Bodies from the Library 3

Forgotten stories of mystery and suspense by the Queens of Crime and other Masters of the Golden Age

Selected and introduced by

COLLINS CRIME CLUB

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by Collins Crime Club 2020

Selection, introduction and notes © Tony Medawar 2020

For copyright acknowledgements, see Acknowledgements

Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2020

Cover illustrations © Shutterstock.com

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008380939

Ebook Edition © July 2020 ISBN: 9780008380946

Version: 2020-05-28

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

SOME LITTLE THINGS

Lynn Brock

HOT STEEL

Anthony Berkeley

THE MURDER AT WARBECK HALL

Cyril Hare

THE HOUSE OF THE POPLARS

Dorothy L. Sayers

THE HAMPSTEAD MURDER

Christopher Bush

THE SCARECROW MURDERS

Joseph Commings

THE INCIDENT OF THE DOG’S BALL

Agatha Christie

THE CASE OF THE UNLUCKY AIRMAN

Christopher St John Sprigg

THE RIDDLE OF THE BLACK SPADE

Stuart Palmer

A TORCH AT THE WINDOW

Josephine Bell

GRAND GUIGNOL

John Dickson Carr

A KNOTTY PROBLEM

Ngaio Marsh

THE ORANGE PLOT MYSTERIES:

THE ORANGE KID

Peter Cheyney

AND THE ANSWER WAS …

Ethel Lina White

HE STOOPED TO LIVE

David Hume

MR PRENDERGAST AND THE ORANGE

Nicholas Blake

THE YELLOW SPHERE

John Rhode

THE ‘EAT MORE FRUIT’ MURDER

William A. R. Collins

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Also Available

About the Publisher

‘ You and I, serene in our armchairs as we read a new detective story, can continue blissfully in the old game, the great game, the grandest game in the world. ’

John Dickson Carr

One of the many joys of visiting the British Library and other repositories is coming across forgotten or unknown works by some of the most highly regarded writers of the Golden Age of crime and detective fiction, a period that can be considered to have begun in 1913 with Trent’s Last Case by E. C. Bentley, and to have ended in 1937, the year in which Dorothy L. Sayers sent Lord Peter Wimsey on a Busman’s Honeymoon .

This, the third collection of Bodies from the Library , continues our mission to bring into the light some of these little-known short stories and scripts, as well as works that have only appeared in rare volumes and never previously been reprinted. For this edition, there is a previously unpublished mystery featuring Ngaio Marsh’s famous detective, Inspector Roderick Alleyn, as well as a long lost novella in which John Dickson Carr’s satanic sleuth Henri Bencolin goes head to head with a brutal murderer. Stuart Palmer’s Hildegarde Withers confronts ‘The Riddle of the Black Spade’, and six authors go in search of a character as they rise to the challenge of building a short story around the same two-line plot. Among the more famous detectives featured are Anthony Berkeley’s Roger Sheringham, who does his bit to help defeat Hitler, and Senator Brooks U. Banner investigates a murderous scarecrow in a case from the pen of Joseph Commings.

And, in the year that marks 100 years of Agatha Christie stories, the inimitable Hercule Poirot investigates a murder foretold …

Tony Medawar

March 2020

These stories were mostly written in the first half of the twentieth century and characters sometimes use offensive language or otherwise are described or behave in ways that reflect the prejudices and insensitivities of the period.—T.M.

Inspector Clutsam of the Yard came into the office of the senior partner of Messrs Gore and Tolley on the morning of Thursday, June 27, looking peeved. He came because Chief Inspector Ruddell of the Yard had called to see Colonel Gore at three o’clock on the afternoon of the preceding Monday and had not been heard of since.

‘Afternoon, Clutsam,’ said Gore, brightly. ‘Hot, isn’t it? You’d find it cooler without that natty little bowler, wouldn’t you?’

‘Now look here,’ growled the visitor. ‘What did Ruddell come to see you about? The Isaacson necklace, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he say anything to indicate any line of action he had in view concerning it?’

‘Not definitely. I gathered that he wanted us to drop the case. He conveyed to me that he had some information which made us quite superfluous. However, as he had by then spent half an hour trying to pump me for information, I concluded that he was talking through his hat.’

‘What time did he leave you?’

‘A little before four.’

‘Say where he was going next?’

‘I gathered somewhere where there was beer. Monday afternoon was also very hot, you remember, and unfortunately I could only offer him whisky. Which reminds me—’

Inspector Clutsam undid his face partially and accepted a cigarette and a whisky without prejudice. ‘In that case, Colonel,’ he said, ‘you’re the last person we know of who saw Ruddell alive.’

‘That,’ replied Gore, ‘is a very real consolation to me for his loss.’

‘S’nothing to be funny about,’ snapped Clutsam.

‘In life,’ murmured Gore, agreeably, ‘Chief Inspector Ruddell was not an amusing person. In death, I admit, he will be a very serious proposition for any sort of Hereafter to tackle. You think he is—er—deceased?’

‘Think? Ruddell’s been put away—I know it. There are plenty who’d do the job and glad of it. He’s been bumped off—I tell you I know it. He was due back at the Yard on Tuesday morning for a conference with the Commissioner. He didn’t stay away from that just to be funny. And we haven’t been able to find him for two days. Someone’s got him.’

‘As we are on the fourth floor,’ said Gore, reassuringly, ‘we have no cellar. But you are at liberty to inspect our strongroom—’

‘Why did you ask him to come here if you had nothing to tell him?’

‘We didn’t.’

‘He told the clerk you did—that you rang him up at two o’clock on Monday and told him you had something special for him about the Isaacson necklace.’

Gore considered his cigarette thoughtfully. ‘Now, there’s an instance of the importance of little things, Clutsam. If Ruddell had mentioned to me that he had got that message, I rather think both you and he would have been saved some trouble. But he didn’t. He just blew in as if he owned my office, talked eyewash for half an hour, lost his temper, and made an unsuccessful attempt to bluff us off the case. Pity; but, as it happens, it makes things more interesting.’