“I gave her the recipe for murder.”
“How, Mike?”
Mike did not immediately answer. He stood beside the wall, looking down at the shadows on the hillside and the lively road. “Long ago, Lissa, when I was trying my hand at fiction, I wrote a story. It was a young man’s story, bitter and sordid, all about an unhappy wife who brought about her husband’s death by a series of acts which caused a bad cold to develop into pneumonia.
“Each of these acts was described in the most minute detail, Lissa.
“I read the story to Phyllis and Nancy. They were the only ones who ever heard it, for after Nancy’d got through telling me what she thought of my little masterpiece, I burned the manuscript. She was pretty tough with me that night, asked if I was crazy enough to suppose that anyone would ever publish a story that gave such precise instructions to potential murderers.
“After Nancy had attacked the story so violently, Phyllis could not very well praise it. She listened quietly and neither praised nor criticized the tale. But she must have remembered. I knew—” Mike turned abruptly and raised his voice at me as though I were guilty. “I knew as soon as I heard of Fred Miller’s death. In a way I feel as if I had committed murder.”
How blind men are. When he told me how heavily his conscience was burdened, I told Mike Jordan that this was not his first sin against the cousins. He took off his dark glasses and glared at me. “A sin of omission,” I said. “Are you so stupid, Mike, that you’ve never realized how Nancy loved you?”
After a moment he said quietly, “That’s very female of you, Lissa.”
“Since she was fifteen and made such an odious exhibition of herself in the silver and black dress at her party. Every time she succeeded in getting close to you, Phyllis came along and dazzled you with her beauty and that mystery which was only a disguise for her coldness and jealousy. Her sole purpose in life was revenge against Nancy, and you were her victim as well as Gilbert and Fred.”
“But Nancy fell in love with other men, with Gil and Johnnie Elder. She flirted quite a lot in Europe and almost got engaged while she was in Mexico.”
“She tried to make herself fall in love with them, Mike. Partly because she was trying to get you out of her system, and partly because it was only natural for her to want to take something away from Phyllis. She had shared hope and failure with Gil, which softened her toward him. And, besides, he was not exactly repulsive to women.”
Mike’s hands fumbled in his pocket. He brought out the roll of bills again, hurried across the patio, and thrust them into my hands. When he spoke his voice was humble:
“Would you mind, Lissa, if I used your phone again? I’d like to call New York.”
The Cockroach and the Tortoise
by Anthony Gilbert
We have commented before on the curious differences in taste between English and American editors; how some books published in England — books as fine in the short story field as Ernest Bramah’s MAX CARRADOS and C. Daly King’s THE CURIOUS MR. TARRANT — made so small an impression on American boob-editors that they failed to achieve any American publication at all; how anthologies appear on both sides of the Atlantic and not only suffer a change of title but undergo drastic changes in content. Take, for example, that fine collection edited by John Rhode as a publication of the London Detection Club. The book appeared in England in 1939 under the title DETECTION MEDLEY. It was published the following year in America as LINE-UP. There can be no serious quarrel about this change — perhaps DETECTION MEDLEY is a better title for the English market, and LINE-UP a more effective title for the American reading public. But let us dig deeper: the English version of the book contains 35 stories, essays, and articles; the American version contains only 20. Undoubtedly, the American publisher had good and sufficient reasons to restrict their edition to little more than half of the original compilation. It is worth noting, however, that the English book sold for eight shillings, six pence, and the American version for $2.30 — in other words, the English book, with nearly twice as much reading matter, cost less than the American book!. But again let us not quarreclass="underline" perhaps the American reader can afford to pay more than his English brother-of-the-blood — perhaps.
To get back to our main point: 35 selections in the English edition, 20 in the American. Now, obviously, the American editor had to pick and choose. We can assume that the American editor selected either the 20 best pieces in the original English table of contents, or if not the 20 best, the 20 which seemed most attractive to American readers. Yet, examine what the American edition did not choose to include: two stories by Margery Allingham (both never published in America); one story by H. C. Bailey (also never published in America until we included it in ROGUES’ GALLERY); one story by Nicholas Blake (also never published in America until we brought it out in EQMM); two stories by Anthony Gilbert (also never published in America); and, of course, nine other pieces.
Well, LINE-UP’s loss is EQMM’s equity. We are grateful, believe us, since it gives us an opportunity to keep remedying the situation. We shall bring you at least one of the two Margery Allingham stories and both tales by Anthony Gilbert. Here is the first of the two stories by Anthony Gilbert: it is not an Arthur Crook adventure, but it does introduce a character new to American fans. Meet Inspector Field, in a reminiscent mood...
“Talking of cockroaches,” observed Inspector Field, guilefully bringing the conversation round to his own subject, “reminds me of a queer thing that happened to me once. It was a good many years ago; I was a sergeant in the K District. That’s a fairly well-to-do part of London, and most of the cases we had were shoplifting and bag-snatching. Not much scope for an ambitious man, but there’s generally a chance if you keep your eyes open. One morning I was on duty in the station when I heard a scuttering movement outside and a woman burst into the room. She was a little thing, very plainly dressed, rather taking if you like ’em small, with big eyes and curly lashes. She stood there, staring, and panting as if she’d been running a race.
“I thought she was another of these people who’ve had their bags emptied while they left them on the counter in order to look at a sweetly pretty thing in the bargain basement. But it turned out not to be that at all. In fact, it was one of the strangest things that ever happened to me.” He polished off his tankard and shoved it across the counter. “I was so sure it was a shop-thieving affair that I’d already picked out the right form. Forms are more useful where women are concerned than you’d ever guess; seem to impress them that there’s something serious going on.
“When I began to ask what was wrong, though, she just gasped at me: ‘I want you to help me. I want some advice. I never meant to come here, but where else am I to go?’
“Well, of course, that wasn’t precisely what I’d expected, but you soon learn in a job like ours not to be surprised at anything, so I said as nicely as I could that we’d be glad to help her, and she went on in a jerky sort of voice: ‘Of course, I know the proper thing would be to go to a lawyer and make him do something. But I daren’t. I don’t know any. Only Harry’s, and he wouldn’t be safe.’
“Harry was her husband, she explained. I told her there were other lawyers, but she said: ‘I wouldn’t dare trust them. If I picked a dishonest one, and a lot of them are rogues, for I’ve heard Harry say so, I’d be even worse off than I am now. So I thought perhaps the police could do something.’