Best Eaten Cold - Stuart Pawson

Story: Best Eaten Cold

Author: Stuart Pawson

Source: Best Eaten Cold and Other Stories (a Murder Squad Anthology)

Story Number: 105

From the introduction: “Murder Squad is a group of crime writers, friends first met at meetings of the northern chapter of the Crime Writers’ Association and who decided to band together to promote their work. The squad was founded in the spring of 2000.” The members include Martin Edwards(who is also the editor of this anthology), Margaret Murphy(founder), Ann Cleeves, Stuart Pawson, Cath Stiancliffe, Kate Ellis, John Baker & Chaz Brenchley. This collection is their second anthology featuring stories from five of them, published 10 years after the first one. Halfway into the book, I’ve absolutely no hesitation in recommending this book to crime story aficionados.

Jessica Fullerton was known as the Queen of Short Story Writers and Artemesia is a writer who is struggling to get her stories published! Jessica’s stories are aired on the radio weekly and one such story turns out to be written by Artemesia. During the annual symposium event of short story writers, she starts dropping hints that her story was plagiarized by Jessica. 3 other unknown writers approach her and confess that they also had noticed something similar – a story written by them had been featured on the radio under Jessica’s byline. These 4 authors decide to meet at a later date and when they exchange notes, they realize that all of them had submitted their stories to a particular short story competition in which Jessica was the judge and she must have collected all the rejected entries and developed it as her own creations at a later stage!

They are unanimous in the decision that they should punish Jessica, though the punishment decided upon looks to be an extreme – murder! Each one of them decides to come up with their own means of a murder method and the next third of the book shows the hilarious approach of each of the 4 authors trying (finding a gun, finding a poison and administering it, making a bomb & finding a heavy weapon which could do a clean job) and failing in their mission to identify a foolproof method. In their next meeting, they rule out murder but instead come up with an ingenious way of pooling in their skills to mete out the apt punishment and what follows is brilliantly conceived and a memorable piece of storytelling!

The Austin Murder Case - John L. Breen

Story: The Austin Murder Case

Author: John L. Breen

Source: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Parade

Story Number: 104

EQ’s Introduction to this story: Fans and aficionados have always regretted that certain famous detectives have appeared only in full-length novels. S.S. Van Dine is one such example who never wrote a short story about the sophistic and sophisticated Philo Vance. John L. Breen has set out to rectify this shortfall by providing his version of a Philo Vance short story – what might be called “a hitherto undiscovered account of one of Vance’s greatest triumphs” – a pastiche with parody touches, every tone and every accent the right “McWright,” the real “McDine” ….

Jack Austin is leaving New York and moving to Hollywood to make talking pictures and he is throwing a big party to celebrate the occasion. And he has sent an invitation to Philo Vance and Van Dine through Markahm – where each guest will come dressed as his favorite movie star! Vance goes in dressed as Doug Fairbanks and is immediately assured in by his host who is dressed as Charlie Chaplin. The other guests include a respected jurist, his daughter, a society vamp, a playboy, the Broadway producer who will be hit the hardest because Jack is moving, a theatrical agent, a debutante and another actor – while all of the guests were wishing Austin good luck, a few of them were not really on the best of terms with their host. And before the night is out, the host is found dead – stabbed several times with an Orient letter opener!

And it doesn’t take too long for Philo Vance to figure out who the killer is – the dying message clue is aptly interpreted by him and the clue on which the whole case hinges – how did the killer escape from having blood on him when it was such a bloody murder, is interestingly hidden among the useless trivia that is presented to the reader when the reader is getting impatient with all the unwanted knowledge that is being introduced to him!

It contains all the trademarks of a Van Dine story and much more – you see Philo Vance doing double somersaults, you see Van Dine falling in love (thereby breaking his own rule from the 20 rules for writing detective stories), eleven footnotes in a span of thirteen pages with one footnote quoting “were this a full-length novel, I would reproduce those remarks here, since they would undoubtedly be of interest to collectors. Unfortunately, the short-story form offers less latitude for the introduction of such peripheral matters," and so on!

“Or You Can Drink The Wine…?” - Paul C. Doherty

Story: “Or You Can Drink The Wine…?”

Author: Paul C. Doherty

Source: The Mammoth Book of Egyptian Whodunnits

Story Number: 103

A locked room mystery dating from almost 3500 years ago, features one of Doherty’s chief characters Amerotke, the Chief Judge of Egypt.

The Lady Tiyea was supposed to have committed suicide but the circumstances under which her body has been found troubles Amerotke. The poison was found only in the wine and not anywhere else in the room, the wine hadn’t been completely consumed, the lady had taken a lot of trouble to apply makeup before retiring for the night (as was the custom then) and she had planned and instructed her servants on the tasks for the next day – a few key points which a person about to commit suicide wouldn’t think of carrying out.

But the circumstances doesn’t allow for any other explanation – the wine was poured in to the goblet by her maid who tasted it before handing it over to another servant who also took a sip before giving it to the lady, both these servants notice the Lady sipping the wine as soon as it is handed to her, she goes inside her room and locks it and a servant takes guard outside her room. When the door is broken open the next day, the Lady is dead due to a venomous poison which is found in the wine. If there was no way a person could have walked into the locked and guarded room, how was the poison induced? The clues are fairly laid out, the interviews of the husband and the servants are quite vivid and the final clue which Amerotke finds after a very detailed examination of the makeup kit - all of them clearly point to one person as the murderer and the reader should have the pleasure of identifying the solution much before it is revealed!

The Crime At Big Tree Portage - Hesketh Prichard

Story: The Crime At Big Tree Portage

Author: Hesketh Prichard

Source: The Dead Witness – A Connoisseur’s Collection of Victorian Detective Stories edited by Michael Sims

Story Number: 102

A unique story for the following reason as cited in the introduction to this story: Hesketh Prichard has created an original and intriguing variation on the Sherlock Holmes type of detective in November Joe – a detective of the woods! He notices seemingly irrelevant minutiae in the wilds of the north; like Holmes, he turns coy about the clues’ importance until he is ready to talk – and, when he solves a case, doesn’t hesitate to serve as a vigilante judge and jury.

This story originally appeared as the third chapter of November Joe: Detective of the Woods and is set in the autumn of 1908. The narrator James Quartich has been asked to take a sabbatical and he decides to spend a few months hunting in the wilds of Canada but he ends up tagging along with Joe, who has been asked to investigate a murder at a camping site. The dead body of Henry Lyon and the woods are closely inspected for clues but both the gentlemen end up with different views of the murderer.  James is amazed at the keen observation skills of his companion who has pointed out that the murderer hasn’t left a single clue and that all the clues would be present in the previous camp which the gentlemen might have used. When they reach this camp, sure enough, they are able to make out that two men spent the night together and Joe propounds a series of observations about the characteristics of the murderer from the various clues strewn around, though he doesn’t explain as to how he inferred them from the available clues. To find the murderer, they go to the city where the murdered man lived, find out the names of the men who were absent (turns out to be 5) from the settlement during the crucial period, track down each one of them and just match the characters as propounded by Joe to one of them. Only then does he explain the significance of the clues!

The Locked Tomb Mystery - Elizabeth Peters

Story: The Locked Tomb Mystery

Author: Elizabeth Peters

Source: The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits, The Mammoth Book of Egyptian Mysteries

Story Number: 101

Just bought both these titles in the Friends of The Public Library bookstore and this story immediately caught my eye for two reasons – it was in both the collections and it involved a locked room mystery! And hence it was obviously hard to let it go! Crocodile On The Sandbank is one of her books which I’ve heard a lot about but haven’t got around to yet.

Senebtisi’s funeral had been the talk of the town because of the riches that she took along with her to the next world, leaving her son penniless. When there is a spate of tomb robberies on the west bank and the riches from inside the tombs start floating around in the open market, the citizens are a worried lot. One such tomb robbery puzzles everyone – including the Pharaoh, who hires Amenhotep Sa Hapu to investigate the strange robbery – the facts of the case goes something like this:

Senebtisi’s son Minmose decides to make sure that his mother’s tomb hasn’t been disturbed. He requests the Priest who helped in the burial ceremony to inspect the tomb; the necropolis seal is intact, they still decide to break open the seal and enter to make sure that the thieves haven’t dug a tunnel into the tomb. When they enter the tomb, the priest witnesses the mummy to have been dragged out of the burial chamber, the valuables are missing, the body inside the mummy has been torn open and yet the stone tomb itself hadn’t been broken in – the seals on the door were intact, the mortal untouched, there was no break of the smallest size in any of the tomb walls or ceilings and the dust lay undisturbed on the floor.

Amenhotep knows who the culprit is right from the beginning but he has no proof or evidence to show for it – the two interviews of the priest and Minmose provide him and the reader sufficient clues to figure out the clever trick of the locked tomb!

Whistler’s Murder - Fredric Brown

Story: Whistler’s Murder

Author: Fredric Brown

Source: The Shaggy Dog and Other Murders

Story Number: 100

Carlos Perry used to be in Vaudeville, a solo act, whistling – and hence the company name of ‘Whistler & Company’, which he had been using for his latest occupation of song writing. But he had cheated a lot of his friends and employees and hence a lot of them were pretty bitter – his nephew Walter traces a few of his vaudeville friends and tells them of his plan to help them when Carlos dies and passes on the inheritance to him. To expedite the process, Walter sends a threatening letter (without having any intention to carry out the threat) to his uncle saying he would die at a particular time. Walter believes that this would soften up his uncle and would help matters but Carlos just hires two security guards from a very reputed agency to guard him during the crucial hour. But in spite of it, somebody finds a way to bypass them and murder Carlos in his estate.

The insurance detective Henry Smith stumbles across this impossible crime when he goes to meet his client Walter Perry to renew his life insurance policy. Walter is the prime suspect as the police trace those threatening letters to him and is eventually arrested. But he has got a perfect alibi and the police can’t figure out exactly how the murder could’ve been committed. 2 security guards were standing guard on the roof of the house, there’s only 1 entry into the house via the front door and the men on guard can see the door and the complete surrounding area – no human could have approached the door without they seeing him. Yet, when there is a telephone call in the night and one of the guards goes down to answer the phone, he finds the man whom they were guarding dead! One person searches the house while the other still keeps watch on the roof but they don’t find anyone.

Smith talks to Walter in the jail and gets the background details about Carlos, his company and information about the people his uncle had cheated. Smith however gets his vital clue from the horse trainer on the estate who says he has been having a jolly good time fooling the city detectives about the difference between the various breeds of horses – which leads him to the ingenious solution of this very clever impossible crime.

Coffee Break - Arthur Porges

Story: Coffee Break

Author: Arthur Porges

Source: AH’s Tale to Make You Quake & Quiver

Story Number: 99

Sergeant Black has come to ask for the able assistance of Ulysses Price Middlebie, a former professor of the history and philosophy of science, but now a crime consultant. His problem to the professor – a locked room murder involving death due to poison!

Cyrus Denning, a 62 year old bachelor was supposed to have poisoned himself with cyanide in a locked room which was under constant observation. But Black’s instinct says that he was murdered. The murdered man was filthy rich, the only heir was with the murdered man half an hour before his death, the heir asked the boatman to keep a close eye on the door thereby getting himself an alibi for the crucial half hour and there was no suicide note. The professor explains away the locked bolt in a casual manner saying that it could’ve been locked using a high powered magnet from outside. But there are two other crucial factors that need to be explained: The coffee that contained cyanide was boiling hot when the door was forced open along with a newly lighted cigarette – giving an impression that the man was murdered just minutes before the door was broken in. If that was so, then how did the murderer get in and out of the tightly locked and guarded room?

Since Middlebie is no position to inspect the scene of the crime on his own two feet, he requests Black to take a lot of photographs inside the closed room and closely inspect the bolt on the door to make sure that it wasn’t an iron bolt. With the results of the analysis on the bolt and the photos, the professor propounds an interesting solution to this locked room problem!