"The Heavy Block Hurtled Through the Air"

"Make Westing."
By Jack London (John Griffith Chaney, 1876-1916).
First appearance: The Pall Mall Magazine, April 1908.
Reprinted in Short Story Magazine (Australia) #38, 1947; Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, July 1955; and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (Australia), September 1955.
Short short short story (4 pages).
Online at SFFAudio (HERE) (PDF) and American Literature.com (HERE).

"I am going to charge you with murder, and I am going to see you hanged for it."

Between the implacable tiger and the cowardly hyena, a man, especially an honest one, doesn't stand much of a chance . . .

Resources:
- Who hasn't heard of Jack London by now, one of the most successful American authors of all time? For plenty of biographical information about him, see Wikipedia (HERE) and the bio page on The Jack London State Historic Park website (HERE).
- "Rounding the Horn," according to Wikipedia (HERE), "is traditionally understood to involve sailing from 50 degrees South on one coast to 50 degrees South on the other coast, the two benchmark latitudes of a Horn run, a considerably more difficult and time-consuming endeavor having a minimum length of 930 miles (1,500 km)."

The bottom line: "Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea."
   — John Updike

"You Look Scared to Death"

"The Man in the Taxi."
By Leslie Gordon Barnard (1890-1961).
First appearance: Weird Tales, November 1937.
Short short short story (3 pages).
Online at SFFAudio (HERE) (PDF).

"Enderby had to live with his conscience, for there were no witnesses of his crime—but who was the man who sat beside him in the taxicab?"

We're told that the dead are beyond our influence, but who's to say the dead might regard us as not beyond theirs . . .

Resources:
- Since he was born in Montréal, the Canadian Encyclopedia would naturally have an article about prolific pulpster Leslie Gordon Barnard (HERE).
- Barnard generated dozens of pulp stories in the Western, detective, and romance genres over a span of forty-four years, but "The Man in the Taxi" seems to be his sole contribution
to Weird Tales; FictionMags has a list of the 17 stories featuring his only series character,
Mr. Philibus, in Detective Fiction Weekly and Detective Story Magazine  (1928-1935). One of his other stories saw republication in EQMM, "Shooting a Line," 1963 (from 1946); while two original ones appeared in AHMM, "The Last Voyage" and "The Talkative Stranger," both 1957.
- Also see "My God, What Have I Done?" at TV Tropes (HERE).

"I Hope You're Going to Kill Me"

"A Weapon of the Law."
By George W. Breuker (1884-1978).
First appearance: The Black Mask, August 1922.
Short short short story (3 pages).
Online at SFFAudio (HERE) (PDF).

"There are other weapons beside firearms."

Maybe it was the Rabbit who said it best: "Skin me, snatch out my eyeballs, tear out my ears by the roots, cut off my legs, but, please, don't fling me into that brier-patch."

Resource:
- FictionMags credits George Breuker with only 5 stories, this one being the last; otherwise, we can't find anything else about him.

Another Forgotten Pulpster

". . . we were pals until—well, until a certain girl stepped between us."

(1) "Great Minds Run—."
By Harold Ward (1879-1950).
First appearance: The Black Mask, January 1922.
Short short short story (2 pages).

Online at the Pulpgen Archive (HERE).

"The face of the dead man wore a sardonic, twisted grin as if in appreciation of the grim jest in which fate had given him the stellar role."

Three men competing for a woman's affections, and one of them is more than willing to kill the other two . . .

Comment (from the Pulpgen editors): "Although not a bad story, this could have appeared in just about any magazine of the time and is not truly indicative of what Black Mask was to become in the next couple of years."

~ ~ ~

"The police would think the robbery the work of a professional."

(2) "The Failure."
By Harold Ward (1879-1950).
First appearance: The Black Mask, August 1922.
Short short short story (3 pages).
Online at SFFAudio (HERE) (PDF) and Archive.org (HERE).

"A bullet sped past his head and flattened itself against the vault door!"

Over the course of twenty-seven years and the eighteen thousand, seven hundred and twenty times he has crossed the threshold of Carney & Kirk, Amos Duncan has come to feel it's time for some recognition, and if he can't get it from the firm then perhaps he can earn it from his wife—even if it means picking up a gun . . .

Comment: Ealing Studios took much the same character motivation of the underappreci-ated corporate drone (but not this story) and produced a classic crime-comedy film (HERE).

Resources:
- The listing in FictionMags for Harold Ward indicates that he specialized in crime fiction pulp, turning out many, many short stories over a twenty-year period, over two dozen of them for The Black Mask; the ISFDb (HERE) credits him with some SFF tales, as well.

"Is That Your Idea of Fair Business?"

"Wisher Takes All."
By William F. Temple (1914-89).
First appearance: Other Worlds, July 1950.
Reprinted in 100 Great Fantasy Short Short Stories (1984).
Short short short story (2 pages).
Online at SFFAudio (HERE) (PDF) and Archive.org (HERE).

"We're pretty rare, you know."

It's positively criminal how people will try to cheat a genie just out of the bottle . . .

Resources:

- William F. Temple was a well-known name in SFF circles in the thirties, forties, and fifties, even having one of his stories filmed; see Wikipedia (HERE), the SFE (HERE), and the ISFDb (HERE).

- As usual TV Tropes nails it concerning wish-granting; see (HERE) and (HERE),  but especially (HERE) and  (HERE).

"A Mystery and a Murder of the Most Diabolical Kind"

"Yet Another Thames Mystery."
First appearance: The Pall Mall Budget, June 9, 1887.
News article (1 paragraph).
Online at Hathi Trust (HERE).

"The police have certainly not much of a clue to work upon."

When we stumbled across this article, it rang a bell, so to speak. If you're at all interested in serial killers of the Ripper school, then check out the resources below.

Resources:

- This killing was part of a sensational series of crimes known as the Thames Torso Murders of 1887-89, which have been largely forgotten due to Jolly Jack's activities; see the Wikipedia article (HERE), the Casebook: Jack the Ripper write-up by Gerald Spicer (HERE), and the Morbid World article (HERE) for more.

- Crime fiction writers haven't forgotten the Torso Murders, either; see the review of Sarah Pinborough's novel (HERE) and the Amazon page for M. J. Trow (HERE), author of a non-fiction book about the atrocities (HERE), as well as ten novels featuring the much-maligned Inspector Lestrade.

"I Have Had Crime on the Brain"

"An Amateur Detective."
By William Westall (1834-1903).
First appearance: Short Stories, November 1892.
Short story (16 pages).
Online at Google Books (HERE) and Archive.org (HERE).

Our author could have benefitted from this book.

"Love and hatred are the chief factors in this strange story, and with the aid of the amateur detective bring about a thrilling dénouement."

Being out of your mind, the insanity plea, is a recognized reason for not exacting the full penalty of the law in a case of murder; but what if the killer were totally sane and yet in somebody else's state of mind . . .

Comment: A promising premise for a detective story shot down with a very dissatisfying
and by no means "thrilling" dénouement.

Resources:
- Wikipedia (HERE) tells us about William Westall: "Originally a businessman, he later became a journalist who also wrote about 30 pot-boiler romantic novels"; he also dabbled in SFF, as his presence on the SFE (HERE) and the ISFDb (HERE) would indicate. We have no idea how many other attempts at detective fiction he made, but judging from "An Amateur Detective" we hope they were few.
- A very different and actually effective crime-busting journalist was Jimmie Silverdale; go (HERE) for more about him.