"A Great Deal Has Happened Since Your . . . Death"

"He Took It With Him."
By Clark Collins (real name: Mack Reynolds, 1917-83).
First appearance: Fantastic Adventures, April 1950.
Reprinted in Amazing Stories, December 1966.
Short short story (7 pages).
Online HERE.

"He could see no point in making millions, only to leave it to others when the time came to die. So he did something about it!"

If you're planning to live forever, make sure you know how you're going to spend it:

"You have brought a treasure from the past that is of immense value."

Resources:
- Wikipedia HERE, FictionMags HERE, the ISFDb HERE, the SFE HERE, and Project Gutenberg HERE.

The bottom line: For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
   — The Bible

Late Nineteenth Century Snippets about Detective Fiction

The anonymous individual(s) who ran the "Literary Chat" department at Munsey's Magazine were forced from time to time to acknowledge the popularity of mystery fiction even if they might have disapproved of it as low art.

Our first snippet concerns Conan Doyle in the interregnum between Holmes's precipitous plunge and his miraculous reappearance, during the interval when Doyle was turning out more respectable fiction:

"Literary Chat—Dr. Doyle's New Book."
Munsey's Magazine, May 1896.
Online HERE (scroll to page 251).

. . . Since the death of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Doyle has been doing considerable jibing on the sea of literature without catching a fair breeze or sailing steadily in any one direction. The fact that Dr. Doyle despised Holmes, and that Holmes was the making of Dr. Doyle, exemplifies the old saying that an author is the worst judge of his own work. When the "Stark Munro Letters" made their appearance, it was suggested by more than one critic that to preserve his reputation, their author would be obliged to resurrect the astute detective and launch him upon a fresh career. "The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard" is a good substitute, however, and has met with a warm reception and a wide sale.  . . .

". . . a good substitute . . ."?

Our next snippet involves another very popular mystery fiction author of the era; our critic's chief complaint against him is one that has dogged detective fiction practically from its inception:

"Literary Chat—A Master of Mystery."
Munsey's Magazine, December 1896.
Online HERE (scroll to page 377).

"The Carbuncle Clue," the latest achievement of Mr. Fergus Hume, of hansom cab fame, reminds us forcibly of a dime novel in a high state of cultivation. The "cultivation" has no connection with literary style, referring rather to the publishers being reputable and the cover of the book more pretentious than that of the average volume of the "Half Dime Horror" variety. Regarding Mr. Hume's style, there is not much to be said. One realizes how defective is the English language when one looks about for an adjective to describe the diction of his books. Those familiar with Mr. Hume's work—and who is not?—will remember that it is his custom to begin with a mysterious murder and finish with the vindication of an innocent man. Familiar music is the sweetest, familiar scenery the most grateful to the eye. Mr. Hume's books enthrall and fascinate because the reader always knows exactly how they will turn out, and thus avoids the nervous strain which physicians tell us is so injurious to the heart. When the corpse and the astute detective, the villain and the circumstantial evidence, have all been marshaled in due array, together with the accused man who refuses to tell what he was doing at the time of the crime, and the beautiful damsel who trusts her lover sublimely, then Mr. Hume takes his pen in hand, dips it in blood red ink, and embellishes the first chapter with gore and mystery.  . . .

. . . In the dim past, before he solved "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," he determined that there was a right way to write a detective story and that there was a wrong way. He proceeded to choose the latter, and with admirable consistency has clung to it ever since. His literary puppet booth boasts half a score of marionettes who have new dresses for every new play, and who never for a moment overstep the line that divides a live man and one of wood. Wonderful mysteries does the showman concoct for them, and thrilling situations; yet they always preserve their stolidity, and are dolls and nothing more.  . . .

And then there's this, what might be the first instance of product placement in detective fiction:

"Literary Chat—In Briefer Mention."
Munsey's Magazine, April 1897.
Online HERE (full text below or scroll to page 152).

In "That Affair Next Door," by Anna Katharine Green, an important piece of evidence is the pair of shoes worn by the murdered woman, for of course, the book being by Mrs. Rohlfs, there is a murdered woman to be considered. It is expressly stated, possibly by way of free advertisement, that these shoes were purchased from B. Altman & Co., a somewhat well known dry goods firm on Sixth Avenue. The crime was committed in September, 1895. We wonder if it has occurred to Mrs. Rohlfs that Altman did not sell shoes until the opening of the present season. These are small matters, but it is well to be accurate, especially in the case of circumstantial evidence.

If the shoe fits . . .

An age-old parlor game popular among critics of detective fiction involves predicting (or, in this case, heralding) the end of the mystery as then known:

"Literary Chat—The Decline of 'Detective' Literature."
Munsey's Magazine, June 1899.
Online HERE (full text below or scroll to page 474).

It frequently happens that the actor who feels his powers waning as he grows old, sinks gradually from his position in a metropolitan stock company to a minor one in a traveling combination, and is at last forced to accept an engagement at some dime museum, where he continues to act long after he has been forgotten, as one dead, by a public that was wont to applaud him in the days of his repute. In like manner we sometimes encounter in the lower literary strata characters that once enjoyed high honor at the hands of the reading public.

A case in point is the detective of romance, the combination of shrewdness, silence, honesty, and eccentricity, who once held us spellbound as he unraveled the most difficult plots, bearded criminals in their dens, and finally accomplished the glorious triumph of virtue. There was a detective of this sort in Wilkie Collins' "Moonstone," a man who united a rare skill in the detection of crime with a passion for rose growing. There was a boy detective in the same book, and the reading public of their day looked upon both with the utmost respect and confidence. There were other detectives, too, in the literature of the earlier part of the century, men who wore numerous disguises and took awful personal risks in the performance of their duties.

In fact, the detective in his time was one of the most respected, accomplished, and popular characters to be met with in the entire world of fiction; but this once honored personage has descended from his high place, and is ending his days in the pages of dime novels and cheap juvenile publications. His present stage of degradation may be inferred from the fact that the recently deceased author of the "Old Sleuth" series of lurid tales for office boys was, in private life, a commonplace, unromantic bank director, with an average output of one novel a week, and a corresponding capacity for coupon cutting.

It is true that Conan Doyle has, within very recent years, given us an ideal crime detector in the person of Sherlock Holmes, but that was a creation of his own. Holmes does his work by the well directed application of a vast fund of miscellaneous knowledge and an exceedingly sound and practical common sense, and is not to be classed with his old fashioned prototype, who usually depended for success on his different changes of whiskers. It is doubtful if the small boy of the period would accept Holmes as a hero, even in a debased five cent form. He works too quietly and uses altogether too much brain and too little brawn in the performance of his tasks to suit a taste that has been formed by perusal of the "Old Sleuth" stories.

The chief reason for the downfall of the many whiskered detective of romance may be found in such revelations as those of the Lexow examination in New York. In the slang of the day, the public is "on to" the detective, and will have no more of him as a serious character. The mere mention of his calling conjures up a vision of a political heeler who has found the reward of years of faithful and unscrupulous political service in a place "on the force," where he understands that he is privileged to make as much money as he can during his tenure of office.

It is not impossible that from the ashes of the dead and gone detective of romance there will spring up a modern type, in the person of the man who gets his share of every robbery, and forges his way to the upper ranks of his profession by virtue of his skill in collecting tribute from the different malefactors who are permitted to do business within the precincts of his authority; but this character would probably find acceptance only as a humorous one.

Another cause for the decline of the romantic detective may be the decay of crime itself as a picturesque industry. Banks are no longer robbed at midnight by skilful and daring men of the class that broke into the Manhattan Bank a quarter of a century ago, but by sleek, comfortable looking presidents and cashiers, who work in the broad light of day, and by rehypothecating securities and doctoring ledgers rather than with dark lantern and nitroglycerin. Bank robberies of the kind that these gentlemen commit are almost worthless in stories founded on dramatic incident. No detective that ever put on a disguise could detect one of them in a manner that would be satisfactory to the reading public.

Not until crime is restored to its old position of dignity among the arts, not until criminals return to their habits of midnight and mystery, will the detective regain the place he once held in high class fiction.

Resources:
- Conan Doyle: Mike Grost's Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection HERE.
- Fergus Hume: Mike Grost's Guide HERE and the GAD Wiki HERE.
- Anna Katharine Green: Mike Grost's Guide HERE.
- "Old Sleuth": GAD Wiki HERE and the Kindle Megapack for sale HERE.

Category: Detective fiction criticism

"It Is a Funny Camera and No Mistake"

"The Prophetic Camera."
By Lance(lot de Giberne) Sieveking (1896-1972).
First appearance: The English Review, November 1922.
Also published in The Living Age, January 13, 1923; The Strand Magazine, February 1923; and reprinted in Strange Tales from The Strand, 1991 (HERE).
Short short story (7 pages).
Online HERE.

"I'm positive it ain't no good knowing the future unless it's pleasant."

In his wife's absence Mr. Muffle is attending their pawn shop when a "miserable-looking man" convinces him to take a decrepit camera for five shillings; when she returns, Mrs. Muffle is not pleased, expressing her feelings with a snort and a "contemptuous little laugh"—but, as we'll see, neither of them could ever have imagined just what that old 

camera is capable of.

Purely by coincidence, of course, an episode of The Twilight Zone featured a camera with disturbingly similar capabilities; Rod Serling tells us about it:

. . . "Object known as a camera, vintage uncertain, origin unknown. But for the greedy, the avaricious, the fleet of foot, who can run a four-minute mile so long as they're chasing a fast buck, it makes believe that it's an ally, but it isn't at all. It's a beckoning come-on for a quick walk around the block—in The Twilight Zone." — IMDb HERE

Resources:
- Lance Sieveking was quite active in the halcyon days of radio; see Wikipedia HERE.

- Only one of Sieveking's stories seems to have appeared in EQMM (April 1954, online HERE), "The Bookhawker," first published somewhere in 1932.

- Other information about Sieveking for you datajunkies: FictionMags HERE, IMDb HERE, the ISFDb HERE, and the SFE HERE.

The bottom line: The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality.
— Susan Sontag

"Suddenly He Felt a Desperate Need to Prove Himself, Justify Himself in the Eyes of That Raging Madman Out There"

"Coffins to Mars."
By John Jakes (born 1932).
First appearance: Fantastic Adventures, September 1952.
Short short story (9 pages).
Online HERE.

"Gordon's invoice read: 'Ten bodies. Deliver to Mars.' But there was an eleventh coffin, and Gordon found it contained more than the dead body of a Martian."

It seemed like just another unremarkable, prosaic cargo run to Mars, but then sudden death changes everything:

. . . He raced through the lock and into the hold. The lights were on and the biers were in their racks, steely sides glinting dully in the light. Gordon's eyes swept over the room, up, then down. And suddenly he knew what the smell was. Blood.

And just about the last person Gordon would expect to encounter on his ship is a wanted criminal whose "voice was like a mixture of honey and thunder":

. . . He towered, a giant of a man, looking down on Gordon like some haughty god, aware of his own might and intelligence. With the pistol he had complete power.

Not only is he big, but he also entertains grandiose ideas, notions that make it almost certain Gordon won't survive this flight:

. . . "That German fellow had the idea, but he needed it refined by more education. Only the intellect can rule, and the intellect says kill in order to rule. You see?" He smiled again, and then the smile vanished. "I'm getting tired of you, pilot."

Resources:
- John Jakes is much more famous for his historical novels, many of which have been adapted to film; see HERE (Wikipedia) and HERE (IMDb) for more.
- More bibliographical data about our author are HERE (FictionMags) and HERE (ISFDb).

The bottom line: I don't want to own anything that won't fit into my coffin.
   — Fred Allen

"There's Nothing Worse in Art Than a Bad Imitation of a Good Detective": Reviews from THE BOOKMAN II

"Nothing but the Sleuth."
By Donald Douglas.
From The Bookman, November 1927.
Online starting HERE and finishing HERE.

By the late '20s the Van Dine and Edgar Wallace branches of detective fiction were in full flower, and book reviewers like Donald Douglas were well supplied with ammunition to lob at the egregious excesses of the field's practitioners. A few of Douglas's pithier comments:

OF late years a sinister influence has come to corrupt the fine tradition of the great Sherlock Holmes who was a knight without fear and without a love interest. Now you can't get through a fine tale about battle and murder and sudden thugs without having to spend half your time with a blue-eyed heroine intent on getting into trouble so that the detective-hero can fish her out from the nets of crime.  . . .

. . . It's a proof of soft effeminacy lain like a blur of mould on the fair tapestry of the skeined plot which should stick to masterminds and villains popping in and out of every fifteenth page (cutting throats from left to right) in an orgy of thickening suspense and secret panels and a coupla chases over roofs at midnight, with a few hand-to-handcuff encounters thrown in at the last haul by the fisher of thugs.  . . .

. . . There's nothing worse in art than a bad imitation of a good detective.  . . .

. . . At times the true lover of the great tradition in detective mythology (M. Lupin and M. Lecoq and Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown of imperishable memory!) wonders whether there's not something really worse than a heroine marrying the handsome young inspector and that is a tale wherein the author insists on inventing a sleuth who makes wise cracks for three hundred pages. Let wisecracks stay with the young intellectuals where they belong. Give us all the crack of the truncheon on the splintered dome of the tough guy or the crack of a pistol shot at a bad man creeping on all fours down into the drain!  . . .

Here, with review excerpts, are the books Douglas glances at:

~ Terror Keep by Edgar Wallace (1875-1932):

. . . You can count on Edgar Wallace doing the best mystery tales of anyone now writing and then taking up at least two pages with a rapturous description of a girl's blue eyes and rose-bud mouth and other fascinations right enough in the way of a maid with a man but downright irritating in the way of a thug with a sandbag.  . . .

Wikipedia HERE - GAD Wiki HERE - FictionMags HERE

~ Hardican's Hollow by J. S. Fletcher (1863-1935):

. . . a vast amount of pother over a plot of no importance.

Wikipedia HERE - GAD Wiki HERE - FictionMags HERE

~ Vivanti by Sydney Horler (1888-1954):

. . . You get real blood and a vampire doctor . . .

FictionMags HERE

~ The White Mask by J. M. Walsh (1897-1952):

. . . a mysterious dispenser of oblique justice at last brought down by the coursing bloodhounds of the law.  . . .

Wikipedia HERE

~ The Joy Ride by John G. Brandon (1879-1941):

. . . can you swallow nearly three hundred pages of a novel just bent on bein' so bloomin' funny?  . . .

GAD Wiki HERE - FictionMags HERE

~ The Mystery at Lovers' Cave by Anthony Berkeley (1893-1971):

. . .  It's an ingenious plot with a society woman thrown over a cliff and pretty girl suspected of the murder and it's pleasant reading; and yet you wish Roger [Sheringham] wouldn't give the impression of Oscar Wilde trying to wear gum-shoes.  . . .

Wikipedia HERE - GAD Wiki HERE - FictionMags HERE

~ The Silver Urn by Foxhall Daingerfield (1887-1933):

. . . a plot of such incredible obviousness and dullness . . .

FictionMags HERE

~ The Castle Rock Mystery by George Gibbs (1870-1942):

. . . a writer of mystery stories finds a man murdered and is himself suspected because that very night he'd been sleep-walking . . .

Wikipedia HERE - FictionMags HERE

~ The Devil's Mantle by Frank L. Packard (1877-1942):

. . . From first to last it has a mounting thrill . . .

Wikipedia HERE - GAD Wiki HERE - FictionMags HERE

~ The Dangerous Isles by Basil Carey (Jessie Joy Baines, 1898-1942):

. . . an unending series of damned clever Chinks and young battling heroes and sweet slips of girls and boats sailing and men tussling.  . . .

FictionMags HERE

~ Rubies by Louis Moresby (L. Adams Beck, c.1862-1931):

. . . you get the steamy jungles of Burma and a great golden Buddha and Cornwall smugglers and black-hearted gentlemen singing a song of greed.  . . .

~ Silent Guests by Alfred E. Forrest (?-?):

. . .  you have a baronial mansion in the wastes [of Canada] and a gang of ex-convicts and panels that open and deliver up their spooks and other hair-raising matters.  . . .

~ Blind Corner by Dornford Yates (Cecil William Mercer, 1885-1960):

. . . the best yarn this fall . . .

Wikipedia HERE - FictionMags HERE

~ The Pallid Giant by Pierrepont B. Noyes (1870-1959):

. . . tries to mix business with Rider Haggard.  . . .

Wikipedia HERE

Resource:
- Other Bookman reviews are HERE.

Category: Detective fiction criticism

"Dust Thou Art, and Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return"

"The Saving Mark."
By Frederick Skerry (?-?).
First appearance: Collier's Weekly, November 15, 1930.
Short short short story (2 pages).
Online starting HERE and finishing HERE (scroll to page 73).

"Remember this strange story the next time you're tempted to convict someone on circumstantial evidence . . ."

How can a man, dead and buried for years, provide an alibi for someone accused of murder?

. . . Father David shook his head sadly as he looked down on the stooped, pathetic figure, grown old before its time, noted the dust that lay thick on the black coat and whitened the wrinkled trousers to the knees. It was evident that the man had been where there was dust, and Father David knew well that long, dusty road that rose to his hilltop, with its spiritual crown of chapel and rectory and graveyard.

Resource:
- Another obscure writer; see FictionMags (HERE).

The bottom line:

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
   — Shakespeare (not that obscure), 'Macbeth'

"He Found His Heart Aching Curiously at Thought of How Discovery of the Killer Would Hurt Her"

"Too Well Remembered."
By Carrington Phelps (?-?).
First appearance: Collier's Weekly, July 28, 1928.
Short short short story (2 pages).
Online HERE.

"A secret-service man does a difficult job a little too well . . ."

Soldiers are expected to kill the enemy, not their buddies:

. . . Here four hundred men had been at rifle and machine-gun practice. Here in the cool of the shade some had loafed and rested between periods. And two had gone back into the undergrowth and one had killed the other. Shot him from behind. Blown out the front of his head. The shot hadn't been noticed because it had blended with the noise of the practice. And then the killer had eased himself back among his fellows—was mingling with them today, free and unmolested, safe—perhaps. He might have been one of those on guard when G. M. had passed the gate of the big camp—might be the orderly standing there a few paces to the rear.

For G. M. solving this case is hard enough, but it gets far worse when he falls in love . . .

Resources:
- We can't find anything about our author, but he did produce enough for a decent FictionMags listing HERE.

The bottom line: A really good detective never gets married.
— Raymond Chandler