One Drop of Blood - Cornell Woolrich

Name of the story: One Drop of Blood

Author: Cornell Woolrich

Source: The Ten Faces of Cornell Woolrich

Story Number: 11

The story ‘One Drop of Blood’ was the winner of the first prize in EQMM’s thirteenth international contest (1961). This story is a fitting example of the inverted detective story as pioneered by Austin Freeman where the reader follows from the beginning the plan and execution of the murder by the culprit. The second part of the story deals with how the police catch the criminal with a clue left behind or with a mistake which the murderer hadn’t anticipated.

The Crime: Corrine is madly in love with the narrator. She wants to marry him but he is not interested in marriage. Over a period of time, he starts getting involved with another girl and gets engaged to her, as a result of which he ends up spending less & less time with Corrine. One night, Corrine invites him to her new house to reveal the fact that she is carrying his baby. In a fit of rage, he gets hold of a sword available in the house and slashes her up which turns the walls into a tapestry of red. He successfully disposes of the body without anyone noticing him; he buys paints & brushes from the nearest hardware store and over several days, paints the walls to completely get rid of the blood spots. He also discards all the other articles (carpet, chair cushions, table, lampshade etc) in the house which could’ve given away the fact that a murder had occurred in that house.

The Detection: The police take him in for questioning when they find the body, many witnesses identify him, they find traces of blood on all his articles, they get the remains of the paint cans & brush handles, they know for a fact that there was a crime and it was committed by him, they have placed him in the vicinity of the house but they can’t place the crime itself in that house as there’s absolutely no sign of blood anywhere – all they need is a drop of blood. All the police techniques fail to get them the answers they need and they release him from custody.

He thinks he has finally escaped and goes ahead with his marriage plans but only a few days later, he is arrested by the police for the murder. They take him to that house and show as evidence that one drop of blood which he and the whole police force had missed over all those days of effort to find it!

The Perfect Murder - Jeffrey Archer

Name of the story: The Perfect Murder

Author: Jeffrey Archer

Source: A Twist In The Tale

Story Number: 10

Jeffrey Archer doesn’t need any introduction. Along with his bestselling novels, he is also a wonderful writer of short stories. His first three collections ‘A Quiver Full Of Arrows’, ‘A Twist In The Tale’ & ‘Twelve Red Herrings’ are a treat for any reader, which encompasses stories across all genres, each with a wonderful twist which the reader wouldn’t have anticipated. Somehow for me, his three recent collections didn’t leave up to the same expectations as the earlier three. I’m picking the first story from his second collection ‘A Twist in the Tale’ as it includes all the typical characteristics of an Archer story with an added bonus of the courtroom drama.

The story starts off with the narrator expressing surprise that his mistress Carla had slept with another man. One evening, Carla calls him and asks him not to come to her house as she is going off to her sister’s place, which he doesn’t believe. When he does go to her house to check up on this, he observes Carla engaging another man. After watching the man kiss Carla and leave her house in a BMW after tearing up the parking ticket, the narrator confronts Carla and in the heat of exchanging words, he hits her on the jaw and walks out. What he doesn’t realize till the next day is the fact that this blow proved fatal for Carla. When the police declare that they are looking for a murderer, he puts in an anonymous call and gives the description of the other man who was with Carla. The police track this man through the parking ticket that was issued and charges him for Carla’s murder.

The second part of the story is the trial of the accused with our narrator taking a very keen interest in the proceedings. But in those six months leading to the trial, he has had a terrible time, looking over his shoulder all the time, every telephone ring or the door bell sending shivers down his spine, his work life deteriorating to such an extent that he gets fired.  Being unemployed end up as a blessing in disguise as he is able to attend the court proceedings everyday and watch the trail of the man whom he has accused for his own crime. In spite of a gritty performance from the defense lawyer, the case against the accused looks hopeless. Will an innocent man go the chair? Has our hero committed a perfect crime? The end of the tale reveals a cunning twist which the reader can anticipate (but few will) as all the required clues have been fairly presented in the second half of the story.

No Comebacks - Frederick Forsyth

Name of the story: No Comebacks

Author: Frederick Forsyth

Source: No Comebacks

Story Number: 9

Frederick Forsyth is probably most famous for his novel ‘The Day Of The Jackal’ which won the Edgar for the best novel in 1972. He has a number of other noteworthy novels to his credit but his short story collection is rarely spoken off. It contains 10 skillfully plotted stories with an ultimate twist in the end. I pick the title story in the collection as this suits best my definition of a fine story.

Mark Sanderson is one of the richest bachelors in London who has the habit of eventually getting whatever he wants. He always wanted to have only one woman as his wife but that lady is married to another man and stays in another country. A chance meeting ignites his passion for her, he courts her for a week and ends up proposing to her when she is about to leave for Spain, which the lady politely declines saying that her husband in Spain needs her more than he needs her. She agrees that she would marry him had it not been for her husband.

After brooding over for weeks, he decides that she has to be his wife and this obsession with the lady turns into madness and what follows is a detailed plot to assassinate the husband. He first hires a detective agency to learn every detail about his intended victim, gets a new house for himself under an assumed name, does research to find a mercenary team in England, through the team in England he hires a top notch assassin from another country so that the assassin doesn’t identify the very famous personality that he is in London, all breathtakingly told in the same style as the jackal who plots the assignation of the French president in the famous novel. The assassin then has to think off a way to smuggle a gun into Spain and he finally carries out his execution successfully at the end of 3 weeks. The killer and the client meet for the final payment and there in the last line of the story, the client gets the biggest jolt of his life as does the reader!

The Mystery Of The Five Hundred Diamonds - Robert Barr

Name: The Mystery Of The Five Hundred Diamonds

Author: Robert Barr

Source: The Triumphs Of Eugene Valmont (Queen’s Quorum title #35). This book (along with other works) is available on Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19369

Story Number: 8

Robert Barr wrote only 8 stories featuring Valmont, all collected in ‘The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont’. Some critics consider Valmont to be the forerunner of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot. Out of these eight, ‘The Absent-Minded Coterie’ has been rated by critics as one of the great detective stories of the early days. However, I chose the story in which Valmont debuts, though it’s not exactly a triumph for Valmont.

The French government has come into the possession of a very rich necklace, a necklace consisting of around 500 diamonds in various sizes and shapes. Because of its history of having exerted a malign influence over everyone who had the misfortune to be connected with it, the French decide to sell it to the highest bidder. The duty of protecting the necklace from falling into the wrong hands and also to protect the individual who will buy that necklace is bestowed upon Valmont, the chief detective to the French Government. On the day of the sale, the city of Paris is not only playing host to some of the wealthiest gentlemen from Britain & America but also to the cleverest thieves from the two continents.

The elaborate groundwork laid done by Valmont and his team to identify the most likely buyer and the most likely person to attempt the theft turn out be inadequate as we learn from the turn of events. An American easily outbids the others by quoting an exorbitant amount and immediately hands over a cheque and requests to take possession of the necklace. The French police have no idea who this gentleman is, they have no clue as to how exactly the man is trying to swindle as the cheque is cleared and the money is transferred over. The American has an accomplice in the audience who holds up everyone in that room at gunpoint so that the American can get a head start of five minutes, at the end of which, he himself vanishes.

What follows is an elaborate hunt to catch the mastermind of this daring scheme in which the mastermind is always one step ahead of the entire police force. It is not until this man reaches the American shores and sends across a detailed letter addressed to the French police do they understand how exactly this whole plan was carried out.

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.