My Uncle Quintus looked at me approvingly. “My boy,” he said — and never before had he praised me so highly — “you are right in nearly everything: I am pleased to note that you have the family brain. And now to bed. A cuneiform stele’s due from Khosabad tomorrow: you will give me your views on that.”
The laboratory of Dr. Alexander O. Gettler, city toxicologist, is a huge room which looks like something a surrealist designed after a bad night. Green and yellow bottles bubble over Bunsen burners. The fluid in a beaker turns blue and then red. Human bones that glow in the dark decorate a wall panel. Nearby is a bottle of poisoned liquor with which Ruth Snyder hoped to eliminate her paramour, Judd Gray, after he had helped her murder her husband. Strange death weapons form a neat pattern in a glass case. All of these are reminders of the part Dr. Gettler, a short, stocky man, has played in prominent murder cases in New York City.
Dear Louisa
by Miriam Bruce
At the time Miriam Bruce submitted “Dear Louisa” to EQMM’s Third Annual Contest, in which her story won an Honorable Mention, Miss Bruce was a member of Dashiell Hammett’s Mystery Story class. This is the second story, therefore, that we have purchased from students of Mr. Hammett’s course... Miss Bruce was born in Manhattan. She is an alumna of the University of Michigan. For a couple of years she courted the theatre, then took to writing “confessions” and other “hack, work” — to support her passion for the footlights. In World War II she served overseas in the American Red Cross.
For the first quarter-century of her life she had no intention whatever of becoming a writer. One day she “trifled” with the idea, became interested, begun to “write things down,” and winced when she read what she had written. Finally, she came to the conclusion that she really had something to say — then she realized that she “was done for.”
She started writing short stories. A few were bought by “little” magazines, many were not; the financial difference between a story being accepted by a “little” magazine and being rejected was so small that it hardly mattered, but Miss Bruce persevered — she liked to see her name in print. After some success with pulp stories Miss Bruce awoke one morning to discover herself not famous but firmly resolved to write thenceforth only what she pleased — and hang the consequences. “/ had had time,” she confided to your Editor, “to get only a little nervous when a portent appeared in the form of Ellery Queen offering to buy a crime story that I had written because it pleased me to write it.”
For years Miss Bruce had been reading mystery stories with great appetite, although invariably she had been unable to understand the explanations at the end. This proved a severe handicap not only in her reading but in her attempts to write. She circumvented it neatly: in her own mystery stories she works out the plots so that there is no necessity for an explanation at the end. In her first shots at detective fiction she spent a lot of time looking for a formula: the results were noticeably confused. She found that she did much better when she began to write out of character, as one writes any other kind of story. Perhaps, says Miss Bruce, there really is a formula — so many people insist there is! — but Miss Bruce has yet to discover it.
No, there is no formula for the detective-crime story — at least, no formula which, on pushing this button and pulling out that stop, manufactures the priceless ingredients of freshness, imagination, and integrity. The only formula for a truly creative writer is simply this: do not be afraid — aim high, and when you have adjusted your sights, aim higher still!
Broome Park, Mass.
April 5th
Dear Louisa,
You will no doubt be surprised to hear from me after all these years, particularly since we parted with some coldness. However, I trust that by now you have forgotten our small misunderstanding. Actually, it was not I who was responsible for the foreclosure on your home, but Father who had somehow got the idea that you had done me an injustice.
I have decided to resume our friendship, Louisa. Obviously it will have to be limited to correspondence as my maid, Martha, informs me that you, too, are confined to your room by illness. Dr. Low has assured me that an outside interest will divert my mind from poor Grosvenor, and although I have learned over a period of years never to take Stephen Low’s advice, I confess I am curious to learn how you were able to purchase your house back. My Martha has been informed by your maid that you never married. Frankly, Louisa, I am surprised. You were always so interested in men.
Recalling your past high-handedness, Louisa, I suppose there is the possibility that you will not wish to enter into correspondence with me. However, I hope the passage of years has made you more sensible. Whatever your shortcomings, you are a Porter and a member of my own generation. Let’s let bygones be bygones. You may consider this an apology if you wish.
Martha will carry this note to you and will call for any communication you may care to make in return.
Your friend and schoolmate,
Broome Park
April 7th
Dear Louisa,
I must confess I recall nothing amusing in my letter to you. Nevertheless, I was pleased to receive your reply and suppose I must accept your rather odd sense of humor as part of you that the years have had no power to change.
You describe your heart condition as “something between a murmur and a shout.” It seems to me that you are treating the situation with undue lightness, considering that your mother and your paternal grandfather both succumbed to heart disease.
My own trouble is nervous and I attribute it completely to Harley’s selfish and callous action. My health started to fail not long after he took his life, and in the past twenty years has continued to decline. However, I am glad to say that I still anticipate many years of life... glad, not so much on my own account as for the sake of Grosvenor, who unhappily inherits all of his father’s weakness and none of his charm.
Dr. Low insists that I am a victim of myasthenia, a newfangled muscular disorder which he claims is fatal if not treated. When he first presented this absurd diagnosis five years ago, I went to the trouble of reading a number of medical books on the subject. I found that Stephen Low was completely wrong. It seems that myasthenia attacks the muscles, particularly about the throat and eyes, and induces extreme fatigue. It is true that I am subject to attacks of weariness, but that is entirely due to nervous strain. As for my eyes, they have always been bad. So were Father’s and Grandfather’s.
Nevertheless, Dr. Low, unwilling to admit he is mistaken, persists in submitting me to a daily injection of something he calls prostigmin. I am perfectly aware that this is all an elaborate mummery; I have seen the contents of the hypodermic and know them to be nothing but distilled water, or at most a harmless tonic. I have tried more than once to find another physician, but each has proved more incompetent than the last, and in spite of Dr. Low’s stubbornness, I can at least be assured of his personal interest in me.
Dear me, Louisa, it must be over twenty years since you last saw Stephen Low. He hasn’t changed a great deal. He’s completely gray, of course, but as slovenly and careless as ever and still characterized by that rather pointless brand of humor you used to find so amusing. He’s worn the same baggy pepper-and-salt tweeds for the past ten years, not from motives of thrift which would be understandable, but out of sheer indifference. You will be interested to learn that he still offers marriage to me. I must confess that I find considerable comfort in the fact that someone values me, even if it’s only Stephen Low.