Somebody On The Phone - Cornell Woolrich

Story: Somebody On The Phone

Author: Cornell Woolrich

Source: The Ten Faces of Cornell Woolrich

Story Number: 81

Ken and his sister Jean are from a well to do family and are staying together. Jean admonishes Ken from picking up the phone – he has been noticing that there are many calls coming in to their house which follow a pattern – 5 rings, stop and then 5 rings again. Ken thinks it’s a secret code being employed by one of Jean’s male companions. A few days later, he is shocked to notice that his check has bounced from their joint account. He comes to know from the banker that Jean cleared out all the money a day earlier. Ken confronts his sister by asking her to name the person who is blackmailing her. He also tells her that he has noticed her being in conversation with a bookie and his doubt that it’s this bookie who is calling her with the 5 rings pattern. Hearing all this, his sister closes the door on him and commits suicide.

To seek revenge, he tracks down the bookie. After talking to him, it is clear to Ken that the bookie was indeed expecting Jean to turn up and that too with loads of money. With the firm belief that it is the booker who was responsible for his sister's death, he takes out a gun and shoots the bookie in the same fashion as the rings – 5, stop and 5 more bullets. But when he comes back home, he is in for a very big surprise!

The Contradictory Case - Hugh Pentecost

Story: The Contradictory Case

Author: Hugh Pentecost

Source: The Quintessence of Queen #2

Story Number: 80

Hugh Pentecost was a prodigious author who created a number of series detectives: Luke Bradley, Dr. John Smith, Lt. Pascal, Pierre Chambrun, Uncle George, John Jericho, Julian Quist.

The story kicks off with Lieutenant Pascal interrogating one of the witnesses in a murder case at the scene of the crime. Eddie has confessed to killing Sam Lorrimer. Eddie was in the habit of takings bets from Sam for a Times Square bookmaker. After losing his bets for 50 dollars on each of the seven days, he puts a $ 1000 bet on a horse which came in at twenty-to-one. But Eddie doesn't pass on the bet to the bookmaker and the horse ends up winning. Lt. Pascal doesn't believe that this is a motive for murder even though the victim was found with a betting slip clutched in his hand. He punches a lot of holes in Eddie's confession and proves to him as to why he couldn't have killed Sam. This opens up the channel that he was trying to protect someone - which turns out to be a girl who would have checked in to the hotel at exactly the same time as Sam.

Eddie builds up a convincing story where he shows the girl couldn't have killed Sam. Pascal again punches a lot of holes in his story and breaks her alibi. But Eddie justifies that if he being only 5 feet tall couldn't have killed the 6 feet 5 inches tall giant, then so didn't the girl who is much smaller than him.

"It begins with a bet that wasn't a bet. A coincidence that wasn't a coincidence. Then we had a murderer who didn't kill anybody. Then we have an alibi that isn't an alibi," observes Pascal and goes onto unravel this puzzling case in a most emphatic manner.

The Other Side of The Curtain - Helen McCloy

Story: The Other Side of The Curtain

Author: Helen McCloy

Source: The Quintessence of Queen #2

Story Number: 79

Letty Jason, for the last eight months, has been experiencing a dream which always ends in the same manner - she approaches a curtain hanging across the passage, blocking her way. She doesn't part the curtain and see what's on the other side; she feels terrified at this point and wakes herself up as she is fully aware of the fact  that she is dreaming while she is in the act of dreaming. The doctor to whom she has come with this problem asks her to part the curtain in her dream and see what's on the other side - he tells her that a great fear in her wakening life is manifesting itself as a curtain in her dream and the only strange thing about her dream is the fact that she is always aware that she is dreaming. He also tells her that at some point of time she will lose the ability to wake herself up during the dream.

Not finding the doctors words to be of much use, she ignores his advice. The next dream she encounters follows an entirely different but horrific pattern. She is accused and arrested by the police for poisoning Olivia Jason, the first wife to her husband Ralph Jason. Olivia was a cripple and hence she couldn't have gone to the chemist to buy the eye drops which contained atropine. Also, the police point out that there was no real reason to buy the eye drops as neither Olivia nor Letty suffered any eye problem. The dream continues with a vivid court room drama  where every single evidence points to her as the guilty party. Her husband convinces her that the last alternative would be to say that she bought the medicine for him for his eye problem. She pleads with the defense lawyer to put her husband on the witness stand but when he does so, her husband completely repudiates the testimony! And then the reality strikes her that it was indeed Ralph who murdered Olivia. Just on the verge of being convicted by the jury, she is in a dilemma whether to wake herself up or go through the entire dream, she wonders whether the words of the doctor has come true so quickly that she has lost the ability to wake herself up! How does the story end? One is in for a rude shock - there is a cunning but masterful twist to the whole saga after the impending horror has been built up; which turns the story upside down and leaves the reader gasping for breath.

Chance After Chance - Thomas Walsh

Theme for the Week: Edgar Winners

Story: Chance After Chance

Author: Thomas Walsh

Source: The Edgar Winners.

Story Number: 78

He was just known as the Padre. He has been thrown out of the church for various transgressions. In his fifties, his only indulgence is whiskey - he is seen drinking from 7 in the night till 3 in the morning in the Harrington's. He is surprised when his friend Jack invites him for dinner to meet two of his friends.

Over several whiskies, the host and his two friends come to know of several vows which the Padre had broken during his tenure of service for the Roman Catholic Church. Knowing that he still has his priest's shirt and a roman collar, they put forth a proposal to the Padre. To appear in his capacity as a Padre to hear the confession of a dying man who had robbed a bank. This man has just been recently released from prison, he is the sole survivor of the gang which attempted the robbery and he hasn't revealed the whereabouts of the loot to anyone. The three friends suspect that he would confess this information to a Father on his deathbed and they want him to pass on the location of the loot to them. The Padre accepts to listen to the confession even though he knows in his mind that this is the only vow which he hasn't broken.

The three friends corner the Padre after he emerges from the dying man's house. The Padre refuses to part with the information that they want, he says that he was moved and completely transformed when the dying man saw him with such reverence and respect.  This forces the three of them to take the Padre to a cliff edge and threaten him with his life. Will he consent to share the loot with them as a co-conspirator? Will he just give them the information that they want without being a privy to the retrieval of the dirty money and break the vow he has never broken? Or will he able to think of a way to escape?

The Blessington Method - Stanley Ellin

Theme for the Week: Edgar Winners

Story: The Blessington Method

Author: Stanley Ellin

Source: The Blessington Method and Other Strange Tales, The Edgar Winners.

Story Number: 77

Stanley Ellin won his first Edgar for The House Party in 1954. His second Edgar was for the Blessington Method in 1956.

Stanley Ellin, in his stories, is known for making some of the most outrageously bizarre things seem utterly plausible and no other story qualifies for this distinction than the Blessington Method.

'The Society of Gerontology' in the story has come up with a solution for one of the  most plagued maladies of human society - the old age and the problems concerning it. The problem: What do we do with aged people who become a burden for their children and grandchildren? Solution: Murder them in such a way that it looks like an accident which no one would investigate. The method used for this purpose: The Blessington Method.

The four fold process of the Method:                                                                           

The first step: Accepting that there is a problem(that the presence of an aged person in the house is an unwanted burden). The second step: The realization that no matter which way you turn there seems to be no logical or practical solution. The Third Step: The individual realizes that it is not the presence of the aged subject which creates the problem, but his existence. The fourth step: Decide to take the services of the Blessington method to get rid of that existence!

The Modus Operandi:                                                                                                 

The Society has a team of investigators who would prepare a case history - they will identify an aged subject, approach them on park benches or libraries and get to know their problems in life, investigate the troubled caretaker to verify that he will be in a position to pay for their services , approach the caretaker, propose the four fold process, make him sign a contract and finally the death of the aged subject after receiving the payment.

Mr. Treadwell, a man in his forties, is approached by Mr. Bunce with a  proposal to get rid of Treadwell's 72 year old father-in-law. Though Tredwell accepts the first three rules, it takes a little bit of time for him to make up his mind on the fourth rule. Within a month, his father-in-law dies - drowned while fishing. After the funeral, Treadwell is constantly plagued by a thought, which slowly turns to daily nightmares - the thought that twenty years down the line he himself would be an old man and he could meet the same fate at the hands of the same society! He approaches the same Mr. Bunce for solace.

The Oblong Room - Edward D. Hoch

Theme for the Week: Edgar Winners

Story: The Oblong Room

Author: Edward D. Hoch

Source: The Edgar Winners.

Story Number: 76

Captain Leopold joins his Sergeant to investigate a open and shut case of murder in the college hostel. Ralph Rollings has been found stabbed to death. His roommate Tom McBern was found enclosed with the dead man for 24 hours and he is not willing to make a statement. The only thing they need to convict Tom is a motive and the whole investigation is based on finding that motive.

The first motive they consider is that they must have shared a common girl friend, which turns out to be true. But nothing much materializes from that angle though they get a pretty good understanding of the relationship between Ralph and Tom. Ralph has the strange capability to manipulate anyone - to have them under his thumb, make them obey his orders. Ralph controlled Tom in pretty much the same fashion; the relationship between them being that of a teacher and a pupil or like that of a Master and slave - with Tom being completely devoted to Ralph, to such an extent that he would go to any depth to protect Ralph.

The next motive to cross their path is the widespread use of LSD among the students. Bill Smith, the next door friend to both Ralph and Tom testifies that both of them often used LSD but he also stresses the fact that Tom was more like a protector and he would be the last man to kill Ralph. And yet, it is very clear that Tom did kill Ralph. The questions which Leopold has to answer: Why would he kill him when everyone knows that he would give his own life to protect Ralph? Why was he in the room for 24 hours after his friend's death? What exactly as he doing during all that time?

This story is a dedication to Edgar Allan Poe. The author draws parallel to Poe's The Oblong Box - where the box was on board a ship and it contained a body. Ralph correlates his room to the oblong box, as his coffin or his tomb and hence the title the oblong room.

This Will Kill You - Patrick Quentin

Theme for the Week: Edgar Winners

Story: This Will Kill You

Author: Patrick Quentin

Source: The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow(Queen's Quorum title #), The Edgar Winners.

Story Number: 75

A special Edgar was presented to Patrick Quentin in 1962 for his collection of short stories The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow. Quote from Queen's Quorum: 'This is a superb collection by "a master of the offbeat and subtle effect." One of the unusual features of the book is the emphasis on child-murderers, normally a taboo theme, but handled by Patrick Quentin with chilling finesse.' "Love Comes to Miss Lucy" is one of the most anthologized stories from this collection which involves the theme of child-murderer.

This story though is a classic example of the husband plotting his wife's murder and the wife in turn plotting the husband's murder - with a big variation. Harry Lund is tired of his wife. He has a new girl in his life and hence decides to do away with his troublesome wife Norma. He fixes the car breaks so that she will meet with an accident at the crucial 'suicide bend' when she takes the car on her own. He loses the car but his wife Norma comes out unscathed. He next plans a fire-in-house-due-to-cigarette-in-bed accident. He loses the house but his wife remains unscathed. Harry's misery continues. Both Harry and his wife are pharmacists. He prepares the cyanide tablet but refrains from using it as it would leave traces. Norma suffers a few heart attacks from the various life threatening events that she has faced recently. Next, he comes with the scheme of murdering her with an overdose of the heart medicine Epinephrine! He waits for a suitable opportunity, injects the overdose when she is in a coma, goes to her sister's house to build up an alibi but when he comes back he gets the shock of his life to find his new girl friend in the house conversing with her wife who is still very much alive! The story moves on towards a fitting finale!