The Problem of Cell 13 - Jacques Futrelle

Name: The Problem of Cell 13

Author: Jacques Futrelle

Source: The Thinking Machine (Queen’s Quorum Title #38). It’s available in numerous anthologies. Jacques Futrelle’s complete output of stories can be read online from this site: http://www.futrelle.com/

Story Number: 7

Going through some of the most memorable stories that I’ve ever encountered for my blog these past few days, it’s hard to neglect one of the greatest creations in the annals of detective fiction - Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph. D., LL. D., F. R. S., M. D., or simply ‘The Thinking Machine’. Hence this story finds it way in even though it’s one of the most anthologized stories. This story was also included in the list of the 12 best detective stories ever written - as adjudged by a distinguished panel of mystery authors.

To prove that one can achieve anything by simply applying one’s mind to it, the professor accepts a challenge from his friends that he can escape from a prison cell within 7 days. He enters the cell No. 13 with only 3 special requests: that his shoes should be polished, that he be provided with tooth-powder and 25 dollars (2 notes of 10 dollars and 1 note of 5 dollars). The only escape routes would have to be the window which has been barred by iron bars or walk through 7 doors.

On the second day of his stay, he hurls a small piece of cloth with a message on it with a 5 dollar note. The next day, another similar message is hurtled out of the window with another 5 dollar bill. This calls for a detailed search of the prison cell – no trace of a writing device is found and neither can they account for the extra 5 dollar note. Next, one of the prisoners in cell 43(2 floors above cell 13) confesses to the murder he has committed and begs to be moved to another cell as he has been hearing strange voices in the room – the main cause for worry being the word ‘Acid’ as he had killed a woman by throwing acid on her face. The next thing which troubles the warden is the invitation to dinner from the professor which reaches via the mail. On the final night, the arc light in the yard is blown out which calls for bringing in the electricians from outside and serves as the perfect distraction for the professor to escape. Over dinner on that 7^th night, the professor explains to his friends, the warden and the jailer as to how he went about planning his escape from the locked-room and succeeded.

A Study In White - Nicholas Blake

Name of the story: A Study In White

Author: Nicholas Blake

Source: The Quintessence of Queen #2

Story Number: 6

The collection ‘The Quintessence of Queen #2’ has 10 of the best prize stories from the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine as selected by Anthony Boucher. Nicholas Blake was the pseudonym of Cecil Day Lewis, an English poet who wrote twenty novels of mystery and detection, most of them featuring his series sleuth Nigel Strangeways, his two most famous whodunits being ‘Thou Shell Of Death’ & ‘The Beast Must Die’.

Half of the mystery novels that I read end up in disappointment as the author has not played fair and provided all the vital clues required for the reader to arrive at the solution. There are some novels where the whole solution hinges on ONE solid clue or word. This short story certainly doesn’t belong in that category, for it has not one, not two, but EIGHT significant clues to point to the murderer. The reader might catch one or two or even three of them but it needs a very clever one to figure out the murderer even in spite of being provided with such abundant clues.

Most of the action takes place within a single compartment comprising of 6 passengers on a night train from London which gets stalled in a blizzard. The conversation in this car happens to deal mainly with a train robbery which was committed just a few days back. Among the six passengers, we have one investigator by the name of Stansfield, one person who had travelled on the same train on the day of the robbery (Arthur) and one person who is certainly the mastermind of that robbery.  When the passengers of the train are patiently waiting for the relieving engine to be sent so that it can take the train back to the previous station, a mild quarrel erupts in this compartment. Arthur hastily gets down giving an indication that he had rather go to a nearby village to put in a call. The other passengers are seen alighting and coming back to the car at various intervals. When Arthur doesn’t turn up, Stansfield goes in search of him towards the village and finds him dead with his mouth and nose stuffed tight with snow. He comes back to the compartment and gets the testimony of his 4 fellow passengers along with inputs from the train’s driver, the guard and a sleepy passenger in the last compartment who looks like he might have been the last person to see the dead man alive. When the train reaches the station, the investigator and an inspector immediately arrest the guilty party. The story is halted here to pose a challenge to the reader to identify the culprit. The further sections explain the solution to the problem with the help of the 8 clues embedded in the story.

The Case of The Horizontal Trajectory - Josef Skvorecky

Name of the story: The Case of The Horizontal Trajectory

Author: Josef Skvorecky

Source: The Mournful Demeanour of Lieutenant Boruvka: Detective Tales

Story Number: 5

Josef Skvorecky, a Czechoslovakian author died in Canada yesterday at the age of 87. So I’m taking a detour from my scheduled list and am featuring this story as a tribute to this author.

4 story collections from this Czechoslovakian author are of paramount importance to the detective fiction genre. He devoted an entire collection of stories to breaking the decalogue rules of detective fiction set up by Ronald Knox in his seminal work ’Sins for Father Knox’. The other three collections are more traditional and he blends the travails of a family man, matters of the heart and glimpses of life in Czechoslovakia during the grim war time into intricately plotted detective stories. The Mournful Demeanour consists of four intricately plotted locked room or impossible crime mysteries along with 8 more stories. I’ve picked the more traditional locked room mystery of the lot for this post.

An 85 year old woman is found dead inside a locked room with a knife having pierced her eye and the death resulting more due to the shock at her age than the knife wound. The woman is found on her back with one hand on the wall as though she was trying to reach for the switch on the wall to turn off the light. The other hand is pointing to the window which is quite far away from her bed as though indicating that the fatal knife was hurled through that window. And there is a strange man (the neighbor) who is peering in through the window as though checking whether the knife thrust was successful. This is the scene which confronts Lt. Boruvka of the Prague police when he enters the room after the locked door is forced open. No one could have escaped from the room as several witnesses were stationed right outside the door when the old lady utters her last gasp.

The only likely source for the knife looks like the open window but Boruvka, even without doing the math knows that the possibility of throwing such a hard object from such a far off distance and hitting the eye looks high unlikely. In order to prove his theory, he provides all the required parameters to his daughter with the mathematical formula required to arrive at the solution (force required to fire a bullet which weights half a KG) as a punishment for one her infractions. He knows very well that her daughter doesn’t have the skills to solve but he is hoping that she would take this problem to her professor and get it solved from him, which she does. The solution coincides with his thought process that it wasn’t practical.

So how exactly was the murder committed? Who is the culprit? Lt. Boruvka solves it by applying the process of logical deduction and the principle of human nature to arrive at a most satisfactory conclusion.

The Hands of Mr. Ottermole - Thmoas Burke

Name of the story: The Hands of Mr. Ottermole

Author: Thomas Burke

Source: 101 Years of Entertainment: The great detective stories of over a century edited by Ellery Queen

Story Number: 4

My three previous posts have covered my favorite author, the story that started it all and my favorite short story collection by a single author. Next in line would be the best anthology read. 101 years of Entertainment, a compendium of 50 stories containing close to 1000 pages, selected by the duo of Ellery Queen as the best fifty tales to commemorate the 100 years of the publication of the first detective story would unarguably go down in history as the best of its kind.

The short story ‘The Hands of Mr. Ottermole’ by Thomas Burke, published for the first time in 1931, was picked as one of the 12 best detective short stories (or was it the best?) ever written by a very distinguished panel of mystery authors and in the introduction to this story in the collection, Ellery Queen has this to say about it “No finer crime story has ever been written, period.” And to this I can only say, Amen!

There are numerous novels about serial killers but how many short stories have been able to incorporate the theme of serial killer and multiple murders? A man with white hair and large white hands is terrorizing the streets of London by strangling people with no rhyme or reason. First victim is a man, second is a child and the third victim is a policeman, the fourth is a family of three and the fifth is the journalist who deduces who the murderer is! By the end of the story, the London Strangling Horrors account for 5 attacks with 7 victims, all having the characteristics of no motive, no pattern in the picking of victims and carried out right under the noses of the police force, accentuate the evocation of atmosphere and terror to its spine chilling best. This story can also boast of one other achievement – it conceals the identity of the murderer most cleverly by parading him right in front of the reader’s eyes, all the time. 

Unreasonable Doubt - Stanley Ellin

Name of the story: Unreasonable Doubt

Author: Stanley Ellin

Source: The Blessing Method and Other Stories. Also collected in ‘The Specialty Of The House’ (the complete mystery tales of Stanley Ellin).

Story Number: 3

The stories by Stanley Ellin are not detective stories and sometimes they might not even be eligible to be called as a mystery story but most of his stories have crime as its central theme with an exquisite plot exposing the dark side of the human mind to its ultimate best with a twist ending to boot. The complete collection to me is the best short story collection of stories from a single author. Not everyone would like his stories but if not for anything, they are worth reading for studying the art of the twist ending in crime literature. Anthony Boucher gave the best description for these stories when he acclaimed them as ‘subtle masterpieces’.

Stanley Ellin has won the Edgar for the Best Short Story of the year twice, 4 more have been shortlisted for Edgar and his short story ‘The Specialty of The House’ has been deemed the best ‘first mystery short story’ in modern times by Ellery Queen.

I’ve picked one of my personal favorite stories for today’s blog entry. In the story ‘Unreasonable Doubt’, Mr. Willoughby has been asked to take a vacation by his doctor as his only malady is with his mind – he just can’t stop thinking of problems. A vacation where he can fill his mind with nothing but idle talk, relieve his mind to such an extent that he shouldn’t even try a crossword puzzle. He has just started on the train journey and he is confronted with a legal problem when he becomes too involved in overhearing his club car companion’s narration of a defense lawyer’s most spectacular case which runs like this:

Ben and Orville are two brothers who are patiently waiting for their uncle to die so that they can enjoy his wealth. Not wanting to wait for too long, they decide to take the matter into their own hands, they study the law and come up with a novel way to murder their uncle and get away with it. Ben is arrested for his uncle’s murder and Ben requests the defense lawyer to just put Orville on the stand as his case for the defense. Orville confesses to killing his uncle on the witness stand and the jury has no option but to return a verdict of not guilty. Soon, Orville is charged with the murder and this time Ben confesses to the murder of his uncle on the witness stand and the jury again returns a verdict of not guilty. Both men being acquitted by juries cannot be tried for the same offence again. Neither can they be indicted together for conspiracy to murder. So the question posed by the listeners is whether these two committed a perfect crime? The defense lawyer answers that there was a surprise and that they didn’t get away with murder! How? Therein lays the smashing twist in the tale. J

After Twenty Years - O. Henry

Name: After Twenty Years

Author: O. Henry (William Sidney Porter)

Book: The Four Million – this book is available from project Gutenberg. The short story can also be read online from this location http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/636/

Story Number: 2

It’s time to go back to my childhood days where it all started. Everyone has that one story or one book which they come across in their earlier years which has such an impact on the mind that it turns them into a lover of books for life. For me that book turned out to be ‘The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe’. And the short story (which happens to be the only one that I remember from all those 10 years of school education) which made me a fan of the short story format happens to be O. Henry’s After Twenty Years. This story was featured in our 10^th grade English textbook. And the author needs no introduction as I would believe every literate man on this planet would have come across one of his stories in some form or the other.

Bob & Jimmy, two very close friends decide to go their separate ways to make their fortune in the world. While Jimmy stays back in New York, Bob decides to go to the west. But before they do that, they come to an understanding to meet exactly 20 years later. The story starts after these twenty years have elapsed. A policeman is doing the rounds of the city making sure that everything is in order on his beat. He meets Bob in the doorway of a darkened hardware store. Bob quickly explains his reason for lurking there – he tells the policeman his story about his appointment with his best friend and the policeman continues on his beat after hearing Bob’s story. After sometime, Bob is joined by another gentleman who enquires him whether he is Bob? Thinking that it is his friend Jimmy, they exchange pleasantries and continue to walk arm in arm to go to a place which they knew as young men so that they can catch up on all the lost years.

When they reach a corner where there’s abundant light, both gentlemen get a chance to look at each other’s face and Bob immediately complains that the other person is not his friend. The other gentleman informs him that he has been under arrest for some time and hands over a note to Bob. The note is from his buddy Jimmy and it tells him that he indeed kept the appointment at the intended time and place and that he recognized Bob as a wanted man in Chicago and hence not having the heart to arrest him (as Jimmy is the patrolman on duty) requested a plain clothes man to do the job for him. If one goes back and reads the story again, one can see the clues cleverly planted just like in a detective story to anticipate the twist ending. This story for me is a model of succinct technique.

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The New Invisble Man - John Dickson Carr

Name: The New Invisible Man

Author: John Dickson Carr

Source: 1. The Department of Queer Complaints 2. Merrivale, March & Murder

Story Number: 1

To officially start my crusade of exploring the detective short story, it is only apt to start with my favorite author John Dickson Carr. He is the ‘Miracle’ problem specialist, an exponent of one of the most fascinating gambit in crime literature- the Locked Room! A vivid imagination, scrupulous fairness to the reader, a lingering supernatural atmosphere with a locked room or impossible crime as its central theme form the ingredients of most of his books(and stories) to serve the reader with a wonderful recipe for murder and plays the ‘Grandest Game in The World’ like a true world champion.

Carr was one of the most versatile authors of detective fiction: with 4 series characters, numerous novels, short stories, radio plays, classic crime stories & historical mysteries, it’s very difficult to pick one favorite short story. With one of my aims being to cover stories from the Queen’s Quorum titles, I decided to settle on a story from his first collection of short stories ‘The Department of Queer Complaints’, Queen Quorum title # 94. There are 11 tales in this book out of which 7 feature Colonel March, the head of the Scotland Yard Department to handle “complaints which do not seem to bear the light of the day or reason”. Picking 1 out of the 11 proved not too easy a task because of the high caliber of each story. I wanted to feature ‘The Other Hangman’ which Carr himself considered as having one of his best plots (Thanks Douglas G Greene for the info) wherein he goes on to reveal how a man was paid to commit a ‘legal’ murder and get away with it. But then, I can’t really discuss the story without giving away the plot. Hence my choice for today, the first story to feature Colonel March – The New Invisible Man.

Horace Rodham approaches Scotland Yard to report a murder that he witnessed in the Hartley’s residence through his second floor room window which happens to be exactly opposite to the 2^nd floor room of the Hartley’s. He is directed to March’s room because of the strange circumstances of the crime: A man wearing white cotton gloves and a pistol is seen entering the Hartley’s room. He places the gloves and the gun on the top of the round table which has been placed in the centre of the room. He approaches the window, opens one of the panels, pokes his head out and gives a shrill hoot as a signal. 2 gunshots are fired from the gun on the table but no person is seen holding the gun and neither is there any other human presence in the room. The first shot takes down the man near the window; the second shot drills a hole in the window of the Hartley residence and gets lodged in a lamp in Rodham’s room almost killing him in the process. A few minutes later, when Rodham & a policeman enter the Hartley’s house, they don’t see any sign of a body and there’s no bullet hole in the window even though Rodham has the bullet in his hand to prove that a bullet was fired from this room.

Colonel March, in addition to the details provided by Rodham about the events and the description of the room, needs clarification to only 2 points to solve the problem: did the round table have three legs? How many doors did that room have?  The solution, which is made to look like a piece of cake, is like unraveling a magic trick and should delight anyone who loves them.