Bodies from the Library 3. Группа авторов

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 For this edition, there is a previously unpublished mystery featuring Ngaio Marsh’s famous detective, Inspector Roderick Alleyn, as well as a long lost novella in which John Dickson Carr’s satanic sleuth Henri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.

       SOME LITTLE THINGS

      Lynn Brock

      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.’

      ‘What things?’ snarled Clutsam.

      ‘Oh—stolen necklaces and things. As a rule, they bore us horribly—necklaces do. As a matter of fact, in strictest confidence, we decided just twenty-five minutes ago to leave Lady Isaacson to you gentlemen at the Yard. I’m wondering now if we shall.’

      ‘Stop wondering,’ growled the visitor. ‘You take it from me, Colonel, this Isaacson woman is a—’

      ‘Now, that’s just what Ruddell said about her,’ smiled Gore, winningly. ‘Have another little drink, and tell me why you people dislike this poor little lady so much. By the way, I hope you haven’t been very unkind to her about that smash-up on the Portsmouth Road last month, have you?’

      Lady Isaacson was the wife of a millionaire and a very showily-handsome young woman. She had been comparatively unknown to fame until, some six weeks previously, she had made a determined attempt to kill one of His Majesty’s Ministers. Returning in the small hours of the morning from London to her Surrey residence near Farnham, she had crashed into a car going Londonwards, near Guildford. The Important Personage had escaped without injury, though his car had been badly damaged. But the incident had been given elaborate publicity by a certain section of the press, owing to the fact that the lady had been driving well over on the wrong side of the road at a furious pace, and, it was alleged, in a condition of intoxication. She had refused to disclose the name of a gentleman—not her husband—who had been her passenger at the time of the accident and on whose lap, according to the Important Person’s chauffeur, she had been sitting; a detail which had added additional piquancy to the fact that she had been returning from a very notorious night-club. The loss, a few weeks later, of an immensely valuable diamond necklace, which had been stolen from her town residence in Grosvenor Square, had revived the interest of the British public in this sprightly young person. The necklace had been insured for £120,000; but Lady Isaacson had issued a statement to the press disclaiming all intention to hold the insurance company concerned to its liability. She desired, she said, to discover if the police, who spent so much time in attending to other people’s business, could attend to their own with any satisfaction to the public.

      Inspector Clutsam had shut up his face again. It was quite clear that he did not intend to answer the last question. Upon consideration of the face Gore picked up an unsigned letter from a little heap upon his desk, tore it across and dropped it into the waste-paper basket.

      ‘These little things—’ he said. ‘Now, you know you and Ruddell have been bullying Lady Isaacson to get out of her the name of that man who was with her.’

      Clutsam made a noise of contempt