Creasey Mystery Magazine # 4 (November 1956)

Creasey Mystery Magazine (v1 n4, November 1956) was published by Dalrow Publishing and unlike its preceding three issues, sports a full color illustrated cover. Edited by Leslie Syddall, this issue is mostly reprints by quality writers of the mystery genre. The artist signing as R.W.S. is Ronald W. Smethurst and he would be responsible for all of this publisher’s illustrated fiction magazine covers. Smethurst also illustrated some covers for WDL, aka, World Distributors.

The lead novella is Murder Out of the Past by John Creasey. It debuted in an unknown South African magazine a few years before it was revised and reprinted as thus in this magazine. In England, it was bound with Under-Cover Man and published by Barrington Gray in 1953. I reviewed that story in the prior Creasey Mystery Magazine post.

Richard Rollison, aka The Toff, is in South Africa following up on an old investigation. A lady resides down here, Christine. She is wanted in London for murdering Leah, her lover’s wife. However, she fled and vanished. All evidence suggests she had motive for murder, but no weapon was found. Years pass, and Rollison has never given up the case. In fact, he’s certain she is innocent. Walking home, she enters to find Rollison there. She’s angered and demands that he leaves. He explains he has evidence partially proving her innocence. She’s gobsmacked. Her lover, Lambert, has abandoned her because he believes she indeed is guilty of the murder. A car arrives, and Rollison enters. The chauffeur is a young black driver, George. The pair drive away from the home when suddenly a pair of rifle shots assault their vehicle. George doesn’t realize they’ve been shot at, so he initially slows down. Rollison upon the second shot figures it out and urges George to speed up. Too late. George is wounded and unconscious and Rollison, while reaching forward to nab the emergency brake, ends up tossed forward with George. The car swerves and flips into a nearby ditch. Crawling out, Rollison hears a car approach. Feigning unconsciousness, forehead dripping blood, he places his hand upon his gun and waits. A massive brute descends while his lean partner waits at a more discreet distance. The brute is named Karl and discerns that Rollison is still breathing. He intends to finish the job but Rollison shoots him and fires a second shot to scare him off, not realizing the pair are after Christine. Rollison then runs into Lambert. The latter suspects Rollison of tracing and arresting Christine. Lambert is a sure-fire man-killer and moves to assault Rollison. But the latter is a master at hand-to-hand combat and immediately disables the bigger man. He installs into Lambert’s noggin why he is there, and that Christine has been kidnapped. Shows him a photo of a man. Lambert feigns ignorance but Rollison knows he recognized the young man in the photo. Who kidnapped Christine? Who really murdered Lambert’s ex-wife, and why?

I won’t ruin the plot but suffice to say there is plenty of action and like the others I’ve read, this Creasey yarn maintains a good pace.

The Erymanthian Boar features Hercule Poirot. Written by Agatha Christie, the story debuted in The Strand, February 1940, and represents our protagonist’s 4th of his self-appointed The Labours of Hercules. They were not reprinted chronologically in the Creasey Mystery Magazine. Here, he notes that since he has concluded his 3rd labour in Switzerland, he might as well take in the countryside and explore. Well, that prior story was NOT my previous read at all. Poirot decides to take a funicular right to a higher elevation town. Handing in his ticket, he’s handed back his portion and a bonus wadded piece of paper. Smoothing it out later, he discovers that he has been recognized by the local police and they are requesting his aid in capturing Marrascaud, a racecourse gangster and brutal killer described as not a man, but a wild “boar”. The description arrests Poirot’s attention and he assigns it as the fourth labour. It requires Poirot to ascend beyond the town he wished to visit, ascend to the very top destination. Poirot can’t imagine why a vastly hunted villain should isolate himself in a locale in which there is no escape. Neither can I. Nor is this ever properly explained to my satisfaction. I won’t delve into the plot. Suffice to say, Poirot gets his man.

The Cyprian Cat by Dorothy L. Sayers debuted in the British magazine called Harper’s Bazaar in May 1933. It would seem on the surface an unusual place for a supernatural crime story. The tale is told a man to be tried for murdering his friend’s wife. Seems the narrator despises cats but cats seem attracted to him. Well, while in town at the hotel, cats keep harassing him and they disturb him so much that he buys a revolver. A tabby refuses to cease bothering him. One night, his friend requires his assistance. His wife is unresponsible. Eyes rolled back, seems to be a drugged-state. It’s pouring rain outside. He runs into his room for an item when the Cyprian cat lunges in. He manages to shoot the cat but it flies past him into the hallway, In pursuit, his friend’s wife staggers into the hallway and dies at his feet. Everyone arrives on the scene. She’s dead. He’s holding a fired gun. A trail of blood runs from his room to her. The evidence clearly suggests murder, and it doesn’t help that he intends to enter court and plead innocent, and to tell the truth. Who would believe that she and the cat are one and the same? Even worse, he doesn’t realize this. He is certain that when the dead cat is found, there they will find the bullet, for no bullet obviously was found in her. It’s a slogging read, no real eerie feel the tale aside from the obvious. It’s important to note that Sayers at no times leads the reader to assume that the cat nor the wife are evil. Then again, we aren’t sure that she is not evil. The cat is not a shape-shifter, despite what one cat blog suggests. If it were, then the girl could not possibly be in bed while the cat is outside trying to access the room.

After the abysmally boring story above, I’m hoping The Macbeth Dagger by Louis Golding succeeds in re-arousing my interest. It was published in Britannia and Eve, August 1951 and ran as an excerpted piece in Mario on the Beach and other stories (London: Hutchinson) in 1956. This is my second Golding tale; the first was in CSM #1. I’ve four more stories to read and having finished this one, I’m certain that it is the best story in the entire magazine. A minor actress marries a successful actor. She retires, tends home, he’s often away filming movies. A local painter, who the actor derogatorily calls a “poppet” to his face, paints him in the likeness of Macbeth, wielding the famous dagger. While home, he eventually dies from an overdose. The poppet eventually marries the lovely actress and grows to despise the deceased ex-husband to the point that he spits upon an object before painting. He eventually dies with the Macbeth dagger in his back. A third man entirely unrelated to all of this marries the distraught woman, and while reading one of her husband’s movies asks the man to extract some of first husband’s acting garments from the chest in front of the bed, which in turn has said painting now in the bedroom on the wall, whereas prior it was not in the bedroom. He’s digging about and decides to locate the entire garment but cannot find two items. Eventually he mumbles and it irks the girl and he extracts a pair of gauntlets. She loses her mental shit and berates him to put them back in. He looks at the gauntlets, looks at the painting, looks at her. Doesn’t say a thing. She is evil incarnate and sarcastically confesses to murdering both men and challenging him to prove it. Who will the world believe? Her confession is both psychotic and sinister and utterly fantastic, revealing that she is a superior actress capable of fooling anyone.

Sleeping Car by Peter Cheyney originally debuted in Durban, South Africa’s Natal Mercury, in the Saturday Magazine section, 1 July 1939, per the Peter Cheyney dedication site, a newspaper I’d love to locate online access, regarding historical archives. No doubt many other authors were 1st printed therein. This tale later was reprinted within Information Received and other stories by Peter Cheyney (London: Bantam Books, 1948) as The Sleeping Car. This tale may well be suited to a weird tales type of magazine, written after a fashion perhaps like Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. Our protagonist (Neilson) is a surgeon who knows that his wife, an actress, is having an affair with another actor, Karcovski. Offering the latter a ride in his large, luxurious car, he eventually pulls over in a remote area. He convinces Karcovski to exit to vehicle and inspect something wrong with the car, and brains him across the back of the skull. Concussed, Karcovski comes to in the car to discover himself fully secured and Neilson’s surgeon tools ready for an operation. Neilson plans to remove one of his hands, destroying his career and removing him from desire to pursue Neilson’s wife. He does so, informing Karcovski to never return. Upon the first cut, a splotch of blood spurts to the car’s ceiling and spreads out in the shape of a heart. Ten years pass. Neilson finds himself ironically in the same region. Having his driver pull over, he discovers he’s indeed in the same area where he abandoned and hid the car and buried the dismembered hand. Arriving in the nearby small town, he finds the hotel fully booked but they have acquired an old large car and converted it uniquely into a sleeping car. While dining, he learns from nearby conversation that Karcovski recently died. Accepting the odd offer to sleep in the car, he lays back, prepared to relax, and notices the odd heart-shaped dark stain on the ceiling. It couldn’t possibly be his own old car? It is. He nods off and, in his mind, hears the Karcovski state his death was faked, all was staged, and the floorboard pops up and a dismembered hand enters and strangles Neilson. Next morning, he’s declared dead, heart attack, but they can’t figure how the floorboard was shifted. Was it just Neilson’s own imagination after seeing the blood splotch, or something more sinister and supernatural?

Double Booking by Herbert Harris debuted in The (London) Evening Standard, July 24, 1954 and ought to have stayed there. A well-worn plot. Man plans to murder another man, to succeed him in business. He books himself at one hotel under an assumed name, and another under his real name. Makes sure porters and such see each identity, interacts, etc., to establish an alibi for himself, and motive for the false identity. After murdering his man, he steps out from the room and runs into a young man who cleans shoes. Our killer has dirty shoes and to avoid suspicion, surrenders them to the lad. The murder is naturally discovered, and the police inform the killer the shoe-cleaner marks the soles of the shoes with chalk. His were marked the moment he surrendered them, coming out of the dead man’s room.

To which I say, so? He was in disguise! How does this prove the shoes are his? Is his name inked inside the shoes?

While the original American publication source for A Question of Survival by John Randolph Phillips has yet to be ascertained, it’s possible that an astute reader of this blog may recognize the plot. Leila Maxwell is picked up by boyfriend (Frank). He works at a gas station. Leila has noticed in recent days he is nervous about something. Pulling over at her home, she extracts the key from the ignition, forcing him into a confession. Less than a week ago, three hoodlums pulled off a bank heist and during the course of their getaway, they turned around and pretending to head into town, stopped at a gas station to be topped up. Frank found it odd given they only needed one gallon. But when he got too inquisitive and spotted a guy in the back seat, they told him he was sick. He was clearly suffering from a gunshot wound. Realizing he had them made, they threaten his life. Keep silent, or they return and off him. Frank’s been suffering a dilemma. He intends to uphold his end of the drama only if the copper that was shot and hospitalized lives. If he dies, he informs Leila he’ll cop to what he saw.

I won’t ruin the rest of the story, but I suspect therein is enough for any savvy reader to help me identify the story’s original source and likely the original title, assume it was retitled. It’s not a pulp story, but has the feel of being appeared in a slick such as something like Collier’s, The Saturday Evening Post, Maclean’s, etc.

Ben Benson’s Somebody Has to Make a Move was first printed in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, July 1954, originally as Killer in The House and in the UK edition, too. The police in Massachusetts have a home surrounded. A man inside shot and killed a cop. Also inside, held hostage, a married woman and her baby. The cop-killer phoned his sister. Told her to bring him money and clothes. She does. The cops stop her car, inspect it, find the money and clothes. She’s detained, brought to the detective-inspector in charge, Wade Paris. The force has a nickname for him: “Old Icewater.” Why…? Because he’s a heartless bastard. The tale moves forward when the cop-killer’s sister implores Paris to let her speak to her brother, explaining that he is a victim of life’s cruel upbringing and circumstances. It ends with Paris taking a chance, going inside the home with the young lady. The killer moves to shoot Paris but tosses the gun aside and tries to escape. Paris takes him down, applies the cuffs, and he’s placed under arrest. Later, in the precinct, we learn the girl was led to believe (by Paris) that her brother just could not shoot Paris, so tossed away the gun and tried to run instead. Truth is that the man did shoot at Paris. The gun simply jammed, hence why it was tossed aside. Paris decided to let her believe her version of reality.

Undeniably the second-best story, and an excellent way to conclude the magazine. Wade Paris is a recurring character in several of Ben Benson’s novels. Sadly, Ben Benson, born 1913, died young in 1959, authoring scarcely a handful of short stories and nearly 20 novels. Was he a lost literary talent? Hard to judge by this one story, but if any copies of his books cross my path, I ought to remain open to reading them. Remarkably, his widow (Irene) had the foresight to renew the copyrights to most of his novels.