In 1942 he won the £1,000 first prize in a literary competition organised by The Australian Women’s Weekly. The novel, Common People, was published by Consolidated Press in 1944. With a circus background, this mystery had as its central character, a personable spruiker and con-man by the name of Pel Pelham.
Pelham made a return in a later Martin mystery, The Chinese Bed Mysteries (London, Max Reinhardt, 1955), which also used a circus backdrop. Among his many superior thrillers is the notable Sinners Never Die (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1944).
Martin’s short fiction was widely published in Australia and in such celebrated overseas publications as Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post. Three Martin stories also appeared in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. ‘The Power of the Leaf, ‘The Scarecrow Murders’ and ‘The Flying Corpse.’ The last, another with a circus background, won third prize in the magazine’s 1947 International Mystery Competition. He adapted Sinners Never Die and Death in the Limelight (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1946) into radio plays, and went on to write a number of 52 episode serials for producer George Edwards.
Martin died in 1955, soon after the publication of The Chinese Bed Mysteries. His last novel, The Hive of Glass, was completed by his son, Jim Martin. Interestingly, Martin’s last novel, just like his first, won a competition organised by an Australian publisher. It was released by Rigby in 1963.
The Power of the Leaf undoubtedly ranks among Martin’s finest stories. After it appeared in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine it was included in an anthology, The Queen’s Awards (London, Gollancz, 1950).
The Power of the Leaf
In the year 1847 Ooloo of the Narranyeri, busy with his boomerangs and wresting by violence a living from territory where, as yet, no man had planted seed, was delighted when the headman put the message stick in his hand and sent him on a peaceable mission to the neighbouring Munamulla tribe. He took no arms with him but his boomerang and the throwing-stick carved for him by his young son, now grievously dead, and pointed with a barb made from a spike taken from a sting ray.
Ooloo was old now and greyer than he had been a month ago when his son had been brought to him tossing his head, frothing at the mouth, and flailing his arms. It was all too evident, as the medicine man had said, that someone had pointed a stick at Young Oo-omal – a stick with several sharp, twisted prongs – and that the stick had entered the lad’s body attached to an invisible string upon which some unseen enemy had pulled and thus brought about the painful quivering.
The medicine man had watched his patient for an hour, crouching before the writhing form, and then, leaping abruptly, had succeeded in seizing and cutting the unseen string. Shuddering and moaning himself, he had sucked the place of pain, extracting for all to see broken pieces of the barbed stick. Gradually, Oo-omal’s convulsions had subsided and it was plain to everyone that he had no more agony – plainest of all to his stricken father who knew he was dead.
As he tramped through the bush, his eye wary lest he be attacked before he could produce his symbol of peace, Ooloo thought much of the unknown enemy who had struck down his son. The medicine man had been vague. The lad would have lived, he asserted, had he been brought to him a few moments earlier. The enemy? One of great power, living at a distance. He waved in a general direction and promised he would keep an eye open.
All this Ooloo had found unsatisfactory. Resting beneath a giant gum in the territory of the Munamullas, he meditated deeply, permitting himself the luxury of a thought that astonished and then intrigued him. Perhaps the medicine man was not as powerful as he pretended. He began to wonder. Whence did these men derive their authority? From dreams, they said, but, after all, one had only their word for what they dreamed.
It would be very nice, Ooloo thought, to possess the influence of a medicine man and live easily at others’ expense.
Unyama, the Munamulla headman, received him courteously. He was in a genial mood. It had been a good season, game was plentiful, and the request of the Narranyeri not unreasonable. Besides, he loved to gossip and all he lacked was a new listener. It was a pity, he told Ooloo, he had not reached the camp a day earlier when he might have witnessed the trial of a young man who had murdered his hunting companion. The affair had had some interesting and puzzling features. Firstly, there was no dead body; secondly, the murderer himself had brought news of his friend’s death; thirdly, the young man, owing to a certain popularity because of his gift for story-telling, had been offered the opportunity of admitting himself mad and thus, for his life-time, enjoying all the privileges of the happy-minded – and had refused. And so, shortly, he must be speared to death by the uncle of the young man he had killed.
It was a pity, Unyama declared, that the tribe should lose one who was undaunted in the hunt, clever beyond his fellows in tracking and killing game, who had faithfully obeyed the injunctions of the old men at his initiation and had never been known to covet or molest the young women. But the medicine man, Urgali, had demanded the death sentence, maintaining that evil would befall the tribe if the murderer were not eliminated.
‘If it is permissible, I should like to see this young man,’ Ooloo said, ‘for it would seem he has some of the qualities I saw in my own son and while I do not condone the murder of one’s companions, you have said sufficient to intrigue me. I wish I had arrived in time to hear his story from his own lips.’
The guest had expressed a wish. Hospitality demanded that it should be fulfilled. Unyama thought of the tribe’s well stocked larder and ease with which even the youngest children and the oldest gins could collect a meal of fat white grubs or caterpillars. They had plenty of everything and of all things of which they had an abundance they had most of time.
‘It shall be as you desire,’ he told Ooloo. ‘The uncle of Kuduna can bring his poisoned spear tomorrow. Today we shall question Wendourie again and you, a stranger and therefore impartial, shall give us the benefit of your wisdom and advice.’
Ooloo sat upon a tree stump in the place of honour beside the headman. In a semicircle before them sat the men of the tribe, the greyheads squatting in the front rows, behind them the young bucks; at the rear and at a respectful distance, the women. On the outskirts, too far away for their noisy fun to distract, the children played.
‘Let Wendourie be brought,’ Unyama ordered.
‘Wait.’ It was Urgali, the Munamulla medicine man, striding toward them. He was long and thin and the lines of pipe-clay drawn in half-circles from shoulder to hip and down the thighs and shins emphasised his height and his authority. He paused in front of the headman. ‘Last night,’ he announced, ‘I projected myself into space. I saw many things on the earth below and much in the sky above. I searched behind the thickest and blackest clouds but I saw nothing to bear out the story Wendourie has told. Many heard me returning to earth. Is it not so?’ he cried, throwing out his skinny hands in a gesture of appeal to the young bucks.
‘It is so,’ they shouted.
‘I descended into a large tree and made my way through the branches. I was heard. Is it not so?’
‘It is so,’ the young men cried again.
‘And leaped to the ground in the presence of some, leaving my footprints for all to see. I twisted my ankle. Behold, I limp.’ He demonstrated, walking up and down, lamely, then, stopping in front of the headman and Ooloo, folded his arms. ‘I have spoken,’ he said. ‘It is unwise to hold further talk upon this matter.’