Anthony Abbot : About the Murder of the Night Club Lady,1931

Abbot's third novel was About the Murder of the Night Club Lady (1931), or The Night Club Lady, or The Murder of the Night Club Lady, depending on the edition.

WARNING: SPOILERS !!!

This time, Thatcher Colt is approached by prosecutor Merle Dougherty to investigate the affairs of one Lola Carewe, widow of the cotton king, who, however, has left her little inheritance. However, she loves living in luxury and pomp, which is not a good fit for someone who, in her past, was a starlet and dancer but nothing more. Dougherty hypothesizes, based on the fact that she has been seen on several occasions with notorious fences, that she is the head of a ring of burglars. Colt agrees, and they go together to a nightclub, where the widow is supposed to arrive. Their astonishment is greatest when she calls for police intervention, faced with a threatening letter announcing her imminent end, at a certain time that night. Her apprehension is also tangible because her dog and parrot are dead, and the letter mentions their deaths, a first glimpse of Lola's. They would therefore have been killed, but there's no proof.
Colt, Carewe, Dougherty, and several police officers, along with Abbot, go to Carewe's house during a terrible snowfall on New Year's Eve: a penthouse apartment where her mother and a friend of Lola's, Christine Quires, who is about to inherit a million dollars, also live. After searching the apartment and making sure there are no other people present and that nothing can be done that night, the bystanders try to stay with Lola, to prevent the threat from coming true and to demonstrate that she is in no danger. What a surprise when, around three o'clock, Lola is found lifeless and dying in her room!
Dr. Baldwin, who lives in the same building and is her doctor, is called; He administers an injection of atropine to try to revive her, but to no avail. Lola is dead, and no sign is found on her body that would suggest she was murdered: Baldwin, in fact, believes it was a heart attack. Colt suspects poison and therefore calls in Dr. Multooler.
There are some strange facts that give cause for concern: first, the robe Lola was wearing had been buttoned in a men's fashion, not a women's, and then Lola's friend is nowhere to be found, despite Abbot himself having learned from a hotel employee that she would return before their arrival. However, her body is later found in the house, despite there apparently being no place to hide it; and, what's more, it's wet. She's also dead, but for a longer time. And she appears to have been strangled after death. And some of her hair is found under a window. And her body also apparently shows no signs of damage, except for one on her earlobe. This body, too, is handed over to Multooler.
Thatcher Colt calls upon the genius of Professor Luckner, a renowned scientist whose expertise he uses for forensic investigations: he is sent the garbage and dust from the attic, sucked up by two powerful vacuum cleaners that have combed the entire apartment, in case he finds anything there. The surprise comes when Luckner announces that among the many filths vacuumed up, he has found two almost invisible stalks of an animal he identifies as a lethal Mexican scorpion, whose bite causes rapid death that can also be confused with a heart attack. The autopsy confirms the discovery.
Another discovery: Lola was not a fence but a blackmailer: countless documents proving her activity are found.
A third death soon follows, that of Dr. Baldwin himself, blackmailed by Carewe, who had procured two scorpions for her, to kill more people.
But the doctor isn't the killer; rather, he's the victim's accomplice. The killer is at large. He'll be apprehended and commit suicide after Colt connects Lola to the photo of her only French love, Basile, and to a long-standing vendetta rooted in Basile's suicide.

THE END OF SPOILERS 

After two astonishing novels, this one marks a step back, if anything, from Abbot. The novel isn't bad: the fact is, it doesn't deliver on all the promises made in the first part!

At the beginning, it's a true tour de force of impossibilities: a threat that becomes reality, a death that occurs more or less at the same time as predicted; a death whose origin is unclear, other than apparently natural, but obviously irreconcilable with the deaths of the dog and the parrot; another very strange death, occurring in the same manner, that of Christine, whose body disappeared and then reappeared in an apartment where police were stationed at the same time. And, what's more, there are some bizarre details: a strange buttoning on her robe, a small box found smashed, twenty-three floors below the window, with cotton inside.

But after this whirlwind of situations and emotions, the narrative slows down and we almost wearily reach the ending, in which Colt says he has understood and can resolve the matter, and explains it to those present (and to the reader, without having previously provided any clarification): a revenge that comes from afar, in time and space, and which he receives information about from his French colleague Dupont, via dispatches. Frankly, after all the fuss that had occurred at the beginning of the novel, one would have expected more! Furthermore, the detail of the strange buttoning mentioned at the beginning is not given any satisfaction in the explanation, as if the fabric of the novel had contained two or more developments: as if, to be clear, at the beginning of the novel Abbot had had a murderer in mind, and then later changed his target, choosing another, but without eliminating the traces of the old idea. For the rest, we find details that reveal the lineage by Van Dine: it is a series of crimes that unfold in a family, and here the legacy is from Greene: after all, Queen's Tragedy of Y also harks back to Greene, as does Bishop's Death in the Dark. Here, in addition to the duo formed by a police officer friend of the Chief of Police, and by the Chief himself (Philo Vance-Van Dine, Lord-Pons, Queen Ellery-Queen Richard), there is also the presence of the prosecutor Merle, who recalls Markham in Van Dine. Furthermore, Lola's profession (actress and dancer) brings to mind that of a famous Vandinian victim: the Canary.
The bizarre details (the buttoning of the dressing gown, Christine's body having disappeared and then reappeared wet, the time of her death preceding that of Lola and therefore hidden where no one would ever have seen it, considering that the police had also searched the penthouse terrace during the snowfall after learning that Christine Quires had disappeared from the apartment, that she had entered but no one had seen her) and also the Chinese butler (who is actually a spy) lead us more towards a Queenian than Vandinian positioning, as if after the exploit of Queen in 1929 and the repeated success in 1930, Abbot had also absorbed Queen's influence (the Chinese butler reminds us of Queen's Filipino butler). If we want, he may have influenced Queen and others: I'll just say that in The Egyptian Cross Mystery there's the same vengeance that comes from afar, both in time and space (even if it's a pretext there), which is also found in Rhode and further back in time in De Angelis, and which derives from Conan Doyle; Christine Quires, murdered and hidden where no one would ever see, who then reappears and is found to have died before Lola, recalls Hake Talbot's first novel ( which however dates back to 1942 and therefore having been written and published later, could have taken from this novel by Abbot the idea then developed in his) also in the location where the body was hidden, outside the window: there in an architectural recess, where no one would ever look, here attached by the throat, with a belt, to the hotel's flagpole. The foretold time of death also derives from Wallace's The Four Just Men, reprised in Daly King in 1935. And much more.
For example, the death in the skyscraper, which can only be explained by going back in time, brings to mind Earl Derr Biggers and his Charlie Chan: in particular, Behind That Curtain, the 1928 novel set in a skyscraper and whose story can only be explained in the past. And if Dr. Multooler might remind us of Queenie's Dr. Prouty and Vandini's Dr. Doremus, George Luckner, precisely because of the way Colt portrays him, reminds me of a scientist rather than a coroner, Freeman's Dr. Thorndyke, the scientist whose encyclopedic knowledge, thanks to his scientific methods, allows him to solve the most intricate cases: who on earth would have been able to identify, based on two microscopic stalks found in the dust of Lola's room, a Centruroides exilicauda? 

 

Except that Abbot, attracted by the scorpion's high-sounding name, didn't do any research, as other contemporary writers did: the Centruroides Exilicauda, ​​while poisonous, is never fatal (unless there are other concomitant conditions that make the poison's action more dangerous. But nothing is said here about Lola and Christine's previous physical conditions. So...).
In short, a novel that takes many cues and hints, very enjoyable in parts, but which doesn't stand out for the originality and explosive force of the previous novels.


Pietro De Palma

Saburo Koga: The Spider ( 蜘蛛, 1930) - Translated: Ho-Ling Wong, Adapted: John Pugmire. On EQMM 2015, December and on "Foreign Bodies" (British Library Crime Classics), 2018

 

Saburo Koga is an unknown name among the people of the West .

Some might argue that many Japanese authors are, and that in general, before their works began to be translated in the West, even the most well-known authors, such as Keigo Higashino, Shimada Soji, and Yokomizo Seishi, were also unknown. Absolutely true! However, it's undeniable that some authors are more well-known than others. And Saburo Koga is one of them.

 

 

 

His real name was Haruta Yoshitame (1893–1945). He was a contemporary of the other great Japanese writer known as Edogawa Rampo (a pseudonym created after Edgar Allan Poe), whose real name was Taro Hirai, who published his first major novel in 1923: "The Two-Sen Copper Coin." Taking Rampo as a starting point, Saburo Koga also began writing stories, including the one presented here, which is very popular in Japan.

Koga Saburo's main achievement, however, is having coined the term Honkaku, meaning "orthodox," to refer to stories from the Japanese Golden Age, the same year Berkeley founded the Detection Club in London. It is no coincidence that the Honkaku Mystery Writers of Japan, modeled after the London-based Honkaku Mystery Writers Club in 1970, continues to exist and produce fiction.

"The Spider" dates back to 1930 and is no ordinary "whodunit," but rather a delightful fusion of elements from macabre fiction and the classic detective puzzle. The translation presented here was undertaken by Ho-Ling Wong and edited by John Pugmire.

Professor Tsujikawa was a renowned physical chemist, widely admired for his science. His decision to leave his university professorship to devote himself to researching spiders caused a stir and a stir. To do so, he had a bizarre laboratory built for himself, perched on a nine-meter-high pillar. It was shaped like a cylinder, approximately 4.5 meters wide and 2.7 meters high, with a round ceiling and windows, all the same size, spaced at regular intervals.

He then searched for a large number of spiders of all species, including venomous ones, sealed them in numerous containers, and began studying them.

About six months had passed, and the world had forgotten about Professor Tsujikawa and his strange laboratory; but the death of a friend of the professor, Professor Shiomi, seemed to rekindle the media's interest.

The narrator of the story is the one who was present that day: he is a zoology student, very knowledgeable in the study and classification of arthropods. It was therefore natural that Professor Tsujikawa would turn to him for clarification; He, too, was very curious about the scientist's reasons for abandoning his successful branch of research to study spiders, and I had asked him, but to no avail.

It was said that both Professor Shiomi and Professor Tsujikawa were on bad terms, due to constant gossip and even caustic jokes uttered by Shiomi. But when the narrator, an assistant in the zoology lab, goes to Professor Tsujikawa's lab, he realizes from the tone of the comments and jokes, and from the conversational tone between the two, that it's all a joke: as soon as he opens the door, he finds Professor Tsujikawa sitting at the desk facing the door, while Shiomi is also sitting across from him, with his back to the door.

A conversation develops between the three, although at a certain point it's he and Shiomi who are conversing, while Professor Tsujikawa begins to chat. Tragedy strikes shortly thereafter: a trapdoor spider, whose colors could easily be mistaken for a poisonous spider, approaches Shiomi's shoes. Terrified, he leaps toward the door to escape, but slips on the small landing and falls down the steep concrete staircase, dying.

The young man tries to help him, but Professor Tsujikawa, heartbroken by what has happened, stops him instantly, warning the young man that the steep staircase, in the excitement of the moment, could cause another accident: better to stop for a while and let the excitement cool down. Anyway... Shiomi is dead.

The news of his death brings the laboratory back into the spotlight, prompting a police investigation and general curiosity. But the investigation can only confirm Professor Tsujikawa's complete innocence, especially since an eyewitness testifies to it. So, an accident.

Time passes, and the professor becomes increasingly occupied with his studies on spiders. One fine day, something happens that brings the lab back into the spotlight: the Professor is bitten by a poisonous spider, and after an uncertain hospital stay... he dies.

What remains is the lab and its spiders.

The professor's family, also for reasons of public safety, accepts the young man's proposal to take care of him, especially since some of the containers, not properly sealed, have allowed their guests to escape and build webs on the ceiling.

The young man thus encounters spiders of a wide variety of species. "I had visited the place several times when the professor was alive, and I was also a student of zoology, especially arthropods, so I should have been quite used to the sight; nevertheless it still gave me the shivers and I was rooted for a moment to the spot. Inside hundreds of bottles lining the walls, eight-legged monsters were running around and spinning their webs. Big Oni-gumo and Jorō spiders, yellow with blue stripes; Harvestmen with legs ten times longer than theirs bodies; Cellar spiders with yellow spots on their backs. The grotesque Kimura spider and trapdoor spiders, Ji-gumo, Ha-gumo, Hirata-gumo, Kogane-gumo: all these different kinds of spiders had not been fed for about a month and, having lost most of their flesh, were looking around with shiny, hungry eyes for food of the ghastly creatures were crawling around on the walls and ceiling."

However, no poisonous spider has escaped. So the one that bit the Professor must be dead. However, while searching for it, the young man makes a strange discovery: behind the desk, on one of the back legs of the piece of furniture, he finds a switch. Except that when he turns it on, the lights don't go off, nor do any others come on. Minutes pass, he smokes I don't know how many cigarettes, and meanwhile he remembers that pleasant discussion that ended in drama. He decides to leave, opens the door (which opens inward) and just has time to grab onto the door frame, to avoid falling down and suffering the same fate as Shiomi: someone has destroyed the ladder, which is no longer there.

He will be able to get out of it and understand who or what could have killed him as it had killed Shiomi, after he finds a little book in which the killer conceived his criminal plan.

And the killer? In the meantime, he too will be dead.

A small masterpiece of impossible crime, Koga Saburo's story betrays its origins: the murder of the murderous room. And therefore, essentially, Phillpotts. But the trick is truly original: I haven't mentioned a single detail so as not to deprive the reader of the pleasure of imagining it. And to think it was 1930: the Japanese truly have boundless imaginations!

There are two stories reminiscent of this one, but both are from after 1930: Carr's The Door to Doom (1935) and Woolrich's Murder in Room 913 (1937).

Saburo (in the premeditation of the crime, written in a book that the narrator later discovers) alludes to a story from which he drew inspiration, which instead unfolds across various floors of a building, a solution that recalls and anticipates Sladek, Innes, and Carr; A story that, if it actually existed, would have been prior to 1930 and completely unknown. Preceding Carr's work in two absolutely identical settings is Leblanc's novel, which was likely the basis for Ellery Queen and Carr: The Mysterious House. But we're still talking about two identical but distant settings, not something set in the same building. Unless he made it all up (and then he would be the first to have thought of such a solution), or he borrowed from a story written by another Japanese writer, and then...

However, it's strangely noteworthy how both Carr and Saburo, in their two stories, besides inventing a simply perfect solution to Impossible Crime, introduce supernatural elements: even in the Japanese story, in fact, there's a ghost, which in our case is Shiomi, who has taken control of a spider.

In the construction of this impossible crime, the chairs play a particularly important role: because if Shiomi had been facing the door, he certainly wouldn't have died. He dies, his back to the door, and therefore to the windows, because he didn't notice that... the staircase is no longer there but elsewhere. How is this possible?

It's only possible if you consider a possibility that's somewhat opposite to what any of us would think of: that it's the answer to the impossible task of moving and repositioning a reinforced concrete staircase.

Pietro De Palma