"Wooden Case Marked H.M. (in a Diamond) 415"

"The Salvation of Detective Furley."
By W. Pett Ridge (1859-1930).
First appearance: The London Magazine, August (?) 1903.
Short short short story (3 pages).
Online at Hathi Trust (HERE).

"Then he screamed—shut the door behind him swiftly and locked it. He faced round and threw his hat on the floor."

They say beauty is only skin deep, but how about honesty?

Resources:
- FictionMags's thumbnail of William Pett Ridge: "Born and educated in Kent; came to London in 1880; published over 60 volumes of fiction"; his short stories chronology runs from 1895 to the mid-1920s. Also see Wikipedia (HERE).

- Great War Fiction has an article about Ridge (HERE).

"Was It Suicide?"

"The Extreme Penalty."
By W. H. Spence (?-?).
First appearance: To-Day, October 22, 1898.
Short short short story (3 pages, 2 illos).
Online at Hathi Trust (HERE).
(Note: Expect slow loading. Use the "Full Screen" button to center the text.)

"I'd rather die first!" are words that easily escape our lips, but an old sea-dog reminisces about the time someone took them very seriously . . .

Resource:
- We can't find anything at all about our author.

"Sometimes the Hate Turns Outward and There Is No Fear Left"

"Home Is the Hunter."
By Henry Kuttner (1915-58) and C. L. Moore (1911-87).
First appearance: Galaxy, July 1953.
Many reprintings (HERE), including Jim Baen's Universe, December 2006.
Short short story (7 pages).
Online at Baen Books (HERE).

"All that time, all that painful time, learning to kill. It was natural. They kept telling us how natural it was. We had to learn. And there could be only one heir ..."

For today's New Yorkers, Central Park is usually a place to find peace, rest, and contentment, but in Honest Roger Bellamy's 21st-century world it's restricted only to people who'd like nothing better than to have his head on a platter—and the feeling is mutual . . .

Resources:
- For Henry Kuttner, see (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), and (HERE); for Catherine Moore, see (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), and (HERE).
- The seriously warped society depicted in "Home Is the Hunter" seems vaguely similar to the one in a story by Robert Sheckley (HERE), as well as in these stories (HERE; SPOILERS) and (HERE; SPOILERS), while the idea of headhunters striving to be the "only one" is strongly echoed (HERE; SPOILERS).

The hunting grounds.

- We've encountered Henry and Catherine a few times already; go (HERE) for more.

The bottom line:
   Home is the sailor, home from sea,
   And the hunter home from the hill.
     — "Requiem"

"For a Really Clever Burglar You Must Go to the West End, and I Hear They Aren't So Good As They Were"

"The Gentle Art of Burgling: A Chat with a Suburban Policeman."
By Anonymous.
First appearance: To-Day, February 18, 1899.
Article (1 page).
Online at Hathi Trust (HERE).
(Note: Click on "Full Screen" button to center the text.)

". . . a good burglar knows how to get the right side of a dog."

. . . and the left side as well, we presume. Here, from a hundred-and-twenty years ago, is some sage advice from a Victorian-era beat cop that's still useful today.

"She Spoke to Me in a Frightened Way"

"Under Suspicion."
By John Foster Fraser (1868-1936).
First appearance: To-Day, October 3, 1896.
Short short short story (3 pages, 2 illos).
Online at Hathi Trust (HERE).
(Note: Some text is faded. Click on "Full Screen" button to center.)

An author accidentally discovers a crime worse than plagiarism . . .

Resource:
- To judge from his FictionMags listing, John Foster Fraser seems to have produced mostly nonfiction, with the occasional foray into fiction.

"The Equation Shows Greed, a Touch of Insanity, Which Makes Violence an Inevitable Result"

"The Last Analysis."
By John York Cabot (David Wright O'Brien, 1918-44).
First appearance: Amazing Stories, February 1941.
Short short story (6 pages).
Online at Roy Glashan's Library (HTML HERE; EPUB HERE) and Archive.org (HERE).

"We're driving toward the elimination of crime. The elimination of crime by scientific equations."

The ideal way to do away with criminality is to stop it at its source, before it manifests itself—but what if the criminal doesn't even know he's a criminal?

Resources:
- David Wright O'Brien, killed in the Second World War, hasn't been neglected by the Internet: Wikipedia (HERE), the SFE (HERE), and the ISFDb (HERE).
- Hollywood has toyed with the idea of stopping crime before it happens (HERE; SPOILERS).

- It's been well over a year since we last considered some of O'Brien's fiction (HERE).

The bottom line: “Murder, other than in the most strict forensic sense, is never soluble. That dark human clot can never melt into a lucid, clear suspension. Our detective fiction tells us otherwise: everything is just meat and cold ballistics. Provide a murderer, a motive and a means, and you have solved the crime. Using this method, the solution to the Second World War is as follows: Hitler. The German economy. Tanks. Thus, for convenience, we reduce the complex events.”
― Alan Moore

"We Always Arrest the Butler, Mr. Kent"

"Who Do You Think Did It? or, The Mixed-Up Murder Mystery."
By Stephen Leacock (1869-1944).
First appearance: Harper's Magazine, October 1920.
Reprinted in Winsome Winnie, and Other New Nonsense Novels (1920; HERE).
Novelette (12 pages in original text).
Online at UNZ (HERE) and at Fadedpage (HERE; select file type; then go to page 95).

"NOTE.—Any reader who guesses correctly who did it is entitled (in all fairness) to a beautiful gold watch and chain."

Segments:
  I. He Dined with Me Last Night
  II. I Must Save Her Life
  III. I Must Buy a Book on Billiards
  IV. That Is Not Billiard Chalk
  V. Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?
  VI. Show Me the Man Who Wore Those Boots
  VII. Oh, Mr. Kent, Save Me!
  VIII. You Are Peter Kelly
  IX. Let Me Tell You the Story of My Life
  X. So Do I

More criminous nonsense from Stephen Leacock . . .

Some really, really, really suspicious characters:
~ Masterman Throgton, general manager of the Metropolitan Planet newspaper:
  "The big chief was sitting in his swivel chair with ink all round him. Through this man's great brain passed all the threads and filaments that held the news of a continent. Snap one, and the whole continent would stop."
~ Transome Kent:
  ". . . was not a detective. He was a reporter. After sweeping everything at Harvard in front of him, and then behind him, he had joined the staff of the Planet two months before. Kent's work on the Planet consisted now almost exclusively of unravelling and unearthing, and it was natural that the manager should turn to him."
~ Kivas Kelly:
  ". . . a well-known club man and bon vivant, had been found dead in his residence on Riverside Drive, with every indication—or, at least, with a whole lot of indications—of murder."
~ Inspector Edwards:
  "The Chief Inspector of the Detective Department, a large, heavy-looking man, was standing beside a gate-post."
~ Alice Delary:
  "Tall, graceful and willowy, Alice Delary was in her first burst of womanhood."
~ Peter Kelly:
  "A minute later the door opened and a man entered. Kent's keen eye analysed him as he stood. His blue clothes, his tanned face, and the extraordinary dexterity of his fingers left
no doubt of his calling. He was a sailor."

Resource:
- It seems like just the other day we perambulated with Stephen Leacock—in fact, it was just the other day (HERE).

Masterman Throgton (an approximation only).