"Killer's Masquerade."
By Robert Sheckley (1928-2005).
First appearance: Collier's Weekly, December 6, 1952.
Short short short story (1 page).
Online at SFF Audio HERE (PDF) and at UNZ HERE.
"Neither man looked especially like a cop, or like a killer."
Noises downstairs draw Walter Jallin from his comfortably warm bed and into a desperate situation that will end with one man dead on the floor, one standing powerless with an empty gun, and one still very much alive—with a loaded gun . . .
Resource:
- Our latest contact with Robert Sheckley isn't so far away (HERE).
The bottom line:
Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair,
The midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar;
Invades the sacred hour of silent rest,
And plants, unseen, a dagger in your breast.
— Samuel Johnson
"Seventh Victim."
By Robert Sheckley (1928-2005).
First appearance: Galaxy Magazine, April 1953.
Novelized as The 10th Victim (1965 movie tie-in); two novel sequels: Victim Prime (1987) and Hunter/Victim (1988).
The 1957 radiocast is online HERE (22 minutes 8 seconds); the script for it is HERE.
Reprinted many many many times, including textbooks; publication data HERE.
Short story (14 pages).
Online at SFF Audio HERE (PDF) and Archive.org HERE and HERE.
"The most dangerous game, said one writer, is Man. But there is another still more deadly!"
How do you save billions of lives, basically the entire human race? In the near future society has evolved a way, but there is a downside—someone, somewhere will still have to die:
The beauty of the system was that the people who wanted to kill could do so. Those who didn't—the bulk of the population—didn't have to.
At least, there weren't any more big wars. Not even the imminence of one. Just hundreds of thousands of small ones.
Frelaine, the Hunter, couldn't be happier with the system and is looking forward to his next kill, his seventh Victim on his way to membership in an exclusive club of Hunters—until he encounters Janet, his target, and finds love . . .
Resources:
- The ISFDb's comprehensive Robert Sheckley page is (HERE), Wikipedia has a full page devoted to "Seventh Victim" (HERE—WARNING: SPOILERS), and we just remembered we had an encounter with Sheckley not so long ago (HERE).
The bottom line: "When once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder."
— Simone Weil
"The Imperfect Crime."
By E. Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946).
First appearance: Collier's Weekly, March 28, 1931.
Collected in Sinners Beware (1931, UK; 1932, US) (online HERE).
Short short story (5 pages).
Online in Roy Glashan's Library HERE (with nicely reproduced illos) and UNZ HERE (start) and HERE (finish; scroll to page 46).
"Monsieur Dumesnil was alone, and had the good taste not to utter even a groan when the long, marvellously tempered blade sank inch by inch through his shirt front into his heart."
It's good occasionally to reevaluate one's life, to see where improvements can be made and if necessary set out on a new course. In our story, a young man does this very thing, but he reaches a conclusion and sets a course that many readers might find profoundly reprehensi-ble:
He had been wasting years of his life. Crime—cunningly devised crime—was the brave man's adjunct to success. He had been a fool ever to have walked in the shadow of poverty, ever to have neglected those gifts of which he certainly now found himself possessed.
Just how far, however, is he willing to go to keep himself out of poverty's shadow? As far as murder, perhaps?
Our sleuth—Peter Hames:
At his eponymous blog (HERE), Vintage45 has a review of Sinners Beware (1931), apparently the only Peter Hames collection published in Oppenheim's lifetime:
[Hames is] a former Inspector on the New York police department that got tossed off the force when he got involved in a murder case. The man on trial was being railroaded thanks in part to corruption on the force and two lying witnesses. As can only happen in fiction he inherited a million dollars the day after he lost his job. He moved to Monte Carlo and bought a villa where he is now an amateur artist. But the detective instincts never left and he gets involved in various adventures.
Peter Hames is one of numerous series characters concocted by Oppenheim over the years; apparently Hames appeared only in Collier's. (Data below are from FictionMags; links are to Roy Glashan's Library collection):
~ "One Terrible Night," Collier’s, January 10, 1931
~ "The Cafe Regal, the Mistral and the Lady," Collier's, January 17, 1931 [collected HERE]
~ "No Questions Asked" ("Anon £1,000"), Collier’s, January 24, 1931 [online HERE]
~ "The Dancing Man," Collier’s, February 14, 1931
~ "The Quarrel," Collier's, [date uncertain: February 21, 1931?] [collected HERE]
~ "The Tiger on the Mountains," Collier’s, February 28, 1931 [online HERE]
~ "Paddy Flaps His Wings," Collier’s, March 14, 1931 [online HERE]
~ "The Imperfect Crime," Collier’s, March 28, 1931 [above]
~ "In the Strongroom" ("What Sir Stephen Forgot"), Collier’s, April 11, 1931 [online HERE]
~ "Going, Going, Gone!" Collier’s, April 25, 1931 [online HERE]
~ "The Luckiest Young Man," Collier’s, May 16, 1931 [online HERE]
~ "Mademoiselle Anna Disappears," Collier’s, May 30, 1931 [online HERE]
Resources:
- Last fall we examined several other works by our logorrheic author (HERE).
- If you've ever seen a James Bond movie then you might have witnessed a game of chemin-de-fer (HERE).
The bottom line:
"In my day you'd be led to a room with a gun on the table. The door would be closed. A shot would ring out. A woman would scream."
"I say, I did so like the part about the woman screaming!"
— 'Those Fantastic Flying Fools'
Not many readers remember "Tarleton Fiske," but it's a safe bet most of them (and that includes you) have heard of Robert Bloch, universally famous for being the author of Psycho, the sensational basis of an even more sensational Hitchcock film. Here are a couple of Bloch's droll forays into fantasy (with a criminous tinge) from his years as a busy pulp writer before he made the Big Time.
"The Skeleton in the Closet."
By Tarleton Fiske (Robert Bloch, 1917-94).
First appearance: Fantastic Adventures, May 1943.
Reprinted in Horror Times Ten (1967) and Skeleton in the Closet and Other Stories (2008).
Short story (13 pages).
Online at UNZ HERE.
(Note: Text is messed up in a few places but still readable.)
(Parental caution: Some strong language.)
"At that maybe the old guy's skeleton was the only 'living' person who could solve his own murder. You'll admit the killer would hardly expect such a thing."
Tarleton Fiske has just inherited his Uncle Magnus's estate, which includes a house with a closet that, to his surprise and dismay, comes equipped with a human skeleton . . . a talking human skeleton . . . a talking human skeleton with a bullet hole in the back of his skull . . . a talking human skeleton with a bullet hole in the back of his skull who, after a momentary fit of amnesia, insists that he's not only Uncle Magnus but also that he's been, wait for it, murdered . . . and he makes no bones about what he plans to do about it:
"I think I'm going to do a little sleuthing. A little amateur detective work to find out who murdered me." He stabbed a bony finger in my direction. "And you're going to help me, nephew. . . ."
Typo: "the sksleton insisted"
~ ~ ~
"Mystery of the Creeping Underwear."
By Tarleton Fiske (Robert Bloch, 1917-94).
First appearance: Fantastic Adventures, October 1943.
Reprinted in The Fear Planet and Other Unusual Destinations (2005).
Short story (15 pages).
Online at UNZ HERE.
"It was the most potent formula Mr. Fooze had ever mixed — the elixir of life itself!"
A regular Caspar Milquetoast is Sidney Fooze, a henpecked schmo obsequiously tolerating his radio soap opera-addicted wife Dora's inertia. Sidney never asked for it, but he's about to become embroiled in a situation that could cost him his life—if only he can just keep his clothes on:
. . . the tall, gaunt scientific figure suddenly pulled a pistol from his hip pocket and levelled it at Mr. Fooze's falling waistline.
"Let's try the attic, first," suggested the Doctor, pleasantly. "By the way—not a word to your wife. Or I'll have to use two bullets."
Mr. Fooze couldn't have said a word if he wanted to. His throat was dry—parch-ed. And he couldn't very well move his tongue anyway, for his heart was in his mouth.
Typo: "he had a horried dream"
Resources:
- You can acquire basic info about Robert Bloch (HERE), (HERE), and (HERE); as we noted (HERE), he also produced a nicely executed Star Trek TV series murder mystery.
- Thorne Smith's Skin and Bones (1933) gets a mention in "The Skeleton in the Closet"; a short summary might help:
A photographer's freak accident in the dark room produces a chemical concoc-tion causing him (and his dog) to randomly switch back and forth between nor-mal and X-ray (skeleton) versions of themselves. Predictably, much drinking and cavorting ensues, as he finds people able to see beyond his appearance and appreciate him for who he is, while inadvertently terrifying those who can not. Unusually, his wife Lorna is an attractive personality. — "Thorne Smith" (HERE), Wikipedia
And there's also a reference to a popular radio program called Doctor I.Q.; see Wikipedia (HERE).
- In "Mystery of the Creeping Underwear," Mr. Fooze not only mentions Rinso but also attempts to sing its slogan:
Rinso was one of the first mass-marketed soap powders. It was advertised wide-ly on United States radio, being the sponsor of many radio programs such as the popular daytime soap opera Big Sister from 1936 to 1946 . . . During this time the product's advertisements happily chanted the slogan "Rinso white, Rinso bright" and boasted that Rinso contained "Solium, the sunlight ingredi-ent". — "Rinso" (HERE), Wikipedia
The bottom line: "Everyone knows Newton as the great scientist. Few remember that he spent half his life muddling with alchemy, looking for the philosopher's stone. That was the pebble by the seashore he really wanted to find."
— Fritz Leiber
"Hole-in-the-Wall Barrett."
By Max Brand (Frederick Schiller Faust, 1892-1944).
First appearance: Munsey’s Magazine, August 1919.
Short short story (5 pages).
Online at Roy Glashan's Library HERE (illustrated).
"The story has to do with probably the oldest combination known to stories—a hero, a villain, and a beautiful woman. The hero was young, handsome, talent-ed; the villain was middle-aged and rather stout, and smoked big black cigars; the beautiful woman was very beautiful."
As this tongue-in-cheek, topsy-turvy take on the old-timey melodrama commences, defense attorney John Barrett is explaining to his wife why he is completely convinced of who did in a miserly old skinflint and why he won't be defending the malicious malefactor whodunit:
"This is the case," he said. "Harry McCurtney killed his uncle, William McCurt-ney. He did it by putting poison in the Scotch whisky which old William was drinking to the health of his nephew. A maid saw Harry put something into his uncle's glass. She afterward got hold of the vial of poison, out of which only a few drops had been poured. There was enough left to kill ten men. When old McCurtney died that night, the maid called in the police and had Harry arrested. She produced the vial of poison as evidence. The case was easily made out. A druggist has sworn that the poison was purchased from him by young Harry McCurtney. Tomorrow the jury is certain to bring a verdict of guilty against this man. That, in brief, is the case of the man you want me to defend."
Elizabeth, his young wife, however, begs to differ:
"Your brevity has destroyed everything worthwhile in the case. You have left out the fact that William McCurtney was a heartless old ruffian—a miser, hated by everyone and hating everyone. You have left out the fact"—here her voice lower-ed and grew musically gentle as only the voice of a woman of culture can grow—"you have left out the fact, John, that Harry McCurtney is a rare soul, an artist, a man unequipped for battling with the world. With the fortune he inherits from his uncle he would lead a beautiful, an ideal existence. He would do good to the world. He is—he is—a chosen spirit, John!"
And just when you think the situation can't be more fraught with emotion, she drops this bombshell on him:
"There is another reason why you must defend McCurtney," she said. "I love him!"
We're pretty sure that not even Perry Mason ever found himself in a predicament quite like this one . . .
Principal characters:
~ John Barrett:
". . . everyone can see that the man is a villain. The way he chews that long black cigar, for instance, emitting slow, luxurious puffs, is sufficient proof. No one but a villain really enjoys good tobacco; but to pile Pelion on Ossa, there are other proofs—lots of them. He has a square, bulging jaw, a straight-lipped, cruel mouth, a great hawk nose, and keen eyes buried under the overhanging shelter of shaggy brows. He is frowning in his villainous way and looking down."
~ Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett:
"She is very, very beautiful; a black-haired type with questioning, dark eyes. She is dressed in black, too, filmy over the arms, so that the rose tint of flesh shines through. She reclines in an easy chair with her head pillowed gracefully and canted somewhat to one side, while she studies the villain and defies him."
~ Harry McCurtney:
"He was very young; he was very handsome. The brown eyes were as soft and liquid as the eyes of a thoughtful Byron—or a calf. That tall forehead and that long, pale face—they brought home all the romantic melancholy of life to a woman under thirty. Even the twelve good men and true felt some ruth as they glanced on him who was about to die; but being hardheaded fellows, those twelve, they looked away again and cleared their throats and frowned. Metaphorically speaking, they were rolling up their sleeves and preparing to grasp the knife from the hands of blind justice."
Resource:
- ONTOS recently spent some time with a far more serious Max Brand (HERE).
The bottom line: "We sleep in separate rooms, we have dinner apart, we take separate vacations—we're doing everything we can to keep our marriage together."
— Rodney Dangerfield
"Stenton's Shadow."
By David Wright O'Brien (1918-44).
First appearance: Fantastic Adventures, June 1943.
Reprinted in Fantastic Adventures Quarterly, Fall 1943 and Winter 1943.
Short story (16 pages).
Online at Roy Glashan's Library (HERE) and The Luminist Archives (HERE). Go to text page 56.
(Parental caution: Some strong language.)
"Stenton carried out the perfect crime. No one could possibly connect him with it. Then why was he being shadowed?"
The besetting problem with the perfect murder is that there are no perfect murderers. Some-where along the way from its inception to its execution the perfect crime founders on the unforeseen element, the thing that the imperfect criminal fails to allow for. In the instance of Stenton—intelligent, fearless, methodical, patient, and ruthless—who murders not for mone-tary gain but for the power it gives him over others, the unforeseen element is something which, despite all of his careful planning, he mistakenly believes he has utterly destroyed.
Main characters:
~ Stenton (no first name):
"Stenton stood there with his hand on the knob of the door, momentarily shaken by the conflict that had been waged in his soul. Something closely akin to fright passed through his eyes and was gone in the next instant. He smiled then, a cold, curiously inhuman smile, and turned the knob beneath his hand."
~ Richard Frawley:
"But now, the once-young Frawley lay upstairs in the palatial master bedroom, an old, weary man. A man without a wife, children, even relatives. A man with no one in the world to count on save Stenton."
~ The doctor:
"But stop worrying. Unless something entirely unforeseen occurs, my prediction is that Mr. Frawley might well reach eighty-five or more."
~ The shadow:
"For fully half a minute Stenton stared across the street at the figure in the doorway. Stared steadily, curiously, uneasily, as if compelled to do so by some hypnotic force. And as he stared, the figure in the doorway returned the stare while remaining motionless, hands deep in his overcoat pockets."
~ Charles:
"The old butler looked both concerned and embarrassed. 'Your complexion, sir, is positive-ly ashen.'"
Typos: "'Can—can I see him, now?' Seenton asked"; "That passed with the attck"; "he manged to save himself"; "fast gambling, riotious collegiate existence"; "Something eeriely, ominously—although ridiculously—strange"; "the expression on Stetson's usually poker-cold face."
Resources:
- For more about David Wright O'Brien, a fine pulp fantasist who died in an air raid on Berlin, go to Wikipedia (HERE), the SFE (HERE), and the ISFDb (HERE).
The bottom line: "Murder in the murderer is no such ruinous thought as poets and roman-cers will have it; it does not unsettle him, or fright him from his ordinary notice of trifles; it
Dan Neyer at Famous (and forgotten) Fiction (HERE) does a fine job of summing up the influence that Inspector Hanaud, our main character today, had on detective fiction, but especially on a certain little Belgian heavesdropper:
Inspector Gabriel Hanaud of the French Surete-General was introduced in Mason’s 1910 novel At the Villa Rose, and would go on to figure in four more novels, a novelette, and two short stories. Hanaud was intended by Mason as a deliberate revolution against the brilliant amateur reasoning-machines that had dominated detective stories since the success of Sherlock Holmes; the Inspector was not only an official police officer but also a jovial, good-natured fellow with none of the antisocial quirks that had beset Holmes, the Old Man in the Corner, and others. Hanaud also relied on routine police work, intuition, and knowledge of human nature, as much as on sheer deductive reasoning, setting him further apart from the Holmesian school.
. . . Hanaud, with his healthy ego, fractured English, and verbal Gallicisms, was a definite influence on Christie’s Hercule Poirot. Christie’s Mr. Satterthwaite, a Watson of sorts in her Harley Quinn short stories and a couple of her Poirot novels, also owed a lot to Mason’s Mr. Ricardo—the dilettante detective and lovably conceited aesthete who serves as Hanaud’s regular associate, providing gentle humor through his vanity and his futile attempts to Anglicize the inspec-tor’s manners and language (Ricardo, despite his exotic name, is English).
"The Ginger King."
By A.E.W. Mason (1865-1948).
First appearance: The Strand Magazine, August 1940.
Reprinted in EQMM, August 1950.
Short story (~15 pages).
Online at Roy Glashan's Library (HERE) and Famous (and forgotten) Fiction HERE.
"But he was unjust. For later on that evening, in his own good time, the Ginger King told them plenty."
In this case Hanaud (with Ricardo tagging along) is asked by an insurance company to investigate the scene of a fire that could have been an accident or, conversely, an instance of arson with the intent to collect a big settlement. To Hanaud's little grey olfactory bulbs something just doesn't smell right about the situation, and his doubts deepen when the victim of the inferno evinces what could be the worst case of ailurophobia anybody's ever seen.
Principal characters:
~ Inspector Hanaud:
"Chance, my friend, is the detective’s best confederate. A little unimportant word you use and it startles—a strange twist of character is provoked to reveal itself—an odd incident breaks in on the routine of your investigation. And the mind pounces. 'Ping,' you say, if you play the table-tennis. 'Pong,' you say, if you play the Mahjong. And there you are!"
~ Mr. Ricardo:
"Mr. Ricardo was in no mood to pursue his large friend through the winding mazes of his metaphors. 'I am beginning to understand you,' he answered with resignation."
~ Thomson, Ricardo's "incomparable" butler:
". . . Mr. Middleton was in hopes that Monsieur Hanaud was staying with you. He seemed very anxious."
~ John Middleton, Secretary of the Unicorn Fire Insurance Company:
"Mr. Middleton was a collector's piece of Victorian England. Middle-aged, with dangling whiskers like lappets at the sides of an otherwise clean-shaved face, very careful and a trifle old-maidish in his speech, he had a tittering laugh and wore the long black frock-coat and the striped trousers which once made the City what it was."
~ Enoch Swallow:
"He is a Syrian gentleman by birth and an English gentleman by naturalization. But again I beg you not to be misled. There is nothing of the cunning of the Orient about him. He is a big, plain, simple creature, a peasant, one might say as honest as the day."
~ Superintendent Holloway:
". . . a large man with his hair speckled with grey, and a genial, intelligent face."
~ The feline:
"A large—everything about the Marlborough Street police station seemed to Hanaud to be large—a large beautiful ginger cat with amber-coloured lambent eyes lay with his paws doubled up under his chest on a fourth chair, and surveyed the party with a godlike indifference."
Resources:
- Roy Glashan has an impressive collection of A.E.W. Mason's writings (HERE). Mason was quite popular in his day; see Wikipedia (HERE), the GAD Wiki (HERE), the IMDb (HERE) and the ISFDb (HERE), while Mystery*File has more about Hanaud (HERE), as does Classic Mysteries (HERE).
The bottom line:
Some men there are love not a gaping pig,
Some that are mad if they behold a cat,
And others, when the bagpipe sings i' th' nose,
Cannot contain their urine. For affection,
Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood
Of what it likes or loathes.
— Shakespeare
