, for example, clouds seem sullen, when leaves dance, or when rocks seem indifferent." (Wikipedia HERE.)

Resources:

- Our author, Henry J. Kostkos, generated a remarkably few science fiction stories, most of them for Amazing Stories and a couple for Astounding. Otherwise, we know practically nothing about him.

- The Pulpgen Archive collection of 63 tales from Amazing Stories is (HERE).

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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"He Knew Better—Better Than To Think He’d Get Out of This with His Life"

"Twenty Clocks for Death."

By Cyril Plunkett (1905-66).

First appearance: Ten Detective Aces, February 1937.

Short short short story (3 pages).

Online at The Pulpgen Archive (HERE).

   "He wasn't such a smart fellow."

WOULDN'T you agree that arrogance is the downfall of most, if not all, criminals? Based on recent experience, Ed Turner certainly would . . .

Main characters:

~ Ed Turner, Elise Turner, Charlie Garth, and Mr. Swayne.

References:

- "Mohammed must come to the mountain":

  Phrase Finder (HERE) tells us: "The proverbial phrase ‘If the mountain will not come to Muhammad ...’ means that, if one’s will does not prevail, one must submit to an alternative."

Resources:

- Cyril Joseph Plunkett was all over the detecfic magazines starting in 1930 and going all the way to 1949; see FictionMags for a looong list of his short works.

- The Pulpgen Archive has six of Plunkett's stories online (HERE).

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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