Murder Stops The Music - Helen McCloy

Theme: Crippen & Landru Lost Classic Series

Story: Murder Stops The Music

Author: Helen McCloy

Source: The Pleasant Assassin and Other Stories

Story Number: 110

Sybilla, a nineteen year old girl from Boston has the unenviable task of inviting the famous concert pianist Gertrude Ehrenthal to perform for the village summer fair, a yearly event to raise money for local charities. Just when she is about to enter the Ehrenthal residence, a big boxer confronts her and when the door is opened, she is relieved when the dog enters the house and makes himself comfortable. Contrary to Sybilla’s expectation, the pianist agrees to perform at the fair. But what they both can’t agree to is the ownership of the dog which is having a jolly good time wreaking up the house – the host thinks that the dog is Sybilla’s and she likewise thinks that it belongs to the host. And a few hours later the dog turns up dead with its throat cut!

The actual owner of the dog turns out to be Basil Willing’s neighbor in the village Paul Amory, who is the paid organizer for the whole event. And he has vowed to get his revenge if the Ehrenthals turn up for the concert! And sure enough, Gertrude is found stabbed to death when the lights black out during the middle of the concert. There are far more suspects than Basil Willing had thought he was dealing with – there are many who want her out of the way so that the estate would go on sale, there is her son who would inherit her wealth and there’s a gangster on the loose who had stayed in that house and is supposed to have hidden the loot there. Willing has his own method of identifying the culprit – though the dog’s behavior is obviously a clue, he bases his deduction on the fact that a sentence uttered by one of the suspects could have come only from a Frenchman rather than an Englishman!

The Singing Diamonds - Helen Mccloy

One of my main aims when I started this whole exercise in the New Year was to read at least 20 titles from the Crippen and Landru series. Though I’ve read two volumes this year, I haven’t really featured any story on the blog (actually holding them back for a later theme), which I plan to rectify now as I plan to cover stories from 3 other lost classic series(or maybe even 4) over the next 2 weeks.

And Hats Off to Douglas G. Greene and his team at Crippen & Landru in unearthing all these wonderful stories from oblivion and presenting it to the modern world at such affordable prices! And what a delight it is to treat oneself to one of these classic titles. Wishing, hoping and praying that C&L will continue their tremendous good work for a long long time and introduce us to numerous more gems!

Theme: Crippen & Landru Lost Classic Series

Story: The Singing Diamonds

Author: Helen Mccloy

Source: The Pleasant Assassin and Other Stories

Story Number: 109

I’d to skip the first story in this collection “Through a Glass, Darkly” as I would like to read the longer version of the same title – am pretty sure it would’ve been featured here a long time ago had it been a standalone story which didn’t have a corresponding longer version! That brings me to the second longest story in this collection “The Singing Diamonds”.

Mathilde Verworn wants to know from Basil Willing, the psychiatrist, whether there was such a thing as collective hallucination. Because, there were six people from six different locations in the country who testified to seeing strange diamond shaped objects in the sky, moving at alarming speeds and causing a humming noise as they pass. And four of those six have died in peculiar circumstances in the last 12 days. Mathilde’s husband happens to be an astrophysicist who is called on by various agencies to explain the strange phenomena of the singing diamonds. As a result, Mathilde has withheld her knowledge about witnessing the singing diamonds from general public. But now that four of them are dead, she is hoping that Dr. Willing could do something to save her!

When Dr. Willing consults a Naval Intelligence officer, he comes to know that all six who had publicly acknowledged seeing the singing diamonds were dead. The various investigative agencies couldn’t find any connection among those six, they couldn’t find any evidence to the existence of any scientific experiments or the rational explanation to the singing diamonds. However, they did establish a few interesting facts – all but one had been suffering from asthma and 3 of them were known to use ginger candies – two facts which convinces the psychiatric investigator that the reason for the deaths could be explained with a perfectly rational explanation than the science fiction theories and the paranormal theories that they were being attributed to!

Mathilde has confessed to seeing the singing diamonds with 4 of her family members and friends. Basil Willing invites himself to a dinner party featuring all these members. He challenges each of them to propose a solution to the mystery as the group involves 2 scientists, 1 mathematician and 1 psychiatrist! And the theories vary from a missile being tested by a foreign power to a scientific experiment being conducted by the local government to aliens trying to communicate with the earthlings! Basil Willing has his own complex explanation to the problem which is more earthly and more humanly. Though it sounds utterly fantastic and highly improbable, it nevertheless qualifies as one of the most diabolic and ingenious plans to have been conceived by a perpetrator!

The Case of The Musical Butler - Martin Edwards

Story: The Case of The Musical Butler

Author: Martin Edwards

Source: Best Eaten Cold and Other Stories

Story Number: 108

This Sherlockian pastiche happens to be the only one in this collection which would qualify as a traditional detective story – a story which not only demonstrates Holmes’ skill as a puzzle solver but also gives a rear insight into an unexpectedly compassionate side to his personality!

Bloodstained clothes belonging to a tramp has been found recently near the Oaklands Estate and Holmes is not at all surprised when the owner of this property turns up on his doorstep. Holmes is hardly interested in hearing the grievance of Sir Greville Davidson (probably a first in the canon?) as he believes that even if a crime has been committed, Greville would be least interested in finding the perpetrator. He gives him only 5 minutes to state his case but the story from Greville indeed proves to be an interesting one, worthy enough to cure his ennui for the time being.

Greville has employed a young butler by the name of Mark Meade after getting a very positive reference from the folks who had employed him before. And the butler has lived up to his expectations in every way and he has some unusual talents – the chief one being his musical talent to play Chopin exquisitely on the piano! Other unusual traits turn out to be the butler’s keen interest in literature and his unwillingness to mingle with people or go out of the house during his day off!  His services have been so indispensable that the heirless Greville decides to adopt him and name him as his successor. But as soon he breaks this news to the butler, he disappears without a trace. A few days later, he gets a mail from the butler but that mail still doesn’t reveal the cause for his disappearance.

Holmes employs the Irregulars to get a few facts and his deductive capabilities are on full display as he goes about solving the case of the musical butler - with the final revelation of the identity of the butler coming as quite a pleasant surprise!

The Habit of Silence - Ann Cleves

Story: The Habit of Silence

Author: Ann Cleves

Source: Best Eaten Cold and Other Stories

Story Number: 107

The Literary and Philosophical Society Library is the setting for this murder mystery which features the author’s series detective Vera Stanhope. Gilbert Wood, who is researching and writing a book on the history of the place, is found dead in the Silence Room – death due to a blow on the head by a heavy book! The closed group of suspects is restricted to the librarian, library assistant, one of the trustees and a poet who found the body.

All of them saw Gilbert going down to the Silence Room but no one heard anything as the person who was with Gilbert wouldn’t obviously talk or make any noise because of the very nature of the habit of keeping silent in that particular room. With no clues forthcoming from any of the witnesses, Vera has to dig deep into her psyche and recall upon the trauma which she herself had faced when she was just twelve to solve this murder and identify the guilty party!

Boom! - Cath Staincliffe

Story: Boom!

Author: Cath Staincliffe

Source: Best Eaten Cold and Other Stories

Story Number: 106

DC Lin Song and her boss decide to investigate the massive explosion as soon they get the site location. When they arrive at the half standing house, they find Greg Collins fighting for his life – from the impact of the blast as well as a gunshot wound. When he recovers, he isn’t able to recollect who shot at him. Greg’s wife, her lover and Greg’s business partner are the suspects but the lover pair seems to have disappeared. And the partner’s alibi isn’t holding up!

The body of the wife turns up in the river – dead due to drowning and the husband confirms that she couldn’t swim. Even before Lin and her boss are done with the guessing game of who(the lover or the husband’s partner) killed the wife and shot the husband, the lover’s dead body crops up in a car submerged in the canal basin, with a gun still clutched in his hand and dead due to a single gunshot from that same gun. With three different victims in three different locations and one suspect with a very poor alibi, Lin takes the help of the piled up forensic evidence to unravel the mystery behind the triple tragedy!

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!