"Miss Paisley's Cat."
By Roy Vickers (1889-1965).
First appearance: EQMM, May 1953.
Reprinted in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (UK), May 1953 and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (Australia), July 1953.
Filmed for TV in 1957.
Short story (16 pages).
Online at SFFAudio HERE (PDF).
"It is true that Miss Paisley's cat was the immediate cause of that emotionally emaciated old maid reaching a level of perverted greatness—or stark infamy, according to one's point of view. But this can be explained without resort to mysticism. The cat's behavior was catlike throughout."
It's remarkable how animals can insinuate themselves into people's lives; different creatures they may be, and yet we still embrace them—love them—as fully as if they were members of the family. A lonely relic of the faded past, Miss Paisley, grudgingly at first, bestows her affections on a badly abused alley cat; they have their ups and downs, these two, but their bond holds, until their little idyll is threatened by cruelty . . . and murder.
Principal characters:
~ Miss Paisley:
"How easy it was to be calm when you had made up your mind!"
~ The cat:
"A wound from an airgun made one cheek slightly shorter than the other, revealing a glimpse of teeth and giving the face the suggestion of a human sneer. Add that it had a stiff left foreleg, which made its walk ungainly, and you have a very ugly cat . . ."
~ Jenkins:
"Like most habitual liars, he was always excessively anxious to prove his word when he happened to be telling the truth."
~ Mr. Rinditch:
"Miss Paisley knew that he was a street bookmaker, with a number of runners who took the actual bets . . ."
~ Man with a dog:
"Get in under and strike UP!"
~ The boilermaker:
"Someone cut 'is throat for 'im in the night."
~ The desk sergeant:
". . . in — in a state of trance you said, didn't you?"
~ Chief Inspector Green:
"You knew you couldn't face up to a job like murder, especially with a knife. So you had a brainstorm, or whatever they call it, in which you kidded yourself you had committed the murder."
Resources:
- See Wikipedia HERE, the GAD Wiki HERE, and Classic Crime Fiction's Roy Vickers page HERE for data about our author.
- Along with an Americanized "Miss Paisley's Cat," two other Vickers stories were filmed for the Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series in the late '50s; their plots are described in detail on the IMDb, so BEWARE OF SPOILERS:
(1) "Miss Paisley's Cat" (December 22, 1957) (IMDb HERE):
(2) "The Crocodile Case" (May 25, 1958) (IMDb HERE):
(3) "The Impromptu Murder" (June 22, 1958) (IMDb HERE):
~ ~ ~
The bottom line: "In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this."
— Terry Pratchett
"The Murder Machine."
By Hugh B. Cave (1910-2004).
First appearance: Astounding Stories of Super-Science, September 1930.
Short story (~18 pages).
Online at Project Gutenberg HERE (may require two or more tries to get there).
"Four Lives Lay Helpless Before the Murder Machine, the Uncanny Device by Which Hypnotic Thought Waves Are Filtered Through Men's Minds to Mold Them Into Murdering Tools."
One evening a confused and panic-stricken Sir John Harmon pays Doctor Dale, a psycholo-gist, an unexpected visit, making extraordinary claims: "Some outside power—God knows what it is—is controlling my very existence," and "Is it a dream to have some damnable force move me about like a mechanical robot?" But before Dale can offer any advice or suggest a course of action, "Sir John turned from me in bitterness. Without offering any word of departure, he pulled open the door and stepped across the sill. The door closed, and I was alone."
Shortly afterward, there is a murder; according to the newspaper, "an unknown murderer entered the home of Franklin White, Jr., well known West-End sportsman, and escaped, leaving behind his strangled victim."
The victim's fiancée (and, as Doctor Dale knows full well, one of several suspects in the killing), a lovely French girl named Margot Vernee, comes to Dale with a tale just as outland-ish as Sir John's: "I was engaged to Franklin for more than a month, Doctor: yet for a week now I have been commanded—commanded—by some awful force, to return to—to a man who knew me more than two years ago. I can't explain it. I did not love this man; I hated him bitterly. Now comes this mad desire, this hungering, to go to him."
Reluctantly Dale has to admit he's out of his depth with this one; since the murder is a major aspect of this bizarre case, his best recourse is to seek the help of an old friend at Scotland Yard, a proactive individual who, despite being gifted with a proleptic mind, is still capable of jumping close enough to the wrong conclusion to put the good doctor in grave danger . . .
Principal characters:
~ Sir John Harmon:
"I've come to you, Dale, because—because I am on the verge of going mad."
~ Margot Vernee:
"Doctor, for many days now I have been under some strange power. Something frightful, that compels me to think and act against my will."
~ Doctor Dale (no first name, the narrator):
"I am a doctor, not a master of hypnotism, or a man who can discover the reasons behind that hypnotism. But London has its Scotland Yard, and Scotland Yard has a man who is one of my greatest comrades...."
~ Inspector Thomas Drake:
"It will be a blind chase, no doubt of it. And when we have followed the trail to its end, I imagine we shall find something very like a tiger to deal with."
~ Inspector Raoul Hartnett:
"Naturally, Doctor, we have gone rather deeply into the past life of the lady in question. Your name appears, of course, in a rather unimportant interval when Margot Vernee resided in Paris. And so we come to you in the hope that you can perhaps give us some slight bit of information—something that seems insignificant, perhaps, to you, but which may put us on the right track."
~ Michael Strange:
"You have heard of hypnotism, Dale? You have heard also of radio? Have you ever thought of combining the two?"
Our Mad Scientist Rant of the Day:
"Science, in its intricate forms, is probably above the mind of a common medical man, Dale. It would be useless to explain to you how my thoughts—and my will—can be transmit-ted through space. Perhaps you have sat in a theater and stared at a certain person until that person turned to face you. You have? Then you will perhaps understand how I can control the minds of any human creature within the radius of my power. You see, Dale, this intricate little machine gives me the power to transform London into a city of stark murder. I could bring about such a horrible wave of crime that Scotland Yard would be scorned from one end of the world to the other. I could make every man murder his neighbor, until the streets of the city were running with blood!"
Typo: "a single staccato shot split the darkness." (Really?)
Resources:
- Hugh B. Cave was a pulp fiction master who produced stories in just about every genre, Westerns, mysteries, SF/fantasy, and horror (and, yes, he actually did use the nom de plume "Justin Case" for a short period); go to Wikipedia HERE, the SFE HERE, and the ISFDb HERE for more info.
- We recently featured a story about another machine, one that induces people to commit self-murder, which you can find HERE.
The bottom line: "As far as hypnosis is concerned, I had a very serious problem when I was in my twenties. I encountered a man who later became the president of the American Society of Medical Hypnosis. He couldn't hypnotize me."
— Theodore Sturgeon
"A Warning in Red."
By Victor Whitechurch (1868-1933) and E. Conway (?-?).
First appearance: The Harmsworth Monthly Pictorial Magazine, December 1899.
Reprinted in Victorian Tales of Mystery and Detection (1992).
Collected in a Kindle Megapack HERE.
Short story (10 pages).
Online at SFFAudio HERE (PDF) and ManyBooks HERE.
'You'd make a good detective, Forbes,' said the Colonel.
'Not a bit of it,' I replied. 'It's simply because there is a mystery connected with my hobby—railways. That's what makes me a little extra sharp.'
Shortly after Forbes has arrived at Colonel Ward's country estate in Manningford for a short stay, word comes that the body of Geoffrey Anstruthers, a very eccentric neighbor of the Colonel's, has been found lying on the train tracks between London and Manningford. While there's very little doubt that the motive is robbery (the victim insisted on carrying around large amounts of gold), for Forbes a half dozen or so little discordant details surrounding the crime simply don't comport with the obvious version—and, since this is a railway mystery, there will be one large detail involving train timetables that will prove crucial in helping him arrive at the solution.
Principal characters:
~ Forbes (no first name, the narrator):
"In a moment a clue flashed across my mind, and I searched for a porter."
~ Colonel Ward:
"Goodnight, old chap. Pleasant dreams. I hope your red sensation is not the preliminary to a nightmare."
~ Monk:
"Poor Mr. Anstruthers! I knew him well, sir."
~ Geoffrey Anstruthers:
"It was a gruesome sight, and my friend turned away to ask some questions of the inspector. I looked at the dead man carefully. There were signs of a struggle. His clothes were torn, and one of his hands was tightly clenched. Then I saw what the wily country police had passed undiscovered—a shred of paper clasped in his hand."
~ Dr. Moore:
"So we called on Dr. Moore on our way to the station. He declared that he had seen poor Anstruthers at six o'clock in the morning, and was positively certain that he must then have been dead seven or eight hours. The mystery was thickening."
Others:
~ Smart, Sutton, a local constable, and two platelayers.
 |
| A down goods train |
Resources:
- While we were able to find background information about Victor Whitechurch HERE and HERE, we couldn't find anything about "E. Conway."
- Another railway mystery, this one of the locked carriage variety, is discussed HERE.
- Victor Whitechurch must have been a fervent ferroequinologist to judge from his most famous book, Thrilling Stories of the Railway (1912), which is online at Project Gutenberg of Australia HERE; Bryan Morgan contributed a fine foreword to the 1977 edition in which he encapsulates Whitechurch's at-the-time unique series character (who doesn't appear in our story), Thorpe Hazell:
. . . Hazell's primary characteristic, of course, is that which he shared with his creator—his knowledge and understanding of most aspects of railway lore (for Whitechurch was not really a locomotive man) from the apparent dryness of signalling procedure upwards. He is British fiction's only specialised railway detective, though he soon had an American rival: indeed, no less an authority than Ellery Queen has called him the first "speciality detective" of all. He does not, however, fill this book; for only about half of its contents, those of fairly pure detection, are "Thorpe Hazell" tales. The other half consists of stories where the accent is on adventure—and, interestingly, these often have a German villain since writers have always been more astute than soldiers and politicians in knowing where future menace lay. A few of these later tales could easily have been recast as Thorpe Hazell stories, but Whitechurch presumably wanted to divide intellectual from physical action. What binds the two classes is a shining, train-trodden ribbon of steel.
The bottom line: "A railroad station? That was sort of a primitive airport, only you didn't have to take a cab 20 miles out of town to reach it."
― Russell Baker
Recently we highlighted two of Fletcher Pratt's stories that competently combine detective fiction tropes with science fiction (HERE); but Pratt could also offer intelligent critiques of his chosen field. In this excerpt from one of his Saturday Review columns (1951), he notes how the mystery story in some instances has crossed over into science fiction (or is it the other way round?):
. . . perhaps the most remarkable trend (if it is one) this summer is toward a mariage de convenance between fantasy, scientific or not, and the detective story. John Dickson Carr's "Devil in Velvet" frankly admits the union; after starting as a perfectly classic fantasy with our old friend His Satanic Majesty on stage it turns into a perfectly classic detective story, laid in the days of Charles II of England and accompanied by sword-play and various Carrian complications. For fantasy fans it rates as a good try; what the Baker Street Irregulars will make of it is uncertain.
At exactly the opposite end of the corridor stands A. E. van Vogt's "House That Stood Still," purporting to be science fiction but actually a confused detective story of the type in which the hero gets slugged in every chapter and winds up in the arms of a lulu. The scientific features include a race of immortals, who keep a spaceship underground near the Pacific coast for no discernible reason and who can assume the physical form of anyone else in order to make things more confusing. They are not very convincing.
On the other hand, William F. Temple's science in "Four-Sided Triangle" is extremely convincing, perhaps because he asks you to accept so little of it, perhaps because he has kept it in the background while he deals with the emotional involvements of his characters. The story belongs to the English type of "Why they do it" rather than to the "Whodunit," with the science-fiction element honestly stated at the very beginning.
Jack Williamson's "Dragon Island" must also be included in the list of quasi-detective stories, because its plot turns on intrigue and the solution of a mystery, though the science in it is neither subordinated nor incredible. It is good Williamson, almost as good as his memorable "Darker Than You Think," and one of the first science-fiction stories to combine the idea of a successor race with that of modern genetics in a logically satisfying manner.
. . . IN ERIC FRANK RUSSELL'S "Dreadful Sanctuary" the technical problems of moon-flight have been solved—but the moon-rockets keep blowing up as soon as they are outside the atmosphere. The research into the reason by an inventor who has no intention of seeing his own rocket go "pouf!" makes this one of the better science fiction-cum-detective stories; it also gives the author an opportu-nity for some highly diverting examination of such matters as "How do you know you're sane?" and the scientific effects of revealed religion. The dialogue is a little too peppy, and there is a little too much of it; still, the story is nicely conceived and original. — Fletcher Pratt, "Time, Space & Literature," The Saturday Review, July 28, 1951 (online HERE)
Resources:
- Nick Fuller and Barry Ergang share reviews of The Devil in Velvet HERE.
- Wikipedia's article on The House That Stood Still is HERE (WARNING: SPOILERS).
- Four-Sided Triangle was made into a movie; see Wikipedia HERE (again, WARNING: SPOILERS) (n.b.: "Differences from the novel").
- In Dragon's Island, was Jack Williamson the first to use the term "genetic engineering"? See the article at Biology in Science Fiction HERE for explication.
- Dreadful Sanctuary has received an entry on Wikipedia HERE (guess what: WARNING: SPOILERS).
- Clearly Fletcher Pratt took an interest in not only detective fiction (often incorporating some of its characteristics into his own SF stories) but also true crime, as these two articles from the '30s show:
(1) "Sherlock Holmes vs. Arsene Lupin."
By Fletcher Pratt (1897-1956).
First appearance: The American Mercury, January 1936.
Online HERE.
. . . and . . .
(2) "Crime As a Profession."
By Fletcher Pratt (1897-1956).
First appearance: The American Mercury, February 1937.
Online HERE.
Categories: Detective fiction and SF criticism
As we've noted before, the year 1928 saw the publication of some classic mystery books—plus a few that have fallen into (perhaps deserved, perhaps not) obscurity.
~ Rogues Fall Out by Herbert Adams (1874-1958):
Contemporary reviews:
The Outlook, October 24, 1928 by Walter R. Brooks (online HERE):
"For the first chapter we suspected that Herbert Adams was a doting mother, so lovingly did he dwell on the curls, and so carefully did he recount the bright sayings, of the kidnapped Bobbie. But fortunately Bobbie dropped out of the picture after a time and permitted us to be entertained by Jimmie Haswell, the amateur snoop, Snoad the sinister male nurse of old Reuben Maitland, Valerie Cartwright who disguised as a man took Snoad's place after that gentleman was mysteriously bumped off, Plum Duff, the parson who was in love with Valerie and served no fictional purpose otherwise until in Chapter 28 he threatened the villain with a chair, and others too numerous to mention. This tale gets off to a bad start and is rather confused, but there's some excitement at the end. Rated at C plus."
The Saturday Review, December 8, 1928 (HERE):
"Once more the exuberant London barrister, young Jimmie Haswell, essays the role of amateur crime investigator, a part in which, compared with the regulars, he seems a mere tyro. Little Bobby Maitland vanishes into the clutches of kidnappers, while his sick, wealthy grandpa is being craftily bled by swindlers. These villians contrive the killing of two men in the bedroom of an inn, for interference with their plans, the misled police affirming the crimes to be a murder and a suicide. But Jimmie thinks otherwise, and makes it his business to discover what hidden relationship the abduction of Bobby has to the dual murders. Jimmie demonstrates the futility of entrusting the responsibilities of Sherlock to a fellow of ordinary mental calibre instead of to an intellectual super-man."
Resources: Wikipedia HERE - GAD Wiki HERE - The Locked Room Mystery HERE.
~ The Net Around Joan Ingilby by A. Fielding (?-?):
No contemporary reviews available.
Resources: GAD Wiki HERE - Mystery*File HERE - The Passing Tramp HERE - ONTOS HERE.
~ Werewolf by Charles Swen (?-?):
No contemporary reviews available.
~ The Slip Carriage Mystery by Lynn Brock (1877-1943):
Contemporary review:
The Outlook, December 5, 1928 by Walter R. Brooks (HERE):
"Who slew Sir William Ireland with a jack-knife in the first-class compartment of a railway carriage? The first half of the story is taken up by the evidence given by all the witnesses who had even the most remote connection with the case; the second, by the activities of Colonel Gore, in his effort to solve it. That first half is slow reading for any but the most tireless mystery fan, but the second is exciting, and the cleverness of the good Colonel, in sifting false and contradictory evidence until the truth is visible, is amazing. We have met Colonel Gore before, and he may always be counted on to provide a well knit and interesting tale."
Resources: GAD Wiki HERE - ONTOS HERE and HERE.
~ Not at Night! by Herbert Asbury (1889-1963):
Contemporary reviews:
The American Mercury, February 1929 (HERE):
"This is a collection of tales of horror, and was first printed in England. The stories are almost bare of literary merit, but they are at least sufficiently shocking. There are twenty-five of them. The editor supplies a preface."
The Outlook, November 7, 1928 by Walter R. Brooks (HERE):
"Creepy tales for horror addicts and shudder lovers. In his introduction, Herbert Asbury says: 'Critics will look in vain for evidences of the skill and erudition displayed by such masters of the horror story as Poe, Bierce and Blackwood. But any such comparison would be manifestly unfair, for the only criteria applied in selecting these tales were shock and gruesomeness.' Nevertheless, we don't feel that such a comparison is unfair. We found in our youth that a badly constructed firecracker wouldn't explode. Neither will a badly constructed and badly written horror story horrify. A very small horror, well handled, will give you more cold shudders than all the man-eating plants, boneless girls, vampires, giant leeches, slimy sea monsters and pseudosurgical experiments in this book. Some of them aren't bad, it is true. But a horror story that merely isn't bad hasn't much to recommend it. The trouble is that in practically all of these tales the authors have put the emphasis in the wrong place, on the physical details of blood and ugliness and monstrosity. They have plowed up the dictionary. 'His mordacious propinquity casts a reviling sensation of obscenity about me,' says one. But consider 'The Monkey's Paw,' one of the best horror stories every written. Nothing horrible about the paw itself. The creepiness is all in the handling—the suggestions, the suspense. No, these stories just won't jell."
Resources: Sweet Freedom HERE - Wikipedia HERE - IMDb HERE.
~ Tiger Claws by Frank L. Packard (1877-1942):
No contemporary reviews available.
Resources: Wikipedia HERE - GAD Wiki HERE - ONTOS HERE.
~ The Wrist Mark by J. S. Fletcher (1863-1935):
Contemporary review:
The Saturday Review, December 1, 1928 (HERE):
"Colonel Martin James Engleden, archaeologist and ex-governor of Southmoor Convict Prison, is found dead, murdered, at Barrowsburg. Barrowsburg is a Yorkshire town equipped with all the antiquities of which Mr. Fletcher is fond, including some of those secret pas-sages so plentifully begot by the wars in Charles the First's time. The probabilities are that Colonel Engleden has been done in by a former tenant of Southmoor. The murdered man's nephew brings an ex-warden to Barrowsburg to hunt for ex-convicts. The ex-warden is promptly murdered. More people are murdered before the mystery is cleared up. None of it is as exciting as it should have been, though the book will no doubt do well enough for con-firmed Fletcher addicts. A typographical error—the transposition of nine and eight in a five-pound note's number—hashes up one of the minor clues."
Resources: Wikipedia HERE - GAD Wiki HERE - Promoting Crime Fiction by Lizzie Hayes HERE.
~ Redwood and Gold by Jackson Gregory (1882-1943):
No contemporary reviews available.
Resource: Wikipedia HERE.
Resources:
- The first two parts about the Mystery Class of '28 are HERE and HERE.
Category: Detective fiction criticism
"The Murder Ray."
By E. K. Jarvis (house pseudonym).
First appearance: Fantastic Adventures, April 1949.
Reprinted in Fantastic Adventures Quarterly, Fall 1949.
Novelette (38 pages).
Online at UNZ HERE.
(Parental caution: Strong language.)
"Kuvar's demand was simple: Pay his price or die. And of course, with the murder ray it was an easy task to make it look like suicide!"
When the mortality rate among a group of six affluent City Club members suddenly rises well above statistical averages, at first everyone wants to treat it as mere happenstance, but they soon must face the truth: Someone is forcing them to kill themselves even though they're not feeling in the least suicidal, and they're sure they know who's behind it (or so they think). The problem that's puzzling everybody isn't why, since obviously it's to extort money from them. The big question is how — how is the killer doing it? Michael Trent definitely has an intense interest in finding the answer to that question because, if he doesn't, in less than four days he'll be as dead as the other victims, another apparent suicide . . .
Principal characters:
~ Samuel Beacon:
"While Trent was looking down at his watch, Beacon took a pistol out of his side coat pocket, pressed it against his temple, and pulled the trigger."
~ Hogue:
"Hogue, his mouth hanging open like a lizard frozen in the act of reaching for a fly, stared at Beacon in dazed disbelief."
~ Michael (Mike) Trent:
"Four days is all I'll need you. We'll either have this thing licked by then or I'll be dead."
~ Kuvar:
"The fact that he gave his victims two weeks to make up their minds, that he told them they would be sorry if they didn't buy, indicated that maybe he was selling them their lives."
~ Marks:
"I think we're acting like a lot of old women. We're sitting around here worrying about something that's going to happen. Nothing is going to happen. Nothing can happen."
~ Police lieutenant (unnamed):
"Hell, all five of you saw him shoot himself. The nitrate test shows he's the only man in the room who has fired a gun. If that's not suicide, I'll eat my hat."
~ Cullinane:
"I hate to disagree with you but I think the cop was right."
~ Wallace Cooper:
"We'll take this up with the police. We'll demand protection."
~ Parker:
"Brother, you are on the spot! Well, I've got a partner. We'll both get on this right away and see what we can find out. It'll cost you sixty dollars a day . . ."
~ Patricia (Pat) Beacon:
"I think these clippings prove that daddy had some idea of what was going on. I think he not only knew that a threat was being made on his life but had some inkling of the form the threat would take."
~ Landlady:
"Sometimes maybe I see him carrying a kitty into the basement. Then maybe two three days later I find the kitty dead, maybe in the back alley, maybe in the garbage barrel, wher-ever he happened to throw it."
~ Wapping:
"There was one other gadget that Trent looked at once, then quickly looked away. A comfortable chair with three dangling wires dropping down from the ceiling and a throw switch within reach of the right hand. It was an improvised death chair and it was certainly the last gadget Wapping had ever designed or used."
~ Art:
"Just drive where I tell you, buddy. And don't try to argue with me because this is a gun I've got here in my hand."
~ Pinky:
"He nervously changed his grip on the tommy-gun and wiped sweat from the palms of his hands."
Notable descriptive passages:
"Aster Place was a street of small, one-story frame houses built so closely together that you could stick your head out of your kitchen window and eat your neighbor's meat balls and spaghetti right out of his place without bothering to reach for them. Although it was after eleven o'clock when Trent and Pat Beacon arrived at Aster Place, kids were still yipping in the street, a juke box was blaring in the corner tavern, and barefooted men and women were sitting on their front porches and gossiping in the summer night."
"The place stank. It smelled of mice and rats and cats and dogs. The basement hadn't been cleaned in years and the musty air rose in little puffs at each step from the thick mantle of dust that covered everything. Whatever else he may have been, Wapping had not been a tidy housekeeper and his superstitious landlady had refused to enter the basement after he died there. A cot with rumpled bed clothing stood against one wall. A two-burner gas stove stood on a table. The sink was still covered with dirty dishes. Wapping had lived in a pig-sty and he apparently hadn't cared."
"The men around him listened respectfully but without giving any indication that they had even the faintest understanding of what he was saying. They were policemen, accustomed to thinking of murder in terms of the knife and the gun. The explanation of a really scientific method of cold-blooded murder was miles beyond their mental ability. A bullet they under-stood, the way a knife worked, they could grasp, they knew something about poison, the common ways in which men kill each other. But a murder method invented by an erratic genius who had spent most of his life reading books in a dirty basement, a method that depended on an excellent understanding not only of the operation of the human brain but on a thorough-going knowledge of the generation of electro-magnetic radiations of exceedingly high frequency, that method they did not begin to grasp."
"Witchcraft, in Chicago, in the twentieth century? Witchcraft in a world of concrete and steel, of motor cars and airplanes and bursting atoms? Witchcraft in an age that did not believe in witches, in an era that thought in terms of force and counterforce, of action and reaction, in a century that thought in the cold hard laws of science? Trent shook his head. He forced the thoughts of witchcraft out of his mind. To his way of thinking, that was all non-sense, all misdirected thinking on the part of a race that had not yet learned the laws of cause and effect. Witchcraft could accomplish certain results all right, if you believed in it. Modern psychology had pretty clearly established the way witchcraft worked. You had to believe in it for it to have an effect. Trent didn't believe in it."
Resources:
- For indeterminate articles about topics broached in our story go HERE and HERE.
- We've recently encountered "E. K. Jarvis" HERE and HERE, and probably will again.
The bottom line:
I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before.
— Shakespeare
In mystery readerdom Arthur Porges is most famous for what Mike Ashley calls "ingenious impossible crime stories," but as these two contrasting narratives show, he had sufficient range to tap effectively into his characters' emotions as well as their intellects.
"A Small Favor."
By Arthur Porges (1915-2006).
First appearance: Bestseller Mystery Magazine, January 1960.
Short short story (6 pages).
Online at UNZ HERE.
"As a member of the midnight profession of burglary, Franz struck with rapidity and precision. Nothing stood in his way, until one night a woman's sobs. . . "
Like so many of his ilk, sooner or later a blackmailer will let greed overrule his better judgment; what this one doesn't count on is another criminal, with better ethics:
"There was a tone in the blackmailer's voice he had heard often before. Sometimes tenor; then, again, bass. Even contralto. It was a note of pleasure; the purr of a cat with an injured mouse to play with. Franz fought an irrational urge to run, to cringe, to scream, to beg, to turn to wood and be as invulnerable to pain."
Resource:
- A while back we stumbled across another story dealing with a burglar and a lady in distress published fifty-seven years earlier; go HERE to link to it.
"No Killer Has Wings."Dr. Joel Hoffman No. 2.
By Arthur Porges (1915-2006).
First appearance: AHMM, January 1961.
Reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries (2006) (for sale HERE).
Short story (15 pages).
". . . the victim is Colonel McCabe, a retired Army Officer, sixty-two years old. Yesterday morning, quite early, he went down to his private beach, as usual, accompanied by his dog. After a brief paddling in the shallows, he dozed on a blanket, and while he was dozing somebody came up to him, carrying a walking stick, and calmly smashed his skull with the heavy knob. It seems beyond a doubt that the killer must have been Larry Channing, the colonel’s nephew, a boy of twenty-four, who lives in the same house."
Like the policeman handling the investigation says, it all adds up to a "nice open-and-shut case" against Larry Channing. Dr. Hoffman warns his friends that he will go where the evidence leads irrespective of personal friendships, so that if Larry is guilty, so be it; but gathering the evidence will prove laborious, painstaking, and frustratingly inconclusive—until, that is, Hoffman has a brain-storm . . .
Principal characters:
~ Dr. Joel Hoffman, a pathologist and qualified expert in forensic medicine:
"If Larry is innocent, you’ve got a real classic here – a locked room murder, basically. The tracks on the sand show plainly that nobody else came anywhere near the victim."
~ Dana, Lieutenant Ader's niece:
"You’re the only one who can help us. Everything adds up all wrong. Larry couldn’t have done it, and yet there’s nobody else who went out there."
~ Lieutenant Ader, an honest cop:
". . . she thinks he’s innocent. Why, I don’t know. I’ve told her about your work before, and now she expects you to perform a grade A miracle to order. In other words, Dana’s picked you to smash my nice open-and-shut case to little pieces."
~ Wheeler, the curator of the family museum:
"[He] was obviously proud of the collection, and had become a trained specialist on medieval warfare through his research for the colonel. He enthusiastically demonstrated the correct use of several outlandish weapons, handling them with the assurance of an expert."
~ Gustavus Adolphus:
"If he could talk, our job would have been a lot easier."
Hoffmanisms:
"Oddly enough, it occurred to me that these organisms, so loathsome to the laymen, were not only gracefully proportioned, and miracles of design, but never killed each other through greed or hate, and would never, never build a hydrogen bomb to destroy the world."
". . . in fact, I like playing detective. For that matter, who doesn’t?"
"When you’ve met enough murderers, one thing soon becomes as clear as distilled water: there’s simply no way to tell a potential killer in advance of the crime."
"I’ve known cops who wouldn’t mess with a case that was all sewed up to please their wives, children, or grandparents. He was doing it for a mere niece."
". . . I only do wonders on Wednesday and Friday; this is Tuesday, remember."
". . . the coroner, an ancient incubus who missed his forte as a meat-cutter for some supermarket."
". . . most murders are not subtle; they are chock full of blunders. When a man is keyed up to the point of killing, he’s not likely to be a cool planner."
"How many of the other suspects fly? Because, believe me, it’ll take wings or teleportation to explain how the old man got killed without the murderer leaving tracks on the sand."
"There’s a process called 'brain-storming', very popular on Madison Avenue. It consists of throwing the rational mind out of gear, and letting its motor race. You give your wildest fancies free rein, hoping to find gold among the dross. I tried that, and came up with some weird notions."
". . . I went home to bed, and dreamed of a skin-diving coach dog that terrorized the bathers."
"Maybe John Dickson Carr can make up and solve these locked room puzzles on paper, but this was too much for me."
". . . it makes a difference, when you have a personal interest in an investigation."
"A murderer is full of fears generally, and the worst of them is an eyewitness to the crime."
Resources:
- Wikipedia (HERE), Mike Grost (HERE), the SFE (HERE), and the ISFDb (HERE) have oodles of information about Arthur Porges's mystery and science fiction.- A Perfect Locked Room has a review (HERE) of No Killer Has Wings: The Casebook of Dr. Joel Hoffman (2017) in which may be found the title story. - Several web sources focus exclusively on Porges and his writings: a fanpage HERE (The Arthur Porges Fan Site), an essay on his mystery fiction HERE ("A Talent to Burn" by Richard Simms), and a nicely compiled annotated list of many of his locked room stories HERE (The Locked Room Mystery).
The bottom line: "In terms of mystery stories that feature a locked-room, or impossible-crime puzzle, Porges was immensely prolific. A master at writing plots that revolve around a scientific idea, Porges produced, during his lifetime, a diverse body of work within this disciplined literary field."
— Richard Simms
