She smiled in triumph. How completely he had accepted her help — without question, or thanks. She had been right; he was the man whom she ought to have married.
The Motive
by Ronald Knox
Originally appeared in the Illustrated London News, December 1937
John Dickson Carr and his family have come over from England and settled permanently in the United States, and John is now a member-in-best-standing of the MWA (Mystery Writers of America, Inc.). The Carrs live in Westchester County, about three miles from where your Editor hangs his hat and homebrews his homicides. In the old days John and your Editor used to talk shop by long-distance correspondence; now we sit either in the Queen’s parlor or in John’s wonderful study, with its brick fireplace, its old swords and rapiers on the wall, and its deep, relaxing leather chairs of London tan. There is only one word to describe the Carr study: it is a clubroom, with all the peace and comfort the word implies. Well, one evening, in the midst of discussing locked rooms and miracle problems, your Editor got an idea. It was not a new idea, but it is one that has always been sure-fire. How about starting a department in EQMM called “Favorite Detective Stories of Famous Detective-Story Writers”? John mulled it over: it sounded good, but wouldn’t the nominations always be stories too well known for reprint? We admitted that danger, but why not test the idea on John himself? Suppose, John, that you fish into your memory and begin reeling off the detective short stories which have made the most lasting impression on you.
John agreed to this impromptu experiment in anthologizing. Having just finished a solid year’s work on an authorized biography of Conan Doyle, his first thoughts leaped to Sherlock Holmes. Yes, a Holmes story would undoubtedly be among his all-time favorites. Let’s see: “The Red-Headed League” — “Silver Blaze” — but no, John’s final, all-things-considered choice would be “The Man With the Twisted Lip.” Next, of course, Chesterton — who could omit Father Brown from any list of favorites? It would be a toss-up: “The Honour of Israel Gow” or “The Man in the Passage” — and after a moment’s deliberation John pitched decisively for the latter. Then there would be Thomas Burge’s “The Hands of Mr. Ottermole” — and Jacques Futrelle’s “The Problem of Cell 13,” about the Flunking Machine — both absolute “musts” to any aficionado worthy of the name. That makes four stories — shall I go on, asked John. By all means, we replied; perhaps one of the stories you’ll suggest will be a “sleeper” — an unexpected ’tec treasure.
You could see John’s mind grasshoppering from author to author. Melville Davisson Post? Of course! An Uncle Abner story — “The Doomdorf Mystery”? No, not an Uncle Abner story, superlative as they are. On John’s list it would have to be “The Great Cipher” from MONSIEUR JONQUELLE — the favorite Post story of S. S. Van Dine and Dr. Norbert Lederer, and so many other connoisseurs of the genre. Then — unqualifiedly — Anthony Berkley’s “The Avenging Chance.” An E. C. Bentley story about Philip Trent? “The Genuine Tabard”? No, a marvellous story but only Englishmen can appreciate it fully. Let’s hold off on Bentley for the moment. R. Austin Freeman? Naturally! Say, Dr. Thorndyke in “The Aluminium Dagger.” And that unforgettable story by Brett Holliday, “Human Interest Stuff” — you just can’t leave that one out!
How many does that make? Eight. Suppose we push on — make it an even ten. Let’s see, now: a Carnacki story — yes, indeed. “The Thing Invisible” — there’s your “sleeper”! Why, I’ll bet that story has never been anthologized! True, John, but our old friend August Derleth, under the publishing name of Mycroft and Moran, brought out the first American edition of William Hope Hodgson’s CARNACKI THE GHOST-FINDER last year, and the first story in the book is “The Thing Invisible.”
Well, that proves it can’t be done: any list of most memorable shorts is bound to be one classic after another, and all too well-known for reprint in EQMM. But your Editor was still not convinced. We reminded John that he had selected only nine stories. Finish out the golden ten, pick one more — perhaps that tenth story...
John’s eyes opened wide. There was another story that popped brilliant-clear into his mind. Perhaps it is not one of the ten best detective short stories ever written, but it has powerful recommendations. Witty, polished, full of bluff and double-bluff, with a final twist when you think no further twist is even possible, and with a murder method in the opening plot sequence that is so ingenious and yet so startlingly simple —
We knew instinctively that the experiment had succeeded. We were on the brink of—
John announced: Ronald Knox’s “The Motive.”
And now we were sure. The tenth story in John Dickson Carr’s list was a “sleeper”!
But suddenly a colossal doubt seized us. A list of John Dickson Carr’s ten favorite detective short stories — and no story by Poe? A list of ten definitive favorites and no mention of “The Purloined Letter” or “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”? Can such things be?
John crushed the doubt with a mere wave of his hand. Why, of course, no story by Poe. The Father of the Detective Story and his still unsurpassed standard (G. K. Chesterton’s phrase) are in a class by themselves. The Poe tales of ratiocination are above competitive listings. Any ’tec tyro knows that! [Q. exits, properly squelched]
“A certain amount of dust is good for a juryman’s eyes. It prevents him going to sleep.”
Sir Leonard Huntercombe is probably responsible for more scoundrels being at large than any other man in England. His references to the feelings of his client, to the long ordeal which a criminal prosecution involves, to the fallibility of witnesses, to those British liberties which we all enjoy only on the condition that everybody must be given the benefit of the doubt unless he is found with his hand in the till, are a subject of legitimate tedium and irreverent amusement to the reporters, who have heard it all before. But it still goes down with the jury, fresh to their job; and, after all, that is more important. It does not often happen to such a man that he is drawn into the old, old argument, whether a defending counsel is justified in pressing his defense when he privately knows his client to be guilty. And, of all places, you might have expected him to be free from such annoyances in the Senior Common Room of Simon Magus — the smoking-room, to be more accurate. Dons hate a scene, and prefer to talk trivialities after dinner. It is hardly even good form, nowadays, to talk a man’s own shop to him. In these days of specialization we are all bored with each other’s technicalities, and a tacit convention has grown up that we should stick to the weather and the Boat Race. Sir Leonard was justified, then, if his eye resembled that of a codfish rather more than usual.
For, as bad luck would have it, Penkridge was dining as somebody else’s guest — Penkridge, the dramatic critic, to whom all the world is a stage, and everything, consequently, a fit subject for dramatic criticism. It takes less than the Simon Magus port (though that is a powerful affair) to make such a man as Penkridge boorishly argumentative. He had trailed his coat deliberately, with a forthcoming article in view, and had contrived to put Sir Leonard on his own defense almost before he knew it. I need hardly say that he was adopting the most Puritan view.