"I Dare Say He Bluffed Them Out of a Good Share of the Swag"

HERE is a relatively rare H. C. Bailey story that doesn't feature Reggie Fortune . . .

"A Matter of Speculation."

By H. C. Bailey (1878-1961; Wikipedia HERE; the Mystery*File Blog HERE; ISFDb HERE; the GAD Wiki HERE).

First appearance:  Holly Leaves, December 1939, as "Victoria Pumphrey".

Reprinted in: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, February 1961 (today's text).

  Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, (Australia), April 1961.

  Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (U.K.), July 1961.

  Ellery Queen’s Anthology #15, 1968.

Short short story (7 pages).

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; go to text page 14.)

(Note: Faded, but legible, text.)

   "I had to set fire to the house to do it."

For Miss Pumphrey, "smoke'em out" isn't just a metaphor, it's a useful way of thwarting a case of fraud that probably would have succeeded except for a manservant's concern and unexpected interference from the Land Down Under . . .

Main characters:

~ The Hon. Victoria Pumphrey ("family skeletons a specialty"), Wilson Ellis ("There's been claimants to estates before, Ma'am, and from Australia, too"), Young Mr. Pollexfen ("he is not much turned sixty"), Oliver Madan ("He only groans"), Frank Madan ("I'll talk all you want"), and Price ("Vague?").

Typos: "keen dark eyees"; "Tht thanks".

References and resources:

- "came over with the Conquerer":

  "William the Conqueror (c. 1028 – 9 September 1087), sometimes called William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England (as William I), reigning from 1066 until his death. A descendant of Rollo, he was Duke of Normandy (as William II) from 1035 onward. By 1060, following a long struggle to establish his throne, his hold on Normandy was secure. In 1066, following the death of Edward the Confessor, William invaded England, leading an army of Normans to victory over the Anglo-Saxon forces of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and suppressed subsequent English revolts in what has become known as the Norman Conquest." (Wikipedia HERE).

- "the precincts of Gray's Inn":

  "The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these inns. Located at the intersection of High Holborn and Gray's Inn Road in Central London, the Inn is a professional body and provides office and some residential accommodation for barristers." (Wikipedia HERE).

- "a naval officer who was killed at Jutland":

  "The battle unfolded in extensive manoeuvring and three main engagements from 31 May to 1 June 1916, off the North Sea coast of Denmark's Jutland Peninsula. It was the largest naval battle and only full-scale clash of battleships of the war, and the outcome ensured that the Royal Navy denied the German surface fleet access to the North Sea and the Atlantic for the remainder of the war, as Germany avoided all fleet-to-fleet contact thereafter. Jutland was also the last major naval battle, in any war, fought primarily by battleships." (Wikipedia HERE).

(Click on image to enlarge.)

- "in the Fen country"; "A windmill stood with unmoving sails":

  "The Fens or Fenlands in eastern England are a naturally marshy region supporting a rich ecology and numerous species. Most of the fens were drained centuries ago, resulting in a flat, dry, low-lying agricultural region supported by a system of drainage channels and man-made rivers (dykes and drains) and automated pumping stations. There have been unintended consequences to this reclamation, as the land level has continued to sink and the dykes have been built higher to protect it from flooding." (Wikipedia HERE).

- "in the gold rush":

  "During the Australian gold rushes, starting in 1851, significant numbers of workers moved from elsewhere in Australia and overseas to where gold had been discovered. Gold had been found several times before, but the colonial government of New South Wales (Victoria did not become a separate colony until 1 July 1851) had suppressed the news out of the fear that it would reduce the workforce and destabilise the economy.

  "The Australian gold rushes changed the convict colonies into more progressive cities with the influx of free immigrants." (Wikipedia HERE).

-  "the Tichborne claimant":

   "Roger Tichborne, heir to the family's title and fortunes, was presumed to have died in a shipwreck in 1854 at age 25. His mother clung to a belief that he might have survived, and after hearing rumours that he had made his way to Australia, she advertised extensively in Australian newspapers, offering a reward for information. In 1866, a Wagga Wagga butcher known as Thomas Castro came forward claiming to be Roger Tichborne. Although his manners and bearing were unrefined, he gathered support and travelled to England. He was instantly accepted by Lady Tichborne as her son, although other family members were dismissive and sought to expose him as an impostor." (Wikipedia HERE).

- "the works of the late Mr. Euclid":

  "Euclid (lived around 300 B.C.) was an ancient Greek mathematician active as a geometer and logician. Considered the 'father of geometry', he is chiefly known for the Elements treatise, which established the foundations of geometry that largely dominated the field until the early 19th century." (Wikipedia HERE).

Euclid by Jusepe de Ribera

- "an uncanny goblins' wood":

  "A hobgoblin is a household spirit, appearing in English folklore, once considered helpful, but which since the spread of Christianity has often been considered mischievous. Shakespeare identifies the character of Puck in his A Midsummer Night's Dream as a hobgoblin." (Wikipedia HERE; also see HERE).

(Click on image to enlarge.)

- "ancient paraffin lamps of china":

  "Qinhuai lantern production materials are mainly bamboo, trees, rattan, wheat straw, animal horns, metals, etc. The materials that constitute the light source are determined according to the level of development of productive forces in different historical periods, from the beginning of the Six Dynasties to the modern era, mainly using pine resin, animal and vegetable oil, lacquer, paraffin, kerosene and other fuels, with bamboo, grass, cotton core, etc. as the wick, and later electric light source were used. Its surface translucent materials include various colors of translucent paper, silk veil, painting yarn, cotton, synthetic satin, plastic film and special glass, etc., and some also add beautification patterns and carvings according to the needs of the performance object." (Wikipedia HERE; also see HERE).

- "Herefordshire":

  "Herefordshire is a ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire and Powys to the west. The city of Hereford is the largest settlement and the county town. . . . The county is situated in the historic Welsh Marches. The land use is mostly agricultural, and the county is known for its fruit and cider production, and for the Hereford cattle breed." (Wikipedia HERE).

- "since the war petered out":

  "The Australian military was rapidly demobilised after the Japanese surrender. At the end of the war the military had a strength of nearly 600,000 personnel, of whom 224,000 were serving in the Pacific and 20,000 in Britain and other places. Demobilisation planning had begun at the end of 1942 with the final scheme being approved by the Government in March 1945. General demobilisation started on 1 October 1945, and was completed in February 1947." (Wikipedia HERE).

- "the Light Horse":

  "Australian Light Horse were mounted troops with characteristics of both cavalry and mounted infantry, who served in the Second Boer War and World War I. During the inter-war years, a number of regiments were raised as part of Australia's part-time military force. These units were gradually mechanised either before or during World War II, although only a small number undertook operational service during the war. A number of Australian light horse units are still in existence today." (Wikipedia HERE).

- "drifted back to Blighty":

  "'Blighty' is a British English slang term for Great Britain, or often specifically England. Though it was used throughout the 1800s in the Indian subcontinent to mean an English or British visitor, it was first used during the Boer War in the specific meaning of homeland for the English or British, and it was not until World War I that use of the term became widespread." (Wikipedia HERE).

- You might want to check out William Antony S. Sarjeant's "In Defense of Mr. Fortune," The Armchair Detective, Fall 1981 (Archive.org HERE; pages 302-312).

- More about our author on ONTOS:

  Reviews of Bailey's novels (HERE)

  Reviews of Mr. Fortune story collections (HERE)

  Story: "The Magic Stone" (HERE)

  Story: "The Missing Husband" (HERE).

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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Two from Jakes

  A warning to the reader: This first one's intense . . .

"Hero at Work."

By John Jakes (1932-2023; Wikipedia HERE; ISFDb HERE; SFE HERE; FictionMags HERE).

First appearance: Venture Science Fiction, January 1957.

Short story (10 pages).

Online at SFFAudio (HERE).

(Parental caution: Adult language and themes.)

   "Put me through that thing or by God I'll blow your liver out."

Some days you just can't get rid of a spouse . . .

Principal characters:

~ Martin Boone ("in a drunken all-fours animal posture he stared at the heat-cracked, dust-stuffed cobbles"), Hedda ("She will never leave you"), Stickney ("Never saw anything like it"), Rakejian ("you fool, you don't know what you're doing!"), the Martian girl ("she had been kind, careful of him"), and a man in white ("You're a hero, Martin").

References and resources:

- "the lousy arid dustbowl of a planet":

  Our author opts for Mars as one giant Sahara:

  "Although most stories by the middle of the 1900s acknowledged that advances in planetary science had rendered previous notions about the conditions of Mars obsolete and portrayed the planet accordingly, some continued to depict a romantic version of Mars rather than a realistic one. Besides the stories of Ray Bradbury's 1950 fix-up novel The Martian Chronicles, another early example of this was Robert A. Heinlein's 1949 novel Red Planet where Mars has a breathable (albeit thin) atmosphere, a diverse ecosystem including sentient Martians, and Lowellian canals. Martian canals remained a prominent symbol of this more traditional vision of Mars, appearing both in lighthearted works like the 1954 novel Martians, Go Home by Fredric Brown and more serious ones like the 1963 novel The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis and the 1964 novel Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick. Some works attempted to reconcile both visions of Mars, one example being the 1952 novel Marooned on Mars by Lester del Rey where the presumed canals turn out to be rows of vegetables and the only animal life is primitive.

  "As the Space Age commenced the divide between portraying Mars as it was and as it had previously been imagined deepened, and the discoveries made by Mariner 4 in 1965 solidified it." (Wikipedia HERE).

(Click on image to enlarge.)

- "crouched like a lard billiken":

  "The Billiken is a charm doll created by an American art teacher and illustrator, Florence Pretz of Kansas City, Missouri, who is said to have seen the mysterious figure in a dream. It is believed that Pretz found the name Billiken in Bliss Carman's 1896 poem 'Mr. Moon: A Song of The Little People'. In 1908, she obtained a design patent on the ornamental design of the Billiken, which she sold to the Billiken Company of Chicago. The Billiken was monkey-like with pointed ears, a mischievous smile and a tuft of hair on his pointed head. His arms were short and he was generally sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him." (Wikipedia HERE).

- "the early seventies":

  A bit optimistic about when humans would colonize Mars:

  "The colonization of Mars became a major theme in science fiction in the 1950s.

  "There are also several allusions to the European colonization of the Americas: the first few missions to Mars in the book encounter Martians, with direct references to both Hernán Cortés and the Trail of Tears, but the indigenous population soon goes extinct due to chickenpox in a parallel to the virgin soil epidemics that devastated Native American populations as a result of the Columbian exchange." (Wikipedia HERE).

- "the pit miners on Titan":

  Wonder what they're mining on Titan, Saturn's largest moon:

  "Several hundred lakes and seas have been observed [on Titan], with several dozen estimated to contain more hydrocarbon liquid than Earth's oil and gas reserves. The dark dunes that run along the equator contain a volume of organics several hundred times larger than Earth's coal reserves.

  "The American aerospace engineer and author Robert Zubrin identified Saturn as the most important and valuable of the four gas giants in the Solar System, because of its relative proximity, low radiation, and excellent system of moons. He also named Titan as the most important moon on which to establish a base to develop the resources of the Saturn system." (Wikipedia HERE.)

  "As a comparatively Earth-like world, Titan has attracted attention from writers as a place that could be colonized by humans and inhabited by extraterrestrial life.

  "Titan became more popular as a setting for science fiction stories in the 1950s as advances in planetary science revealed the harsh conditions of Mars and Venus." (Wikipedia HERE).

"Golden City of Titan" by Frank R. Paul (1941)

- "the mobs at the Bastille":

  "Bastille Day is the common name given in English-speaking countries to the national day of France, which is celebrated on 14 July each year.

  "Early on 14 July [1789], a crowd besieged the Hôtel des Invalides for firearms, muskets, and cannons stored in its cellars. That same day, another crowd stormed the Bastille, a fortress-prison in Paris that had historically held people jailed on the basis of lettres de cachet (literally 'signet letters'), arbitrary royal indictments that could not be appealed and did not indicate the reason for the imprisonment and was believed to hold a cache of ammunition and gunpowder. As it happened, at the time of the attack, the Bastille held only seven inmates, none of great political significance." (Wikipedia HERE).

- "the teleporter":

  "Teleportation is the theoretical transfer of matter and/or energy from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them. It is a common subject in science fiction and fantasy literature, film, video games, and television. In some situations, teleporting is presented as time traveling across space.

  "The use of matter transmitters in science fiction originated at least as early as the 19th century. An early example of scientific teleportation (as opposed to magical or spiritual teleportation) is found in the 1897 novel To Venus in Five Seconds by Fred T. Jane. Jane's protagonist is transported from a strange-machinery-containing gazebo on Earth to planet Venus.

  "A common fictional device for teleportation is a 'wormhole'. In video games, the instant teleportation of a player character may be referred to as a warp." (Wikipedia HERE).

- ONTOS has encountered teleportation on occasion:

  ~ Ford Smith's "I Get Off Here" (HERE)

  ~ Ralph Burke's "The Incomplete Theft" (HERE)

  ~ Larry Niven's "The Alibi Machine" (HERE)

  ~ Milton Lesser's "Wild Talents, Inc." (HERE)

  ~ Wendy Nikel's "Glitch" (HERE)

  ~ Stephen Marlowe's "The Cosmic Snare" (HERE).

  . . . and don't overlook "Matter Transmitter" on Atomic Rockets (HERE).

========================================================================

   "There may be thousands by now."

"Night of the Robots."

By John Jakes (1932-2023) (as by Allen Wilder).

First appearance: The Original Science Fiction Stories, July 1959.

Illustrated by Emsh (Ed Emshwiller, 1925-90; ISFDb HERE).

Short story (15 pages).

Online at SFFAudio (HERE).

   "Force beams began to snap and buzz around him."

Rand has a problem, the same one that Lije Baley, Sarah Connor, Rick Deckard, Ellen Ripley, and William Adama had. Sure, it's a problem that could get him killed, but at least Rand's in good company . . .

Principal characters:

~ Rand ("There were two emotions in Rand's mind"), Marius Hove ("Don't keep running, Rand"), Claudie Gray ("The Island of Amusement? Could the lab be there . . .?"), Van Daam ("One of the units has broken down"), and Krelig ("held a force beam in his webbed hand").

References and resources:

- A relatively obscure comic book superhero shares the same problem with Rand:

  "Magnus, Robot Fighter is a fictional superhero who battles rogue robots in the year 4000, appearing in comic books created by writer/artist Russ Manning in 1963.

  "By the year 4000, humanity has become dependent on robots. H8, the Robot Police chief of the civic sector of North Am, a continent-spanning mega-city, is damaged in a radiation accident. It seeks to promote the human dependency on robots and gradually impose totalitarian rule in the area under its control." (Wikipedia HERE).

- "the pedestrian lift tube":

  Just the thing for personal injury lawyers.

- "the pedestrian endless belt":

  What goes for the lift tube goes double for this.

- "re-shaping robots into perfect exterior duplicates":

  "A Humanoid Robot is a robot with all or part of it designed to resemble a human body, say to study bipedal locomotion. Robotnaut is a humanoid robot only designed to resemble the upper half of a human.

  "If the humanoid robot has all of it built to resemble a human for strictly aesthetic reasons, then it is technically an android. Typically these are easy to distinguish from real humans even if you cannot tell by sight: they sometimes look like animated medieval armor, cut them and they bleed machine oil, an x-ray will reveal a mess of gears and electronics, or something simple like that (this is called a Robotic Reveal). Humanoid-robot androids with perfect exteriors but imperfect AIs are only marginally more difficult to detect. They can only fool you as long as they are silent and stationary, otherwise you can tell that obviously something is wrong." ("Man Amplifiers and Robots" on Atomic Rockets HERE).

- "The orange-haired mechanical thing":

  "A humanoid robot is a robot resembling the human body in shape. The design may be for functional purposes, such as interacting with human tools and environments, for experimental purposes, such as the study of bipedal locomotion, or for other purposes. In general, humanoid robots have a torso, a head, two arms, and two legs, though some humanoid robots may replicate only part of the body. Androids are humanoid robots built to aesthetically resemble humans.

  "A common theme for the depiction of humanoid robots in science fiction pertains to how they can help humans in society or serve as threats to humanity. This theme essentially questions whether artificial intelligence is a force of good or bad for mankind. Humanoid robots that are depicted as good for society and benefit humans are Commander Data in Star Trek and C-3PO in Star Wars. Opposite portrayals where humanoid robots are shown as scary and threatening to humans are the T-800 in Terminator and Megatron in Transformers." (Wikipedia HERE).

- A time traveler with a pronounced English accent has had a few run-ins with robots: Wikipedia (HERE) and ONTOS (HERE).

- "The Freud Fun House":

  "Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) is considered to be the founder of the psychodynamic approach to psychology, which looks to unconscious drives to explain human behavior. Freud believed that the mind is responsible for both conscious and unconscious decisions that it makes on the basis of psychological drives. The id, ego, and super-ego are three aspects of the mind Freud believed to comprise a person's personality. Freud believed people are 'simply actors in the drama of [their] own minds, pushed by desire, pulled by coincidence. Underneath the surface, our personalities represent the power struggle going on deep within us'." (Wikipedia HERE).

- "Oedipus":

  "In classical psychoanalytic theory, the Oedipus complex (also spelled Œdipus complex) refers to a son's sexual attitude towards his mother and concomitant hostility toward his father, first formed during the phallic stage of psychosexual development. A daughter's attitude of desire for her father and hostility toward her mother is referred to as the feminine Oedipus complex. The general concept was considered by Sigmund Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), although the term itself was introduced in his paper A Special Type of Choice of Object Made by Men (1910)." (Wikipedia HERE).

- "Krafft-Ebbing [sic]":

  "Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902) was a German psychiatrist and author of the foundational work Psychopathia Sexualis (1886).

  "A part of his research was focused on examining the relationships between psychiatry and criminal law. Already during his time in Strasbourg, he published his Fundamentals of Criminal Psychology, followed in 1875 by his first major work, Textbook of Forensic Psychopathology." (Wikipedia HERE).

- Robots have shown up on ONTOS many times, one of which is Allen Kim Lang's "I, Gardener" (HERE).

- John Jakes was most famous for his Civil War fiction, appearing as TV miniseries in the '70s, '80s, and '90s; see IMDb (HERE).

- Other Jakes stories, these being science fictional, which caught our notice are:

  ~ "Coffins to Mars" (HERE)

  ~ "With Intent to Kill" (HERE)

  ~ "Half-Past Fear" (HERE).

The bottom line:

  "Yet you haven’t really investigated the problem, Mr. Baley,” said Fastolfe. “To differentiate a robot, even a very humanoid robot, from a human being, it isn’t necessary to make elaborate-ly shaky deductions from little things he says and does. For instance, have you tried sticking a pin into R. Daneel?”

   — The Caves of Steel

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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"She Has a Vegy"

"Love Me, Love My—"

By Rog Phillips (1909-66; Wikipedia HERE; ISFDb HERE; SFE HERE).

(Image from FREEP!K)

First appearance: Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1958.

Reprints page (ISFDb HERE).

Short story (14 pages).

Online at SFFAudio (HERE).

   "I WILL NOT GIVE UP MY POT!"

"Did you know that this ship has twenty million dollars worth of large unset diamonds and sixty millions in galactic currency on board?" Do tell. So, what does that have to do with Lin's plan to smuggle a vegy on board the Astra on her Venus-to-tau Ceti III run? If you're thinking "nothing," then you don't know too much about people . . .

Principal characters:

~ Sims ("I can't understand why you even hesitate"), Lin Braquet ("Every time I try to kiss you a big yellow eye on the end of a stalk gets in the way"), the girl in the travel agency ("In fact the star lines discourage vegy travel"), Leah ("You're selfish, stupid, impossible, a beast, cruel . . ."), Winnie ("You couldn't pollinate a geranium"), Antone Brush ("Sit down!"), Gregor Samsen ("Finally he took cautious steps to the opening and went in, moving very slowly"), and the doctor ("You have nothing to worry about any more").

References and resources:

- "tau Ceti III":

  "Tau Ceti, Latinized from τ Ceti, is a single star in the constellation Cetus that is spectrally similar to the Sun, although it has only about 78% of the Sun's mass. At a distance of just under 12 light-years (3.7 parsecs) from the Solar System, it is a relatively nearby star and the closest solitary G-class star. The star appears stable, with little stellar variation, and is metal-deficient (low in elements other than hydrogen and helium) relative to the Sun. . . . Since December 2012, there has been evidence of at least four planets—all likely super-Earths—orbiting Tau Ceti, and two of these are potentially in the habitable zone." (Wikipedia HERE).

(Click on images to enlarge.)

- "I like it here on Venus":

  He might be the only one. In the 1950s nobody had a clue as to what the surface conditions of Venus might be, so our author went along with Bradbury:

  "The planet Venus has been used as a setting in fiction since before the 19th century. Its opaque cloud cover gave science fiction writers free rein to speculate on conditions at its surface—a 'cosmic Rorschach test,' in the words of science fiction author Stephen L. Gillett. The planet was often depicted as warmer than Earth but still habitable by humans. Depictions of Venus as a lush, verdant paradise, an oceanic planet, or fetid swampland, often inhabited by dinosaur-like beasts or other monsters, became common in early pulp science fiction, particularly between the 1930s and 1950s. Some other stories portrayed it as a desert, or invented more exotic settings. The absence of a common vision resulted in Venus not developing a coherent fictional mythology, in contrast to the image of Mars in fiction.

  ". . . [Ray] Bradbury's short story 'The Long Rain' (1950) depicts Venus as a planet with incessant rain, and was later adapted to screen twice: to film in The Illustrated Man (1969) and to television in The Ray Bradbury Theater (1992)—though the latter removed all references to Venus in light of the changed scientific views on the planet's conditions. Bradbury revisited the rainy vision of Venus in 'All Summer in a Day' (1954), where the Sun is only visible through the cloud cover once every seven years." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "the Polaris System":

  Just about everybody knows that Polaris is the Pole Star, but no one is sure how far away it is:

  "Polaris is a star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Minor. It is designated α Ursae Minoris (Latinized to Alpha Ursae Minoris) and is commonly called the North Star or Pole Star. With an apparent magnitude that fluctuates around 1.98, it is the brightest star in the constellation and is readily visible to the naked eye at night. The position of the star lies less than 1° away from the north celestial pole, making it the current northern pole star. The stable position of the star in the Northern Sky makes it useful for navigation.

  "As the closest Cepheid variable its distance is used as part of the cosmic distance ladder. The revised Hipparcos stellar parallax gives a distance to Polaris of about 433 light-years (133 parsecs), while the successor mission Gaia gives a distance of about 448 light-years (137 parsecs). Calculations by other methods vary widely." (Wikipedia HERE).

- Here are the stories that we've featured which were unambiguously penned by Rog Phillips: 

"From This Dark Mind" (HERE), "You'll Die Yesterday" (HERE), "The Man from Mars" and the non-SFF "A Case of Homicide" (HERE),  and "Repeat Performance" (HERE).

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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"It Has Been an Interesting Little Problem, Colonel, but Elementary"

"Mr. Sherlock Holmes in the Case of the Drugged Golfers."

By Bertram Atkey (1880-1952; Mike Grost's megasite HERE; the GAD Wiki HERE; RGL collection HERE; ISFDb HERE; SFE HERE; Roy Glashan's Atkey bibliography HERE).

Reprinted in The Armchair Detective, Spring 1982.

First appearance: Fry's: The Outdoor Magazine, November 1909, in the series "Great Men and Golf."

Short short story (9 pages).

Online at Roy Glashan's Library (HERE).

   "It was almost possible to hear that great brain grinding as it worked, swiftly, surely, relentlessly, to the solution of the problem."

HOW in the world could something this big, this conspicuous, vanish in front of a roomful of people at dinner? "It was a gem-studded drinking cup fashioned from a tiger's skull, and had long been the envy of every member of the club," says the social secretary of the Blameshot Golf Club. If you're even slightly familiar with golf club members, you shouldn't have any trouble working it out . . .

Main characters:

~ Sherlock Holmes ("He was thinking—that flawless, pitilessly logical mind was dissecting, as with a pork-butcher's knife, weighing, as with a cheesemonger's scales, the case upon which we were working"), Dr. Watson ("Holmes, here is a madman coming!"), Colonel Cleak ("And now, Mr. Holmes, we want you to find the cup"), as well as the waiter ("a tired-looking man, with a very pale face and a curious look of regret in his eyes"), a coachman ("Abso-lutely, sir"), and an Indian cook ("It might have been a dream, he thought").

References and resources:

- "the fully loaded hypodermic syringe":

  Was Holmes an addict? He would likely deny it:

  "Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally, he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined arm-chair with a long sigh of satisfaction." (The Sign of [the] Four HERE). Also see History Today (HERE).

- "the cachou box presented to him by a Russian Grand Duke":

  "Cachous are small scented tablets for sweetening the breath. They first appear to have come on the scene in the last quarter of the nineteenth century . . ." (Oxford Reference HERE).

- "his pamphlet upon cigar ash in the other":

  "I found the ash of a cigar, which my special knowledge of tobacco ashes enabled me to pronounce as an Indian cigar. I have, as you know, devoted some attention to this, and written a little monograph on the ashes of 140 different varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette tobacco." ("The Boscombe Valley Mystery" HERE).

- For a thorough list of Sherlock Holmes pastiches and parodies, go to Sherlock Holmes Pastiche Characters (HERE).

- A few other Holmes pastiches and parodies on ONTOS:

  ~ Sherlock Holmes (HERE)

  ~ Sherlock Holmes (HERE)

  ~ Sherlock Holmes (HERE)

  ~ "an old and very famous gentleman who has never lived and will never die" (HERE)

  ~ Mycroft Holmes (HERE)

  ~ Spurlock (HERE)

  ~ Carlock Bjones (HERE)

  ~ Shylock Bones (HERE)

  ~ and Solar Pons (HERE).

- We first met Merlin O'Moore, one of Bertram Atkey's series characters, a few years ago in "The Affair at the Closed Hotel" (HERE).

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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"Beyond Detection by the Greatest Criminologist!"

"The Disappearing Papers."

By Miles J. Breuer (1889-1947; Wikipedia HERE; ISFDb HERE; SFE HERE).

First appearance: Future Fiction, November 1939.

Short short short story (3 pages).

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; go to text page 74).

   "The Judge dismissed the case because of insufficient evidence—for Professor Bradley's secret retribution was beyond detection by the greatest criminologist!"

IF there's more than one way to skin a cat, then there ought to be more than one way to make paper disappear, n'est-ce pas? And we do mean disappear, like "into thin air" . . .

Principal characters:

~ Woodsdale ("one of our most prominent American financiers"), Bradley ("physicist and discoverer in the field of volatile solids"), the Judge ("We have only hearsay evidence on the discovery"), Wigmore ("the Court is grateful to you"), and O'Connell ("It looks spooky").

References and resource:

- "Volatile solids":

  It might surprise you to learn that they are a real thing:

  "Total dissolved solids include both volatile and non-volatile solids. Volatile solids are ones that can easily go from a solid to a gaseous state. Non-volatile solids must be heated to a high temperature, typically 550 °C, in order to achieve this state change. Examples of non-volatile substances include salts and sugars." (Wikipedia HERE.)

  "Volatile solids are substances that can easily transform from their solid phase to their vapor phase without going through a liquid phase. Volatile solids normally represent the amount of organic solids in water and have great importance in water and wastewater treatment." (Corrosionpedia HERE.)

- Our only encounter before now with Miles J. Breuer came almost nine years ago with his "The Puzzle Duel" (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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