"Everything's Going to Be All Right"

"The Punishment Fits the Crime."
By David Berreby.
Illustration by JACEY.
First appearance: Nature/Futures, 9 March 2006.
Short short short story (1 page).
Online at Nature.com (HERE; PDF).

     "This is not a prison, but a facility for research and compassionate care."

"Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage" goes Lovelace's poem, but with somatic-genetic engineering, who needs those silly things . . .

Resources:
- In our story, the author confines himself to a specific kind of gene manipulation; for more about the whole field of genetic engineering see (HERE; Wikipedia) and (HERE; PDF).

The bottom line:

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"Only the Dead Recognize Each Other"

"Masques."

By Mike Adamson.

Illustration by JACEY.

First appearance: Nature/Futures, 30 May 2018.
Short short short story (1 page).
Online at Nature.com (HERE; PDF).

     "Murder has almost vanished from the spectrum of human existence. 
Not from any elevated moral sense or spiritual refinement, but merely 
because it is no longer true that dead men tell no tales."

Why should freedom of choice be only for the living?

Resources:
- The underlying premise in our story is still way out there; see Wikipedia (HERE) and (HERE) for lengthy speculations about it. A skeptical article by Maciamo Hay (HERE) points out its shortcomings.

(Click on image to enlarge.)

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"A Nervous Hand, White and Trembling As Her Own, Appeared Within the Circle of Light, Pointing a Small, Nickel-plated Revolver At Her Head"

"Her Ladyship's Burglar: A Story of a House Party."
By Andrew Merry (?-?).
Illustrations by Hal Hurst (1865-1938; HERE).
First appearance: The Harmsworth (London) Magazine, February 1901.
Short story (10 pages, 7 illos).
Online at Hathi Trust (HERE).

     "I don't want to commit murder, but if you move or attempt to wake him, I must shoot you both first, and myself afterwards."

Otherwise decent people sometimes do things in desperation that they would normally regard as awful; case in point, impulsive Eric Dundreckie and the small fortune he gambles away to Lady Kenilworth . . .

Resource:
- For the moment, "Her Ladyship's Burglar" is the only credit for the obscure "Andrew Merry" to be found on the FictionMags Index.

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"He Drew a Small Revolver from His Pocket and Laid It with a Light Clink on the Table Before Him"

"The Room of Mirrors—A Story of Hate, Told by the Pursuer."
By Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863-1944).
First appearance: Ainslee’s Magazine, September 1899.
Reprinted in Q's Mystery Stories (1937) (HERE).
Short story (10 pages).
Online at FadedPage (HERE; go down to page 191).

     "As it was, I had put the whip into his hand, and must follow him like a cur. The distance he kept assured me that the similitude had not escaped him. He strode on without deigning a single glance behind, still in cold derision presenting me his broad back and silently challenging me to shoot. And I followed, hating him worse than ever, swearing that the last five minutes should not be forgotten, but charged for royally when the reckoning came to be paid."

Strong emotion can be transformative—love, for example, can convert a sinner into a saint; on this bitter winter's night, Reg Travers will find out what hate can turn a man into, and it's something he'll wish he never knew . . .

Characters:
~ Reg:
  "The door of the house opposite had been free to me once—and not six months ago; freer 
to me perhaps than to any other. Did I long to pass behind it again? I thrust both hands into my pockets for warmth, and my right hand knocked against something hard. Yes . . . just once. . . ."
~ Gervase:
  "I have one truth more for you. I swear I believe that what we have hated, we two, is not each other, but ourselves or our own likeness. I swear I believe we two have so shared natures in hate that no power can untwist and separate them to render each his own."
~ Elaine:
  "It’s not Gervase! It’s Reg—Mr. Travers. I beg your pardon. I thought——"
~ A woman:
  "She drew a shuddering breath back through her teeth, but still held out her hand. I felt for my last coin, and her fingers closed on it so sharply that their long nails scraped the back of mine."
~ The two policemen:
  "A sovereign passed from hand to hand. The other constable had discreetly drawn off a pace or two."

Comment: It's easy to regard "The Room of Mirrors" as a neat variation on a certain novella that we've already dealt with (HERE), but we think it's closer to one of Poe's tales of the grotesque and arabesque (HERE).

Resources:
- According to FictionMags, two of Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch's stories saw reprintings in latter-day mystery digests: "The Two Householders" (1891), in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, November 1949; and "The Roll-Call of the Reef" (1895), in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November 1984. For more on the author, see Wikipedia (HERE).
- Strauss the Younger's "Wiener Blut" (HERE) threads its way through the story. You've heard the tune if you've ever seen Hitchcock's film Suspicion (1941):

   "A musical leitmotif is introduced in Suspicion. Whenever Lina is happy with Johnny — starting with a ball organised by General McLaidlaw — Johann Strauss's waltz 'Wiener Blut' is played in its original, light-hearted version. At one point, when she is suspicious of her husband, a threatening, minor-key version of the waltz is employed, metamorphosing into the full and happy version after the suspense has been lifted. At another, Johnny is whistling the waltz. At yet another, while Johnny is serving the drink of milk, a sad version of 'Wiener Blut' is played again. By placing a lightbulb in the milk, the film-makers made the contents appear to glow as the glass is carried upstairs by Johnnie, further enhancing the audience's fear that it is poisoned."
   — Wikipedia (HERE)

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"Dead Men Don't Start Walking Without a Reason"

"The Mental Gangster."
By Thornton Ayre (John Russell Fearn, 1908-60).
First appearance: Fantastic Adventures, August 1942.
Reprinted in Fantastic Adventures Quarterly (Reissue), Spring 1943.
Short story (14 pages, 1 illo).
Online at UNZ (HERE) and Archive.org (HERE).
(Note: The illo doesn't have any relation to the story.)

     "Murder took place on this ship in space over a treasure—a perfect crime. But then the dead man came to life to confront his killer!"

When you're stuck in a four-point sink hole, even conversations with the Great Beyond don't seem as unlikely as they used to . . .

Comment: A Jimmy Cagney prison break flick, complete with 1930s tough guy slang, translated to the far future—and yet another British writer struggling with American 
criminal patois.

Typos: "cold gray eyes scowled at the electric clock "; "The scrambled and struggled"; 
"that Blackie well know".

Characters:
~ Blackie Melrose and his "associates":
  "'Get this!' Blackie snapped suddenly, swinging round. 'This dame means nothing to us, see? Nothing! Just a free passenger. Because she's a woman doesn't mean any of you 
mugs can get funny ideas. One pass at her and I'll plaster you all over the wall. Okay?'"
~ Dorothy Wilson:
  "Looking at you I was thinking there might be something to the recessive unit theory, after all. However, I'm not scared of any of you—least of all Dead Pan over at the controls there. I'm a girl who's been around, see. . . . And now, if you gallants have no objection, I'll find me a bunk."
~ Conroy:
  ". . . stopped speaking, his knees gave way and he thudded to the floor."

Resources:
- John Francis Russell Fearn, dead though he be, seems to being enjoying a revival (so to speak), to judge from how the Interweb is practically bulging with information about him: FictionMags (HERE), Wikipedia (HERE), the SFE (HERE), DarkFantasy (HERE), and the 
ISFDb (HERE).

- We've featured some other stories by Fearn; see the collection (HERE).

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"My Plot Was Working Out Along New and Radical Lines"

(Post-Hurricane Florence Edition)

"Not As Plotted."
By Guy Archette (Chester S. Geier, 1921-1990/91).
First appearance: Fantastic Adventures, March 1947.
Short story (11 pages, 1 illo).
Online at UNZ (HERE) and Archive.org (HERE).
(Note: The story's headnote is incorrect, naming the wrong character.)

     "I was air. I was less than air. I was nothingness itself."

Authors are known to be merciless with their characters, subjecting them to terrible trials and tribulations without an eyeblink; what if, however, an author should take pity on one of them and try to save his life—only to discover that no matter what he does, it looks like he's help-
less to change things . . .

Characters:
~ Dave Naylor:
  "I've already sent your yarn to the printer—it's probably set in type by now."
~ Ted:
  "Mouth open, eyes bulging, I stood there—floppy carpet slippers, threadbare smoking jacket, and all. And not one of the people passing by showed the slightest sign of interest. They didn't even so much as glance my way. It was for all the world as though I were invisible."
~ Steve Hillis:

  "In love with rich and beautiful Irene Sprague, he was too poor to marry her. The girl's father, Nathan Sprague, had offered Hillis an important position in his steel business—provided, however, that Hillis bought up a large share of stock. The obstacle was the necessity of Hillis buying his way in. He didn't have the money."

~ Irene Sprague:
  "There was a weary resignation about her, an utter lack of hope, that made my blood boil."
~ Nick Bardon:

  "Irene Sprague will have to be nice to me, because if she isn't, I can make a lot of trouble 

for her."

~ Pug Webber:
  ". . .  reached into his pocket for the gun. He pulled it out, raised it high."
~ Nathan Sprague:
  "What's this? What's going on?"

Typos: "Bardon responded sauvely"; "but I never thought he [would missing] stoop to thievery."

Resources:
- FictionMags indicates that "Guy Archette" also sometimes wrote under his own name.
- As usual, see the SFE (HERE) and the ISFDb (HERE) for more about Geier's SFFnal career; "Not As Plotted" appears to be the first story to which he attached the "Guy Archette" byline.
- The idea of characters fiddling with their own story has been utilized by other writers in print and film; the Star Trek franchise, for example, used it a few times, most particularly in "The Big Goodbye" (1988), "The Royale" (1989), and the paired episodes "Elementary, Dear Data" (1988) and "Ship in a Bottle" (1993) (HERE).

The bottom line: "The best part of the fiction in many novels is the notice that the characters are imaginary."
   ― Franklin P. Adams
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"It Was Simply Unthinkable That He Should Make a Slip Anywhere"

(Hurricane Florence Edition)

"Without Finger-Prints."
By Charles Lee Bryson (1868-1949).
First appearance: Munsey's Magazine, June 1927.
Short short story (5 pages).
Online at UNZ (HERE).

     "When the president of the Parkville Bank came to grips with trouble, he worked out a clever scheme, but even a clever schemer may be outwitted."

Clever murder schemes, it hardly needs to be said, are guaranteed to unravel—and 
the clever schemers along with them . . .

Comment: You know what's coming; the fun is in how it gets resolved. A nice little howcatchem from the '20s.

Characters:
~ Philander Parks:

  "But now that trouble had assumed a dangerously menacing air, and stared him brutally 

and mockingly in the face instead of sitting passively at his side. Philander was determined to do something. He would play the part of a man. He would meet and fight trouble on its 

own ground, and defeat it."

~ Fred Wemby:
  ". . . was the cashier, but he was a colorless, unimportant plodder. He should not stand in the way of Philander's success."
~ The coroner:
  "Cushman and I must go over everything very carefully and collect all the evidence. Nothing must be handled by any one else."
~ Cushman:
  "That guy's too keen to make it out a suicide!"

- FictionMags about Charles Lee Bryson: "Author. Born in Dade County, Missouri; lived in Glen Ellyn, Illinois." The preponderance of his known short fiction was in the form of crime stories, most of them appearing in Flynn's Detective Fiction Magazine in 1927.
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