"The Art of the Detective Story"

LITTERATEURS finally got around to acknowledging that indeed detective fiction could be an art—in the right hands. The following article comes from Cassell's Weekly, July 25, 1923 (HERE):

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"There Came a Wild Scream from the Blackness of the Sea, a Swish of Foamy Water, As If of a Momentary Fight—Then Silence"

"Deep Sea Treasure."

By Arthur B. Reeve (1880-1936).

Illustrations by Harold Anderson (1894-1973; HERE).

First appearance: Boys' Life, January 1924.

Short short short story (4 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

     "He had brought up a skull . . ."

One of the oldest human criminal activities leads a scientific detective to employ one of the newest forensic techniques . . . .

Main characters:

~ Walter:

  "Only a few days before, Kennedy and I had arrived Nassau in the Bahamas on a vacation, the winter following the radio detective episode."

~ Craig Kennedy:

  "You're as fine a gentleman as ever scuttled a ship or cut a throat!"

~ Ken Adams:

  "It looks as if one of the party was double-crossing the others."

~ Erickson:

  "Captain Duval was—murdered!"

~ Harry Davison:

  ". . . had embarked in his father's two-hundred-foot power yacht, Diving Belle, on a treasure hunt with two chums of his college fraternity . . ."

~ Nanette Duval:

  "The girl's eyes flashed dangerously as she spoke."

~ Guy Duval:

  "I tried to be good and brave . . ."

~ Coralie Adams:

  "In her hand was a copy of the same wireless that had come to us."

~ Captain Ray:

  "No good will ever come of that treasure hunt!"

~ Bob Barrett:

  "To our surprise we saw that he was swathed in bandages."

~ Burleigh:

  "It was Burleigh who had organized and engineered the treasure hunt . . ."

~ Colwell:

  "You see, we have a wonderful deep-sea diving outfit which will enable us to go down even fifty fathoms, three hundred feet . . ."

References and resources:

- "Nassau in the Bahamas": Tourists seem to love it:

  "The city's proximity to the United States (290 km east-southeast of Miami, Florida) has contributed to its popularity as a holiday resort, especially after the United States imposed a ban on travel to Cuba in 1963. The Atlantis resort on nearby Paradise Island accounts for more tourist arrivals to the city than any other hotel property of Nassau. The mega-resort employs over 6,000 Bahamians, and is the largest employer outside government" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "these here rum-runners": It wasn't all fun and games when it came to evading the 18th Amendment (in force from 1919 to 1933), but it could be lucrative:

  "At the start, the rum-runner fleet consisted of a ragtag flotilla of fishing boats, such as the schooner Nellie J. Banks, excursion boats, and small merchant craft. As prohibition wore on, the stakes got higher and the ships became larger and more specialized. The rum-runners were definitely faster and more maneuverable. Add to that the fact that a rum-running captain could make several hundred thousand dollars a year. In comparison, the Commandant of the Coast Guard made just $6,000 annually, and seamen made $30/week. These huge rewards meant the rum-runners were willing to take big risks. They ran without lights at night and in fog, risking life and limb" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "a land haunted by memories of buccaneers—Blackbeard, Teach, a host of other scurrilous old worthies": The more flamboyant the criminal, it seems, the more people remember him:

  "Buccaneers were a kind of privateers or free sailors peculiar to the Caribbean Sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. First established on northern Hispaniola as early as 1625, their heyday was from the Restoration in 1660 until about 1688, during a time when governments were not strong enough and did not consistently attempt to suppress them" (Wikipedia HERE).

  "Edward Teach (alternatively spelled Edward Thatch, c. 1680 – 22 November 1718), better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain's North American colonies. Teach was a shrewd and calculating leader who spurned the use of violence, relying instead on his fearsome image to elicit the response that he desired from those whom he robbed. He was romanticized after his death and became the inspiration for an archetypal pirate in works of fiction across many genres" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "the difficult process of reconstructing the faces of human beings": Still being used today:

  "Forensic facial reconstruction (or forensic facial approximation) is the process of recreating the face of an individual (whose identity is often not known) from their skeletal remains through an amalgamation of artistry, anthropology, osteology, and anatomy. It is easily the most subjective—as well as one of the most controversial—techniques in the field of forensic anthropology. Despite this controversy, facial reconstruction has proved successful frequently enough that research and methodological developments continue to be advanced" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "A star shell!": Let there be light:

  "Typically illumination flares burn for about 60 seconds. These are also known as starshell or star shell" (Wikipedia HERE).

- Arthur Reeve teamed his well-known scientific detective Craig Kennedy with Ken Adams, evidently to appeal to a younger demographic, in eight adventures in Boys' Life in 1923-24 (FictionMags data):

  (1) "Craig Kennedy, Radio Detective" (serial), Boys’ Life, October 1923, etc.

  (2) "Deep Sea Treasure" (short story), Boys’ Life, January 1924 (above)

  (3) "A Son of the North Woods" (short story), Boys’ Life, February 1924

  (4) "The Polar Flight of ZR-10" (short story), Boys’ Life, March 1924

  (5) "The Honor System" (short story), Boys’ Life, May 1924

  (6) "The Return of the Bon Homme Richard" (short story), Boys’ Life, July 1924

  (7) "The Ghost Chase" (short story), Boys’ Life, September 1924

  (8) "The Voice in the Dark" (serial), Boys’ Life, November 1924, etc.

- Our latest contact with one of Arthur Benjamin Reeve's stories was "The Curio Shop" (HERE). You might also enjoy Reeve's nonfictional article, "In Defense of the Detective Story," which we highlighted (HERE); the offsite link still seems to work.

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"Most Famous Detectives in Fiction"

HERE'S AN ARTICLE from the mid-1920s that in its own limited way highlights the zeitgeist with respect to detective fiction. You'll find the usual suspects, but also the occasional oddball that you may never have heard of:

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Farjeon's First Foray

EVERYBODY has to start someplace:

~ The Master Criminal review, T. P.'s and Cassell's Weekly, May 10, 1924 (HERE) ~

Resource:

- The GAD Wiki has a listing for Farjeon (HERE).

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"R.L.S. and the Detective"

HERE'S AN ANECDOTE about Robert Louis Stevenson, still regarded as one of the best writers in English. Although he produced some crime fiction (yes, pirates are a criminal organization), we learn here that while he never wanted to commit to a formal detective story, he was capable of reasoning like a detective fiction author:

~ From T. P.'s Weekly, June 23, 1905 (HERE) ~

Resource:

- A few years ago we highlighted a thesis about R.L.S.'s "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (HERE).

"I Began To Know a New All-time High of Being Scared"

"Insight."

By Manly Wade Wellman (1903-86).

Illustration by H. W. Wesso (1894-1948; HERE).

First appearance: Dynamic Science Stories, April-May 1939.

Reprints page (HERE).

Short short story (9 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

     "He melted down like a snow man in a heavy thaw."

Funny how almost getting murdered can put a guy on a new career path . . . .

Principal characters:

~ Sam:

  "Something was due to break loose any second, and I'd be in the thick of it."

~ Marjorie:

  ". . . was shrinking back on the settee, her mouth open as if she was trying to scream."

~ Miss Wheatland:

  ". . . the old-maid school teacher, austere but loveable, who was bringing two young sweethearts together . . ."

~ Dillard Harpe:

  ". . . was so close to me that he could have reached out and grabbed me."

~ The chief of detectives:

  "I still don't see how you managed it. All I can call it is insight."

References and resources:

- "Grant's Tomb": That's what everybody calls it:

  "Grant's Tomb, officially the General Grant National Memorial, is the final resting place of Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States, and his wife, Julia Grant. It is a classical domed mausoleum in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. The structure is in the middle of Riverside Drive at 122nd Street, across from Riverside Church to the southeast and Riverside Park to the west" (Wikipedia HERE).

- "a movie serial": An ingenious way to bring audiences back to the theater next week:

  "Each chapter was screened at a movie theater for one week, and ended with a cliffhanger, in which characters found themselves in perilous situations with little apparent chance of escape. Viewers had to return each week to see the cliffhangers resolved and to follow the continuing story. Movie serials were especially popular with children, and for many youths in the first half of the 20th century a typical Saturday matinee at the movies included at least one chapter of a serial, along with animated cartoons, newsreels, and two feature films" (Wikipedia HERE).

- X-ray vision: It's a venerable SFFnal plot device that's been around for centuries; see Wikipedia (HERE) and TV Tropes (HERE).

- Manly Wade Wellman produced decades of high-quality SFFnal writing; see Wikipedia (HERE), the SFE (HERE), the Project Gutenberg collection (HERE), the IMDb (HERE; 6 credits), and the ISFDb (HERE).

- We've met up with Wellman before: "But Our Hero Was Not Dead" (HERE) and "Murder in Silhouette" (HERE).

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"I Don't Care What the Evidence Is, If I Don't See the Motive I'm Not Happy"

"The Man Who Shot at Cats."

By J. Jefferson Farjeon (1883-1955).

First appearance: MacKill's Mystery Magazine, September 1952.

Short short story (5 pages).

Online at Fadedpage (HERE) and Archive.org (HERE).

     "He was dead as a doornail. Shot through the heart."

So, is the prime suspect simply non compos in his mentis, or was there a lot more to it?

Main characters:

~ The superintendent:

  "How many more times am I to tell you? If this is going to be a murder charge, I want the motive."

~ Ellington:

  "And I don't care what the motive is, if I see the evidence, I'm content. This is what we've got on him, and it's enough for me."

~ The sergeant:

  "Wonderful how a search warrant helps, sir."

~ Smith:

  ". . . saw someone sitting at the open window just below—namely, Wilfred Ablett . . ."

~ Ablett:

  "Just the momentary gleam of something in Ablett's hand. We know now that it was a revolver."

~ Baines:

  "All I can tell you is that he had a small bag, a cough, and an American accent, that he gave his name as George Baines, and that he paid a month's rent in advance."

Typos: "the poor devils last entry"; multiple punctuation infractions.

References and resources:

- "from Burma": During World War II the British were determined to hold on to all of their colonies regardless of who threatened to take them away, in this instance the Japanese Empire:

  "The Burma campaign was a series of battles fought in the British colony of Burma. It was part of the South-East Asian theatre of World War II and primarily involved forces of the Allies; the British Empire and the Republic of China, with support from the United States. They faced against the invading forces of Imperial Japan, who were supported by the Thai Phayap Army, as well as two collaborationist independence movements and armies, the first being the Burma Independence Army, which spearheaded the initial attacks against the country" (Wikipedia HERE).

  "his chronic neuroticism": The Burma campaign had strong psychological effects on the Europeans who were fighting it, since they weren't used to those kinds of conditions:

  "The campaign had a number of notable features. The geographical characteristics of the region meant that weather, disease and terrain had a major effect on operations" (Wikipedia, op.cit.); also see Wikipedia (HERE and HERE).

- "cracked a crib in Canada": "obsolete: To burglarize, especially a home; break into a house. British informal" (The Free Dictionary HERE).

- Joseph Jefferson Farjeon was fairly prolific; see Wikipedia (HERE), the GAD Wiki (HERE), the Faded Page collection (HERE), and the IMDb (HERE; 16 credits).

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