CRIME SCENERY

by James Lincoln Warren

There’s nothing a mystery writer loves better than pulling out the old yellow tape and marking off the scene of the crime. In these days of crime dramas that depend almost exclusively on physical evidence, it is often more critical to story development than motive and opportunity. I must confess, though, that I’m not all that mad for contemporary forensics mysteries, assuming as they do a high level of expertise to interpret what the physical evidence sums to—you can’t deduce anything from a DNA sampling until it gets back from the lab. More fun to me is the scene that contains evidence from which conclusions can be drawn by any competent observer. Holmes may have written his expert monograph on tobacco ash, but where he really shines is putting together evidence that leads to an inescapable conclusion where the evidence is understandable to the most casual reader, like the famous beginning to The Hound of the Baskervilles (abridged below):

   I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. Just under the head was a broad silver band nearly an inch across. “To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H.,” was engraved upon it, with the date “1884.” It was just such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to carry—dignified, solid, and reassuring.
   “Well, Watson, what do you make of it?”
   “I think that Dr. Mortimer is a successful, elderly medical man, well-esteemed since those who know him give him this mark of their appreciation.”
   “Good!” said Holmes. “Excellent!”
   “I think also that the probability is in favour of his being a country practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting on foot.”
   “Why so?”
   “Because this stick has been so knocked about that I can hardly imagine a town practitioner carrying it. The thick-iron ferrule is worn down, so it is evident that he has done a great amount of walking with it.”
   “Perfectly sound!” said Holmes.
   “And then again, there is the ‘friends of the C.C.H.’ I should guess that to be the Something Hunt, the local hunt to whose members he has possibly given some surgical assistance, and which has made him a small presentation in return.”
   “Really, Watson, you excel yourself,” said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette. “I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt.”
   I was proud to think that I had so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned his approval. He now took the stick from my hands and examined it for a few minutes with his naked eyes. Then with an expression of interest he laid down his cigarette, and carrying the cane to the window, he looked over it again with a convex lens.
   “Interesting, though elementary,” said he as he returned to his favourite corner of the settee. “There are certainly one or two indications upon the stick. It gives us the basis for several deductions.”
   “Has anything escaped me?” I asked with some self- importance.
   “I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were erroneous. Not that you are entirely wrong in this instance. The man is certainly a country practitioner. And he walks a good deal.”
   “Then I was right.”
   “To that extent.”
   “But that was all.”
   “No, no, my dear Watson, not all—by no means all. I would suggest, for example, that a presentation to a doctor is more likely to come from a hospital than from a hunt, and that when the initials ‘C.C.’ are placed before that hospital the words ‘Charing Cross’ very naturally suggest themselves.”
   “Well, then, supposing that ‘C.C.H.’ does stand for ‘Charing Cross Hospital,’ what further inferences may we draw?”
   “You know my methods. Apply them!”
   “I can only think of the obvious conclusion that the man has practised in town before going to the country.”
   “I think that we might venture a little farther than this. On what occasion would it be most probable that such a presentation would be made? Obviously at the moment when Dr. Mortimer withdrew from the service of the hospital in order to start a practice for himself. We know there has been a presentation. We believe there has been a change from a town hospital to a country practice. Is it, then, stretching our inference too far to say that the presentation was on the occasion of the change?”
   “It certainly seems probable.”
   “Now, you will observe that he could not have been on the staff of the hospital, since only a man well-established in a London practice could hold such a position, and such a one would not drift into the country. What was he, then? If he was in the hospital and yet not on the staff he could only have been a house-surgeon or a house-physician—little more than a senior student. And he left five years ago—the date is on the stick. So your grave, middle-aged family practitioner vanishes into thin air, my dear Watson, and there emerges a young fellow under thirty, amiable, unambitious, absent-minded, and the possessor of a favourite dog, which I should describe roughly as being larger than a terrier and smaller than a mastiff.”
   I laughed incredulously as Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his settee and blew little wavering rings of smoke up to the ceiling.
   “As to the latter part, I have no means of checking you,” said I, “but at least it is not difficult to find out a few particulars about the man’s age and professional career.” From my small medical shelf I took down the Medical Directory and turned up the name. There were several Mortimers, but only one who could be our visitor. I read his record aloud.

“Mortimer, James, M.R.C.S., 1882, Grimpen, Dartmoor, Devon. House-surgeon, from 1882 to 1884, at Charing Cross Hospital. Medical Officer for the parishes of Grimpen, Thorsley, and High Barrow.”

   “No mention of that local hunt, Watson,” said Holmes with a mischievous smile, “but a country doctor, as you very astutely observed. As to the adjectives, I said, if I remember right, amiable, unambitious, and absent-minded. It is my experience that it is only an amiable man in this world who receives testimonials, only an unambitious one who abandons a London career for the country, and only an absent-minded one who leaves his stick and not his visiting-card after waiting an hour in your room.”
   “And the dog?”
   “Has been in the habit of carrying this stick behind his master. Being a heavy stick the dog has held it tightly by the middle, and the marks of his teeth are very plainly visible. The dog’s jaw, as shown in the space between these marks, is too broad in my opinion for a terrier and not broad enough for a mastiff. It may have been—yes, by Jove, it is a curly-haired spaniel.”
   There was such a ring of conviction in his voice that I glanced up in surprise.
   “My dear fellow, how can you possibly be so sure of that?”
   “For the very simple reason that I see the dog himself on our very door-step, and there is the ring of its owner.”

All right, I admit that 221B Baker Street is not exactly a crime scene, but the examination of the evidence is on point.

But the fun is in mixing up the scene to mislead the reader. Conan Doyle does it by having poor Watson give a credible but entirely inaccurate interpretation of the evidence—the old Inpector Plod ploy, where the dimwitted police detective is used as a foil for the brilliant detective’s rapier intelligence. There are other ways, though, just as much fun.

The Unlikely Locus in Quo

Why was Geraldine, who had a well-known phobia of dishwashers, in the kitchen when she was murdered? There can be several ways to handle this one—Cuthbert used the dishwasher to frighten Geraldine into immobility before killing her with the coffee pot, or Cuthbert killed her in the salon and dragged her body into the kitchen, or Geraldine was in the middle of an aversion therapy session and coincidentally happened to be there when Cuthbert became unhinged—he would just have happily whacked her in the chauffeur’s quarters. The trick is to get the reader worry so much about the location that they miss the significance of the coffee pot.

Alternatively, Geraldine’s body is discovered in the vicar’s library.

Not Enough Clues

Sylvia finds her cousin Mortimer’s monogrammed cufflink on the linoleum next to Geraldine’s corpse, and steals it so the police won’t suspect Mortimer of doing the nasty old battle-axe in. The detective is stymied—until he learns that the cufflink was taken from the scene, whereupon he is able to determine with precision that the murderer was Cuthbert, since Cuthbert stole both cufflinks when he realized that the only shirts he owns not at the cleaners had French cuffs.

Too Many Clues

Cuthbert kills Geraldine in a rage by whacking her over the head with a coffee percolator when he learns that Geraldine has been squeezing the communal toothpaste tube from the middle. (This is a period piece from the days when coffee was made in percolators and toothpaste tubes were made of metal foil rather than plastic.) He subsequently flees. Sylvia, badly in need of a caffeine rush, enters the kitchen and finds Geraldine dead on the floor. Sylvia has always hated Geraldine for making better coffee than Sylvia, so in a gesture of hatred and contempt, she pours out the entire can of Folger’s into Geraldine’s mouth, and then leaves. When the police come to the scene, they assume that the ritualistic force-feeding of dry grounds is a clue to why the murder took place. Mortimer’s membership in a Coffee Cult makes him the prime suspect.

The Locked Room

I don’t really need to explain that this means, ostensibly at least, that no one could have entered or departed the kitchen at the time Geraldine appears to have been murdered, do I? Of course someone did. Probably Cuthbert, Sylvia, and Mortimer all did. Or maybe it was the dog.

Any which way, I conjure you to please take the time to stop and smell the coffee.1 And enjoy the crime scenery.

1. In case you’re wondering, I actually did use a coffee maker as a murder weapon in one of my stories, “Cold Reason” (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine April 2008). This was categorically unfair to percolators and coffee presses, so I’m making up for it here. [↩]

MOVIE MAKING and STORY TELLING

by Leigh Lundin

At lunch last week, my friend Steve mentioned a sequel is under way for Sherlock Holmes, the British-American movie from four months ago.

What?

I thought the movie (still found in some theaters) was adequate, "serviceable" as my father might say, but not anything to write about unless to catalogue a number of problems.

"Yes," added Sharon, "it was critically well-received."

It was?

She was right. It won a Golden Globes Award for Best Actor.

It did?

Golden Globes Award for musical or comedy? It was funny? Or a musical?

Let’s review.

Where’s the real Holmes and what have you done with him?

Sometimes I amaze myself what I don’t know about celebrities and the entertainment industry, but you could have fooled me Sherlock Holmes was a comedy or musical or even award worthy. I didn’t laugh at the North American accents of two of the main characters, a New York actor faking a British accent and a Canadian actress faking a New Jersey accent. I wasn’t amused to find Holmes no longer a master of ratiocination, but a kung fu action figure.

On the plus side, while I didn’t buy Holmes or Adler, he didn’t marry a pesky American. The underlying story was acceptable, the music interesting though overbearing at times, and the visuals rich, even if some were shot in Brooklyn. The bad guy, Lord Blackwood, was nicely sociopathic, Watson was believable, and Inspector Lestrade grew upon me thanks to a plot twist. As a Victorian/Edwardian tale, it worked, but as a Holmes canonical pastiche, no way. Fantasies about pushing this fake Holmes over Reichenbach Falls flooded my mind.

Sherlock v Batman

I reflected upon a recent Hollywood trend report that warned movie goers not to expect thoughtful American films anytime soon. When it comes to the target demographic of male audiences, guys not only don’t like to read, they stay away from movies that aren’t action films. As you’re starting to suspect, this isn’t about Holmes, but about recreating characters and stories in an era that devalues intelligence in favor of action.

If Robert Downey, Jr. reminded you more of Batman than Sherlock, it’s no accident. Director Guy Ritchie deliberately modeled Holmes after the protagonist in Batman Begins and Warner Brothers bought into the production for the same reason. Instead of a spec script, producers created a 25 page Batman-like comic book. During editing, Ritchie employed the Batman soundtrack, The Dark Knight before he hired its maker, Hans Zimmer, to create the music for his Sherlock Holmes.

As for Downey, it doesn’t take Detective Comics to wonder if he bothered to read Sherlock Holmes before the project:

"I think me and Guy are well-suited to working together. The more I look into the books, the more fantastic it becomes. Holmes is such a weirdo. … When you read the description of the guy— quirky and kind of nuts— it could be a description of me."

Reviewers split 50-50, but what do viewers say? In their own words, fans contend "old versions" of "your Grandpa’s Sherlock Holmes" were dry, stuffy, dull, and created by and for people "who apparently have no knowledge of Holmes".

The "new vision" is down and dirty, edgy, electric, exciting, scruffy, smart, swashbuckling, satisfying, thrilling. "They finally got it exactly right!" "The best Holmes-and-Watson-duo so far." "A Watson-Holmes bro-mance." (You have to wonder how many glowing ‘amateur reviews’ were written by paid grips, gaffers, and gofers.)

The Law of Film

I’ve seen few movies this past year and it’s coincidental the only other in recent months also featured Jude Law. I can’t complain about his acting: The British lead of Repo Men so altered his personality, the icily detached character was unrecognizable as the same star who played a decent Watson.

Many mystery readers happen to enjoy science fiction. Like a good mystery, good science fiction– *real* science fiction– requires brains and often encapsulates morality plays. Here I distinguish between science fiction, science fantasy, and space operas. (Hardcore fans further differentiate between ‘sci-fi’ and the hard fiction, SF.) Good science fiction isn’t about monsters and light sabers; it’s about people, politics, and society.

Repo Men takes aim at the current mortgage and financial crisis, and it asks a question posed by Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice:

"What if high-pressure corporate investors finance vital organs at exorbitant interest rates? What happens when desperate customers can’t meet the payments?"

Repossessing failure-to-pay organs is the dystopian answer. Jude Law and his partner, Forest Whitaker, cooly reclaim livers, hearts, and kidneys while deriding and sneering at sniveling, whiny customers, about-to-die deadbeats.

The film is standard SF fare with an extra point or two for concept. I mention the story here to point out writing examples, good and bad.

The interaction between the ebullient Whitaker and the self-contained Law is chilling and effective, but the best scene is short and understated, featuring rap artist RZA as a soulful… well, soul musician, who’s fallen on hard times. The forlorn RZA asks if he might finish laying down the present track and Law, a fan, readily agrees, even helping him. At the end of the session, RZA lies back so Law can stop his heart… whereupon the movie takes its pivotal turn.

The fatalistic RZA is likeable and our empathy aches at his predicament, especially as we realize the world will lose not just an artistic talent, but a good person. We also detect the first traces of humanity and regret in Law whose world is about to change. In an uneven film, it’s the highlight of storytelling. But a ‘lowlight’ follows, a lesson of what not to do.

Hey Jude

The film gushes blood and violence. Some of it makes sense. Other scenes would make Sam Peckinpah lose his lunch. In the final quarter comes a segment that gives up all pretense of anything other than a slasher/splatter/giblet flick. When Law and his girlfriend fight their way into headquarters looking for the ‘pink door’– the entrance to the organ financing computer center– the movie disintegrates into a blood-fest that defies logic.

For reasons that aren’t clear (or for no reason at all), Law steps over usable automatic weapons littering the floor and reveals a pair of custom sheaths strapped to his back containing combat knives. Also defying reason, a group of company men standing in front of the pink door decide to sacrifice their lives for the sake of protecting corporate accounts. Law spends detailed slow-motion minutes mowing them down like a scythe through a field of flesh. What is the point?

Hey Dude

It’s not surprising professional reviewers rated the film poorly while the current crop of movie goers rated it highly. As mentioned above, industry pundits claim Hollywood won’t anytime soon welcome thoughtful films, but reviewers aren’t wholly inured, not yet. Still, when it comes to ticket sales, a widening chasm separates quality from quantity, the entertainment wheat from the chaff.

Say what?

In case you feel like surreal crime, take a peek at the Bruce Willis versus Gorillaz Stylo video.

JOURNALISM

by John M. Floyd

1

All of us have heard plenty of advice on how to write, and how to write better. Some of the more common tips include “show, don’t tell,” “write what you know,” “don’t overuse adverbs,” etc. And one that shows up on at least a few lists is “keep a journal.”

What does that mean, a “journal”? Well, it’s different things to different folks. By definition, I suppose it’s a written record of personal observations or experiences — almost a diary if it’s done regularly — but from a writer’s point of view I think of it as sort of a paper Dictaphone, one of those shirt-pocket writing pads that you can use to jot down plot ideas or character descriptions or pieces of dialogue, for later use. (A mini-recorder or a laptop also works, and I know one lady who sends herself a voicemail whenever she gets an idea that she needs to remember.) Others say it should be a regular notebook or a word-processing file in which you record your daily story thoughts, maybe at night when you have time to sit down and give them your undivided attention. Bottom line is, journaling can take any form you want it to, if you choose to do it at all.

Personally, I don’t guess I keep what one might call a journal. I do find myself writing down ideas sometimes as they occur to me — but it’s usually on whatever scrap of paper might be handy, like a Wendy’s napkin or a roadmap from the glove compartment or the envelope for the electric bill. The obvious disadvantage of my approach is that when I need to find and use my kind of notes, I might have to look around a bit for them, and hope they haven’t found their way into the garbage. But that’s just the way I do it. (If you’re wondering at this point how the hell I ever manage to get anything done, writingwise . . . well, I sometimes wonder the same thing.)

I recently heard an interesting observation about the use of a journal, for writers. I’ve forgotten who said it, but here’s the gist:

Don’t waste your time writing in a journal; save your creative efforts for paying work.

That makes sense, in a way. I suspect that some people might use a journal as a substitute for real writing, and could wind up with loads of story material recorded in notebooks or Word files that never make it into an actual manuscript that could be submitted and sold to a market. Those folks can rationalize that they are in fact “writing,” when what they’re doing is avoiding the kind of writing that winds up getting published.

I realize, of course, that keeping a journal is helpful to many writers, and it’s not my intention to discourage that. All of us have brainstorms at the most inconvenient times, and it’s good to have a way to record those so they won’t slip our minds later. (I must confess, in recent months I have adopted the habit of folding a blank sheet of paper three times and stuffing it into my shirt pocket along with a pen whenever I leave my castle and mingle with the townsfolk. That way I can at least scribble urgent thoughts when they occur to me, wherever I am. So I suppose I do “journal” in a journal now and then.)

To those of you who are writers: what are your own journaling habits? Do you do it on the fly? Later, at home? Meticulously? Haphazardly? Never?

Vive la difference . . .

1. Illustration by Baron C. de Grimm for late the 19th/early 20th century humorist Marietta Holley’s Samantha at the World’s Fair. [↩]

BAR MITZVAH BLISS

by Steven Steinbock

I’m writing this a whole week early, having just finished writing my April 16 column, since this column gets posted on the day before my son Sam’s Bar Mitzvah. He’ll do great. He is a man of many words. A chip off the old block.

Back Formations

Two weeks back, in the comments section of my April 9 column, the subject of pronunciation pet peeves came up. It got me thinking about the phrase pet peeves. It’s a funny expression if you think about it. The two words are oxymoronic. A “pet” is something you like, a favorite, a cherished animal. A “peeve” is an annoyance.

What is also interesting is that both “pet” and “peeve” are examples of back-formations. Back-formation is the linguistics term for what happens when a new word is created by removing apparent suffixes or prefixes. Note, I said apparent. In order for the process to be back-formation, the parts of the original word that are stripped away are not meant to be stripped away.

The word televise is an example of back-formation. Someone took the word television (for which vision is an essential root) and decided that by taking away the ion he would have a verb.

One might think that liaison comes from the verb to liaise or that an editor is one who edits. But the real story is backwards. The verb liaise was invented by slicing off the tail of liaison, and the word editor predated edit by almost two hundred years. To opine, legislate, or escalate are to engage in back-formed verbs.

It’s been suggested that the word pet is a back-formation from pettish or petty. I can’t say I wholly understand the connection. It’s a complicated example because pet may have two different origins (one Scottish and one southern English) and at least one of them implies something annoying rather than something cute and cuddly. In that case, maybe pet peeve isn’t such an oxymoron.

Peeve is a much simpler, straightforward example of back-formation. In Middle English, the word peyvsh (1350-1400) was a state of being irritated or obstinate. It evolved into peevish. Then in America during the early years of the Twentieth century, the ish got cut off like mouse’s tail with a carving knife, and we got “peeved.”

Euthanized Oaths

The title should have been “Euphemized Oaths” but I couldn’t resist the pun. The two words, euthanize and euphemize are just two letters off from each other, and one is an example of the other. It’s also worth noting that euthanize is a back-formation from euthanasia. If I get much more philosophical than I am right now, they’ll have to send the men in the white coats for me. Or worse.

The word oath is extremely old. It means to testify, affirm, or vow. But it also has the meaning of “careless invocations of divinity” going back as far as 1175. That’s the kind of oath I’m referring to. Ever since my April 9 column about the word “snap” I’ve been thinking about innocent-sounding words that people use as substitutes for obscenities. What has shocked me to the core is how many of these casual slang words are religious in origin.

By golly, it’s a long list. Dang, Darn, and Drat are all substitutes for “Damn.”

Golly, Gosh, and by Gum are alternatives to referring to the Deity in vain. Then, of course, there’s the expression dadgummit which is a spoonerism, of sorts, as well as being a euphemism.

Hades is a Greek synonym for “Hell” (as well as the name of the Greek deity who rules that domain) so it doesn’t really qualify as a euphemism. But that doesn’t stop people from using it as one. Then there are invented words like Heck and Sam Hill.

The Christian messiah gets the grand prize. What follows is a partial list of substitute curse-words based on the name and/or title of the famous Nazarene:

Jeez
Sheesh
Jeepers
Jeepers Creepers
Gee wiz
Jiminy Cricket
Merry Christmas
Cripes
Crikey
Cheese and Rice

Let’s not have Criminal Brief become a den of blasphemy, but if you have any favorite euphemized curses, or any interesting back-formations, click the comment button and let it roll.

AMERICAN IDOLS

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

Contest Judges James Baldwin, Jane Austen, and William Shakespeare

Currently one of the highest rankings on television’s Nielsen charts is American Idol – and remember, they’re doing that twice a week, season after season, with no sign of let-up. News of those voted off by American viewers are as eagerly awaited as any horse race results at the Kentucky Derby.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, and Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories had a great following, but nothing to compare with American Idol.

I’m wondering if a television program showcasing great writers reading their own flash fiction works (stories usually somewhere between 100-1,000 words) could have such an opportunity.

Writing is an entertainment form as much as singing, just usually without as much as money being generated by a single story as by a single recording. But why the snub by the entertainment industry – or for that matter, the public itself?

Writers struggle as much as singers. Writers are known to starve while perfecting their craft and waiting to be discovered. I’ve even heard a few “I-had-to-live-in-my-car” stories à la Jewel.
So, why not a prime time show for us?

Just imagine how it could be. In the beginning, judges could be picked either from their own expertise as a writer who made good or as an editor who had made a career from recognizing others’ talents. The auditions taking place across the country would bring out everyone who brought a story home from high school English and was told by his mother he was talented. Sure, there would be some really awful stories that made the audience groan. What fun to watch the former writer wince and say, “Sorry, sweetie,” and the editor, his face completely deadpan, remark, “That was hideous. Find something else to do with your time. You just don’t have it.”

Town after town would find all those people who plan to finish their novel as soon as they find some extra time sitting in bleachers awaiting their turn to audition for the next American Writer Idol.

Writers would watch spellbound thinking to themselves: Next year, I’ll be one of those up on stage. Why, I could win this!

The first few weeks where American Writer Idol showcases the extremes – the very best juxtaposed with the very, very worst could be more entertaining than singers. Anyone who’s attended an open mike reading can attest it is as equally good or bad as Karaoke Night.

Our own motley crew of writers at Criminal Brief serves as a test market. Even here we do have a ranking of sorts with the amount of comments left by our “viewers.” (Some weeks our articles get better “reviews” than others.)

I wonder if our readership today is saying, “She was a bit pitchy and didn’t hit all the high notes she was attempting,” or “I didn’t think that subject was a good choice today.” Or even, “She’s certainly no Bill Crider.”1

Trying to compete with a best-selling artist’s signature style is difficult unless you’re really, really good. Chris Daughtry did it when he sang “I Walk the Line,” and made it sound like anything but a Johnny Cash song. We can’t all be John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell or Mary Higgins Clark. That’s okay because there’s always room for a new bestselling author’s style. The only time a writer would want to blend in would be if he wrote a series like “Nick Carter” or “Nancy Drew” where many authors have continued in the vein of the creator.

As contestants on American Writer Idol would discover, some genres would be better suited to his talents than others, but it would be interesting to see if a horror writer could write a decent romance2 or a mystery writer could give literary a whirl.3

Writers, like singers, should stretch their artistic muscles and see what happens when they step beyond their comfort zone. What about readers? Probably long ago you decided what you liked to read best. Maybe you’re a horror buff, but you might enjoy an occasional side trip into science fiction. A romance reader may enjoy a jaunt with mainstream. In my opinion, you all should give mysteries a try.

If an enterprising television producer would like to give American Idol a spin and land on the writers block, I think you’ll find plenty of people lining up to be contestants. They probably all have family and friends—perhaps even entire home towns – cheering them on to be viewers that advertisers would love to reach. Sounds like a win/win situation.

It could all be quite entertaining.

1. If you think at least one of us at Criminal Brief must mention Bill Crider every week, you may be right. [↩]
2. Stephen King couldn’t, but he turned the romance into Misery, so he still succeeded. [↩]
3. In my own attempt at a literary short story, it is now official: I am the only one who sees merit in that short story. [↩]

Due to some technical problems, which I won’t go into here, next week’s Tune It Or Die! was published last night instead of the correct one, albeit with the illustration for today’s column. I forthwith present the correct column, which, as the Gentle Reader may appreciate, is the more appropriate one given today’s anniversary event. I’ve deleted everybody’s comments, the necessity for which I apologize, but you’ll get a chance to comment again when “Overloaded” returns next Wednesday. —JLW

A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN CRIMINAL COURT

by Rob Lopresti

It was exactly 100 years ago today that one of the greatest writers in American literature hopped on a fast comet and got out of town.

So let’s celebrate a little by considering one of Samuel L. Clemens’ last adventures with crime. My information comes from Michael Shelden’s recent and excellent book Mark Twain: Man In White.

The new home

In 1908 Mark Twain moved to what he hoped would be his last residence, a mansion that had had been specially built for him in Redding, Connecticut. Twain had refused to look at the plans, or visit the site, wanting the house to magically appear as if a genie had granted a wish. Fortunately he declared himself well-satisfied with the lovely house on a hill.

He named it Innocence At Home and began inviting a steady stream of visitors. He also got involved in his rural community by leading the movement to build a public library (and donating hundreds of books from his own collection – see Monday’s New York Times for a hilarious report on some of his criticism found scribbled in the margins).

But his bucolic paradise only lasted two months. Then scoundrels as vicious as the Duke and the King in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but a lot less amusing, arrived to trouble his retirement.

A rude awakening

On the night of September 17 Mark Twain’s longtime secretary Isabel Lyon was awakened by a loud crash. “I thought at first it was a swinging shutter, but it was followed by a second noise, as if something had tumbled off a table, and I decided that something was wrong.”

She found the French windows in the dining room open and discovered two men looting the sideboard, which they had carried outside.

Her scream woke everyone. The butler arrived with his pistol and fired at the robbers. They escaped, carrying away the silverware engraved with the maiden name of Twain’s beloved late wife. The thieves could have probably searched the house for days without finding something of more sentimental value.

Deputy sheriff George Banks led the hunt and caught up with the burglars on a train. One of them, Charles Hoffman,, managed to jump off, but Banks shot him in the leg.

The other, Henry Williams, shot Banks in the thigh. When the passengers pulled the emergency cord Williams fell to the floor and two railroad workers beat him into surrender. It was a hell of a morning commute.

Enter the master

As I wrote in my first piece about Shelden’s book, Twain was a master marketer. He did not want the dominant storyline to be “Frail Writer Terrorized In Own Home” so he worked hard to make sure it was “Feisty Writer Confronts Hapless Thieves.”

When the bad guys were being observed, bandaged and handcuffed, by a crowd in town hall, Mark Twain marched up to them and demanded: “So you’re the two young men who called at my house last night and forgot to put your names in my guest-book?”

Later that day Twain entertained reporters at his house and showed them a note he planned to post on the front door:

Notice. To the Next Burglar.

There is nothing but plated ware in this house, now and henceforth. You will find it in that brass thing in the dining-room over in the corner by the basket of kittens. If you want the basket, put the kittens in the brass thing. Do not make a noise – it disturbs the family. You will find rubbers in the front hall, by that thing which has the umbrellas in it, chiffonier, I think they call it, or pergola or something like that.

Please close the door when you go away.

Very truly yours

S.L. Clemens.

Last words

In an attempt to scare burglars and win back visitors Twain announced that he was installing burglar alarms and ominous warning systems. He also changed his home’s name from the vulnerable-sounding Innocence At Home to the more intimidating Stormfield.

And speaking of comets as I did at the start, you may recognize that name as belonging to the hero of Extract From Captain Stormfield’s Visit To Heaven. After his death the Captain raced with a comet and that jaunt led him so far from the part of heaven he was supposed to reach that the man at the gate had never heard of Earth.

He got a balloon and sailed up and up and up, in front of a map that was as big as Rhode Island. He went on up till he was out of sight, and by and by he came down and got something to eat and went up again. To cut a long story short, he kept on doing this for a day or two, and finally he came down and said he thought he had found that solar system, but it might be fly-specks. So he got a microscope and went back. It turned out better than he feared. He had rousted out our system, sure enough. He got me to describe our planet and its distance from the sun, and then he says to his chief.

“Oh, I know the one he means, now, sir. It is on the map. It is called the Wart.”

A typical bit of Twain humor there, mocking the vanity of what he called the Damned Human Race.

But we are better off for having had him as a member.

He-e-ere’s Eddy! With some notes from moi. —JLW

THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO

by Edgar Allan Poe

The thousand injuries of Fortunato1 I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled—but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved, precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

It must be understood, that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.

He had a weak point—this Fortunato—although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true virtuoso spirit. For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and opportunity—to practise imposture upon the British and Austrian millionaires. In painting and gemmary,2 Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack—but in the matter of old wines he was sincere. In this respect I did not differ from him materially: I was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could.

It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him, that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.

I said to him—“My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day! But I have received a pipe3 of what passes for Amontillado4 and I have my doubts.”

“How?” said he. “Amontillado? A pipe? Impossible! And in the middle of the carnival!”

“I have my doubts,” I replied; “and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain.”

“Amontillado!”

“I have my doubts.”

“Amontillado!”

“And I must satisfy them.”

“Amontillado!”

“As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi. If any one has a critical turn, it is he. He will tell me—”

“Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry.”

“And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own.”

“Come, let us go.”

“Whither?”

“To your vaults.”

“My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature. I perceive you have an engagement. Luchesi—”

“I have no engagement;—come.”

“My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre.5”

“Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchesi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado.”

Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm. Putting on a mask of black silk, and drawing a roquelaire6closely about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.

There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in honor of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned.

I took from their sconces two flambeaux7, and giving one to Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together on the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.

The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap jingled as he strode.

“The pipe,” said he.

“It is farther on,” said I; “but observe the white web-work which gleams from these cavern walls.”

He turned towards me, and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication.

“Nitre?” he asked, at length.

“Nitre,” I replied. “How long have you had that cough?”

“Ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh! ugh! ugh!”

My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.

“It is nothing,” he said, at last.

“Come,” I said, with decision, “we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchesi—”

“Enough,” he said; “the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.”

“True—true,” I replied; “and, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily—but you should use all proper caution. A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps.”

Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.

“Drink,” I said, presenting him the wine.

He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled.

“I drink,” he said, “to the buried that repose around us.”

“And I to your long life.”

He again took my arm, and we proceeded.

“These vaults,” he said, “are extensive.”

“The Montresors,” I replied, “were a great and numerous family.”

“I forget your arms.”

“A huge human foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.”

“And the motto?”

“Nemo me impune lacessit.”8

“Good!” he said.

The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through walls of piled bones, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.

“The nitre!” I said: “see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river’s bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too late. Your cough—”

“It is nothing,” he said; “let us go on. But first, another draught of the Medoc.”

I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grâve. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.

I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement—a grotesque one.

“You do not comprehend?” he said.

“Not I,” I replied.

“Then you are not of the brotherhood.”

“How?”

“You are not of the masons.”9

“Yes, yes,” I said, “yes, yes.”

“You? Impossible! A mason?”

“A mason,” I replied.

“A sign,” he said.

“It is this,” I answered, producing a trowel from beneath the folds of my roquelaire.10

“You jest,” he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. “But let us proceed to the Amontillado.”

“Be it so,” I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak, and again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heavily. We continued our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame.

At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner. From the fourth the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. It seemed to have been constructed for no especial use in itself, but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of solid granite.

It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavored to pry into the depths of the recess. Its termination the feeble light did not enable us to see.

“Proceed,” I said; “herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchesi—”

“He is an ignoramus,” interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet, horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.

“Pass your hand,” I said, “over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power.”

“The Amontillado!” ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment.

“True,” I replied; “the Amontillado.”

As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche.

I had scarcely laid the first tier of my masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth; and then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labors and sat down upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast. I again paused, and holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.

A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated—I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess: but the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs, and felt satisfied. I reapproached the wall. I replied to the yells of him who clamored. I re-echoed—I aided—I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamorer grew still.

It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. I had completed the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth tier. I had finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I placed it partially in its destined position. But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognising as that of the noble Fortunato. The voice said—

“Ha! ha! ha!—he! he!—a very good joke indeed—an excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo—he! he! he!—over our wine—he! he! he!”

“The Amontillado!” I said.

“He! he! he!—he! he! he!—yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone.”

“Yes,” I said, “let us be gone.”

“For the love of God, Montresor!”

“Yes,” I said, “for the love of God!”

But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud—

“Fortunato!”

No answer. I called again—

“Fortunato!”

No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick—on account of the dampness of the catacombs. I hastened to make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat!11

1. “Fortunato” means “lucky”. The name is obviously meant to be ironic. The name of the narrator, “Montresor”, can be read as “mon trésor”, “my treasure”. It’s a French name and usually spelled with the acute accent over the “e”. I wonder if it refers to, um, buried treasure.—JLW [↩]
2. “Of or pertaining to gems; concerned with or skilled in gems.”—OED [↩]
3. “A large cask, used for wine . . . equivalent to half a tun, or 2 hogsheads, or 4 barrels, i.e. containing usually 105 imperial gallons (= 126 old wine-gallons), but varying for different commodities, and still for different kinds of wine.”—OED [↩]
4. “Formerly, a wine of the sherry type produced in Montilla; now, a matured sherry in which the ‘flor’ has developed.”—OED. Montilla is a city in Córdoba Province, Spain, which has been occupied since Roman times.—JLW [↩]
5. Saltpeter.—JLW [↩]
6. A heavy fur-lined cloak, hemmed at the knees, worn in the 18th century.—JLW [↩]
7. Torches.—JLW [↩]
8. “Nobody spurns me with impunity.” The phrase is also the motto of the Order of the Thistle, a Scottish heraldic order, and has a legendary history.—JLW [↩]
9. Unlike me, Edgar Allan Poe was not himself a Mason, but he referenced Freemasonry on occasion for gothic effect, as he does here. Some have read this story as evidence that Poe was hostile to Freemasonry.—JLW [↩]
10. In the U.S., the trowel is generally considered to be the primary working tool of a Master Mason and is meant to symbolize the spreading of the brotherly love that cements the Freemasons. (Poe, of course, was an American author, even if the story takes place in Europe.) This is another instance of irony, since Montresor has quite something else in mind than fraternal love.—JLW [↩]
11. “Rest in Peace”—more usually expressed as “Requiescat In Pace” and abbreviated “R.I.P.” [↩]