Name: Murder Cavalcade
Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)

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October 13, 2021

Murder Cavalcade was the first of the many anthologies put out by the Mystery Writers of America. They now issue about one every year. They are generally edited by people well known in the mystery field. The current (as I write this in 2021) anthologies in the series are made up entirely of new stories. In earlier volumes, including this one, the stories are mostly reprints. The acknowledgements in my copy of Murder Cavalcade give the source of most of the stories (although not the dates of original publication); I suspect that the ones that are not included in the acknowledgements are original to this anthology. They are "The Crime in the Envelope," "The Corpse in Grampa's Bed," "The Homecoming," and "Trick-or-Treat."

Murder Cavalcade was edited by Ken Crossen. There is a Preface by Richard Lockridge. This explains what the Mystery Writers of America organization is and briefly discusses mystery fiction.

Two of the items in the book are non-fiction True Crime entries. "The Last of Mrs. Maybrick" by Q. Patrick tells of a young American woman, Florence Chandler, born in 1862, who at the age of eighteen met and married a much older Englishman, James Maybrick. They were living in England in the city of Liverpool, which Patrick describes as "a city where almost anything unpleasant is liable to happen." James was, says Patrick, a cad, who "started going merrily to hell with the belles and racehorses of Liverpool." He also became a heavy drug-user, primarily "guzzling arsenic." (I was not aware that arsenic could be a recreational drug.)

James became ill and died. Although the cause of death was evidently not determined, his widow was accused of murdering him by the use of arsenic. The details Patrick gives of her trial are almost unbelievable. The presiding judge "referred to poor Mrs. Maybrick as 'that horrible woman' and branded her as the epitome of all that is vile." She was convicted. (Within a year after Mrs. Maybrick's conviction, that judge was declared insane.) Much of this article deals with Mrs. Maybrick's sad life after she finished her sentence.

The other True Crime entry is "The Café Society Murder" by Edward D. Radin, the story of a murder in the Beekman Hill area of New York City in 1943. A wealthy young woman was found bludgeoned and strangled to death in her home. Her husband is a member of the Canadian armed forces; he happened to be in New York at the time of the murder. He becomes the main suspect, but he is generally well-regarded and he has an alibi - a very peculiar alibi. This is much better written than the Q. Patrick article.

As with most anthologies, some of the stories are poor in my opinion. In "Eyewitness" by Robert Arthur a police officer is convinced that a missing woman has been murdered, and is certain that her husband was the killer. However, since there is no evidence that this is true, he can not prove it. The officer enlists the help of his friend Master, a "stage magician and prestidigitator." Master says that, "To every murder there is an eyewitness... sometimes it is hard to make him speak." He proceeds to use psychology and keen observation to prove his point. This method is literally unbelievable; I do not believe that it would work.

Ken Crossen was not only the editor of this collection, he also has a story here. In "The Crime in the Envelope," New York City police Lieutenant Valentine Varrit is head of the Bureau of Odd Complaints. He is called upon to investigate the disappearance of ten thousand dollars transferred by messenger from one brokerage house to another. He too solves the case through the use of psychology.

I don't know if "Eyewitness" or "The Crime in the Envelope" are parts of series. "The Adventure of the Sotheby Salesman" by August Derleth definitely is. This is one of Derleth's Sherlock Holmes pastiches, featuring master detective Solar Pons and his Watson-like narrator. "Sotheby" here is a town, not the famed auction house. An indigent salesman is found shot dead in an empty house in Sotheby. Pons needs to find out why the salesman was in the house, why he was killed, and who shot him.

A man who has previously made his living as a forger decides to try burglary in "Behind the Door" by Percival Wilde. He has a gun but never gets a chance to use it. He is immediately caught by the householder, who takes his gun and locks him in a closet. There is also another man in the house, who seems to be blackmailing the man who lives there. The burglar hears them arguing and then a shot. The man living in the house lets the burglar out of the closet, gives him back his gun, and lets him leave - right into the waiting arms of the police. The murderer says that the burglar had shot the other man. The burglar denies this, explaining that he had been locked in the closet. The police must decide who is telling the truth.

Richard Burke has a sort-of comic tale, "The Corpse in Grampa's Bed." The elderly man known as Grampa awakens to find out that he is sharing his bed with a dead man. He contacts his friend, homicide detective Quinny Hite. They realize that the body had been embalmed, and Hite suspects that it came from the funeral parlor next door. They soon find out that the funeral parlor has mixed up some bodies - but why is one of then in Grampa's bed?

A man hiding out and his wife are staying with the man's brother in Anthony Boucher's story "Trick-or-Treat." The married couple are in the brother's apartment on Hallowe'en night.. The man opens the door to someone he believes is a trick-or-treater and is shot dead. The wife had seen the little costumed person at the door. The homicide detective assigned to the case must search for a short murderer.

Author Brett Halliday's renowned private investigator Michael Shayne is called upon to look for the murderer of a partner in a financial firm in "The Million-dollar Motive." The man's wife had returned from a trip and found her husband had been shot. In the hallway are two suitcases packed with the husband's clothing, seeming to indicate that he was planning on permanently leaving his home. The remaining two partners say that they had found that a million dollars had been embezzled from a company safe. They say that they don't think that the police are investigating properly so they hire Shayne.

There was a well-known series about a blind detective written by Baynard Kendrick. Kendrick does have a story in this anthology, but it is William Gresham who is the author of "Case of the Blind Witness." A blind landlord reports that one of his lodgers had died, evidently by gas asphyxia, caused by the gas being turned on in the stove in her room. The dead lodger was a young woman. The police find reason to suspect that this was murder rather than suicide. The blind landlord is extraordinarily observant and supplies the police with an amazing amount of information and some clever deductions.

There are two stories that refer to twenty dollars in their titles. Kurt Steel's "Change for a Twenty" is a brief tale of a young man escaped from prison where he had been sent for counterfeiting. He goes to visit his mother, who believes that he is doing secret work "for the Government." And then a Government agent shows up looking for him.

"Twenty-dollar Debt" is a tough, violent story by Lawrence Treat. A man who had been arrested as a kid has recently been let out of prison after three years. He is now hardened and hate-filled, making his living by hold-ups and other thefts. He comes to a small store run by an aging man and his adult daughter. They treat him well and he decides not to rob them. But he is not the only criminal around. This is one of the best stories in the collection.

The next three stories that I will discuss are all traditional mysteries, solved by good detection. The stories are all good as well. Baynard Kendrick, whom I mentioned above, has a tale of a murder at sea in "Death at the Port-hole." Cliff Chandler is the ship's detective on a ship going from England to New York. He meets a young woman who says that she is traveling alone. She tells Chandler that she is sharing a room with a French girl. Later that day, a man who had tried to start a discussion with the girl earlier falls overboard but is rescued. During the night, the girl wakens Chandler and says that her roommate has been killed. The deceased girl is believed to have been smuggling diamonds.

Oddly, one of the stories in this anthology also appeared soon afterward in a 1957 Mystery Writers of America collection, Dolls Are Murder. (My comments about this story come from my earlier review of that book.) Dr. Paul Standish is the main character in a series by George Harmon Coxe. Standish has his own practice but he is also the town medical examiner. He works closely with the police, in some cases so successfully that at least one officer has come to resent him. His girlfriend also resents the time he spends on criminal cases, because she would like him to spend that time with her. In "The Doctor Makes It Murder," Standish ascertains that a woman whose death was originally thought to be a suicide was actually murdered. There are three principal suspects, and Standish tries to help find out which of them is the killer.

Craig Rice wrote a number of series. Her best known one is probably the series featuring criminal attorney John J. Malone. In "His Heart Could Break," Malone has succeeded in getting a new trial for one of his clients awaiting execution. The client hangs himself soon after getting the news. But why? And where did the rope come from? Malone hasn't been paid for his work yet, so he naturally has to investigate. This story has evidently been reprinted frequently.

The remaining three stories are my favorites in this anthology, along with "Twenty-dollar Debt" and "His Heart Would Break. " I can't help observing that four of these five stories were written by women. ("Craig Rice" was a pseudonym for a female author.)

The longest story in the book is "The Swan-boat Murder" by Phoebe Atwood Taylor, featuring investigator Acey Mayo. Mayo is so highly regarded that he is known as the "Codfish Sherlock." Mayo lives on Cape Cod, but this tale is set in Boston, to which Mayo has traveled to meet his cousin Jessie and drive her back to her home on the Cape. While looking for his cousin, he comes across a murdered man next to the swan-boats in the lagoon in the Boston Public Garden. The man is found to be a photographer who had been taking pictures of a young woman for a fashion magazine. The police are led to believe that both Mayo and Jessie may have been involved in the murder, so the Cape Codders need to hide as they investigate. This is a complicated story, not outstanding as a mystery but very funny.

"The Nameless Clue" by Helen McCloy is outstanding as a mystery. A woman has been murdered in a hotel room. The police reportedly have found no clues and have dropped the case. Newspaper reporter Alec Norton is ordered by his editor to spend the night in that hotel room and try to get more information about the killing. While he is there, two other people, working separately, break into the room and start searching it. One is a thug who can not speak, the other a young woman. Both get away. Then Norton does come across a possible clue behind the radiator in the hotel room - a black disc the size of a quarter, with some slots cut into it. Finding out what the disc is makes up much of the story. While Norton is trying to get that information, a related second murder takes place. This is turning into a very dangerous assignment.

There are two stories in this book that are not actually mysteries in which someone identifies a culprit based on clues. One, already discussed, is "Twenty-dollar Debt"; the other is a sad, powerful tale by Dorothy B. Hughes, "The Homecoming." This is about two military men returned from World War II. One never got sent overseas; he spent the war working at the recruiting office in his own home town. The other man, big and handsome, came back as a decorated hero. They are both attracted to the same girl. At one point she had seemed interested in the man who had stayed in the United States; now all her attention is given to the hero.

Much of this book seems to me acceptable at best. "The Doctor Makes It Murder" and "Death at the Port-hole" are better. "Twenty-dollar Debt," "His Heart Could Break," "The Swan-boat Murder," "The Nameless Clue," and " The Homecoming" are all fine, but not, I think, good enough to outweigh all the routine material.

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Murder Cavalcade

Kendell Foster Crossen (Editor)

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Kendell Foster Crossen

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