Silver Bullets
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Silver Bullets
The 25th Anniversary of Crippen & Landru Publishers
MISTRESS THREADNEEDLE’S QUEST by Kathy Lynn Emerson first appeared in Malice Domestic 12: Murder Most Historical copyright © 2017. Reprinted by permission of the author.
MR BO by Liza Cody first appeared in as a separate holiday booklet given to friends of Crippen & Landru Publishers copyright © 2009. Reprinted by permission of the author.
A BATTLE FIELD REUNION by Brendan Dubois first appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine copyright © 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.
MURDER ON THE BRIGHTON RUN by Amy Myers first appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine copyright © 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.
A RUN THROUGH THE CALENDAR By Jon Breen first appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine copyright © 2007. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE FLYING FIEND by Edward D. Hoch first appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine copyright © 1982. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.
THE SPARE KEY by Edward Marston first appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine copyright © 2005. Reprinted by permission of the author.
CHANGE THE ENDING by Terence Faherty first appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine copyright © 2011. Reprinted by permission of the author.
READER, I BURIED THEM by Peter Lovesey first appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine copyright © 2018. Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE CHATELAINE BAG by Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller first appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine copyright © 2011, Reprinted by permission of the author.
THE TEST by HRF Keating first appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine copyright © 1969. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.
WHAT THE DORMOUSE SAID by Carolyn Wheat first appeared in. A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime, copyright © 2003. Reprinted by permission of the author.
A MATTER OF HONOR by Jeremiah Healy first appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine copyright © 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.
DEATH ROW by Michael Z. Lewin first appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine copyright © 2008. Reprinted by permission of the author.
All other materials copyright © 2019
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
For information contact: Crippen & Landru, Publishers P. O. Box 532057
Cincinnati, OH 45253 USA
Web: www.crippenlandru.com E-mail: Info@crippenlandru.com
ISBN (softcover): 978-1-936363-38-4 ISBN (clothbound): 978-1-936363-37-7
First Edition: July 2019
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
MISTRESS THREADNEEDLE’S QUEST
MR. BO
A BATTLEFIELD REUNION
MURDER ON THE BRIGHTON RUN
A RUN THROUGH THE CALENDAR
THE FLYING FIEND
THE SPARE KEY
CHANGE THE ENDING
READER, I BURIED THEM
THE CHATELAINE BAG
THE TEST
WHAT THE DORMOUSE SAID
A MATTER OF HONOR
DEATH ROW
A Crippen & Landru Checklist
AFTERWORD
Subscriptions
INTRODUCTION
Early in 1994, my brother and I put our collection of L. Frank Baum and Oz books at to auction, and the result was that we had enough money to complete our children’s university education. And, to get to the point, I had a small amount left over, with which I bought a word processor – and began Crippen & Landru.
I had long collected mystery short story volumes, believing (with Ellery Queen. G. K. Chesterton, and others) that the short form included the purest detective stories. I was disturbed that so many fine stories had never been “bookformed,” and in the early 1990’s commercial publishers rarely published short story collections. I even made a list of authors and series characters who deserved to have their tales preserved as books. When I had a few dollars left over from the auction, I decided to start Crippen & Landru to specialize in publishing single author short story volumes..
The name was taken from two infamous murderers, Hawley Harvey Crippen and Henri Désiré Landru. It was only after the publishing company was up and running that my wife belatedly pointed out that both were wife-killers. Later, however, Jacques Barzun told me that he didn’t believe that Crippen actually murdered his wife, so I was semi-saved. Whatever the case, the name sounded to me like a publishing house – and both Landru & Crippen were frequently mentioned in detective stories of the 1920s and 1930s. Of course, many people didn’t get the allusion, and for years we received letters and e-mails addressed to Mr. Crippen or Mr. Landru.
Rather ironically, our first publication was John Dickson Carr’s Speak of the Devil, which was a radio play not a short story collection. This was followed by a Margery Allingham collection, and two volumes by contemporary authors, Marcia Muller and Edward D. Hoch. All four books sold encouragingly, and the fact that current authors were willing to trust stories to us meant that we were on our way.
Eventually, we published more than 100 volumes over the next twenty-three years. Our books ranged from private-eye writers (Bill Pronzini, Ross Macdonald, and others) to classical, fair-play authors (Ellery Queen, Michael Innes, and others), from major writers (Michael Gilbert, Margaret Maron, Peter Lovesey, and others), to writers no longer well-known (Charles B. Child, Joseph Commings and others).The complete list of our
publications can be found at the end of this book – and many of our authors have contributed stories to this anniversary volume.
Eventually we published two series of books. Our “Regular Series” was (and still is) made up primarily of current writers, with some copies being signed and numbered by the author, and bound in full cloth. Each of these books included something special – an additional story in a separate chapbook or a page of the author’s typescript. Other unsigned copies were bound in stiff paper. The other series is “Lost Classics” – books by authors of the past whose contributions to the genre have been unfairly forgotten. These too are published in both cloth and trade-paper.
Our publications have received many compliments:
“This is the best edited, most attractively packaged line of mystery books introduced in this decade. The books are equally valuable to collectors and readers.” [Mystery Scene Magazine]
“The specialty publisher with the most star-studded list is Crippen & Landru, which has produced short story collections by some of the biggest names in contemporary crime fiction.” [Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine]
“God Bless Crippen & Landru.” [The Strand Magazine]
“A monument in the making is appearing year by year from Crippen & Landru, a small press devoted exclusively to publishing the criminous short story.” [Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine]
But years began to take their toll on the publisher, and by 2016 I was considering ways to shut down the company. I mentioned this to my good friend, Jeff Marks, and he offered to take over. I agreed with alacrity. Jeff is well-known as an officer of the Mystery Writers of America and a major writer about the genre; author of biographies of Craig Rice a
nd Anthony Boucher.
With his energy and his knowledge, he is the perfect person to continue Crippen & Landru.
Doug Greene Norfolk, Virginia June 2019
MISTRESS THREADNEEDLE’S QUEST
by Kathy Lynn Emerson
I first met Doug Greene at Malice Domestic. I introduced myself to him because we both had a connection to the English department at Old Dominion University. I had no idea that he’d recently started publishing collections of short mystery stories. I had not yet had any of mine published and I certainly never imagined I’d write enough of them to fill even a slim volume, but fast forward a few years, to another Malice, this one shortly after one of my stories appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. One of the highlight of that conference was Doug’s request to keep Crippen & Landru in mind when (not if) I was ready to bring out a collection of stories. I think I’d written five by that point. It was his confidence in me that inspired me to keep writing them. I’m very slow at writing short. I doubt I’d have written many more, let alone ended up as an Agatha finalist in the short story category, if not for his encouragement. Thank you, Doug, and happy twenty-fifth anniversary to Crippen & Landru. The following story first appeared in the Malice Domestic anthology Mystery Most Historical.
London, 1562
On the day of Edward Sturgeon’s funeral, I stood in my garden, staring at an upper window in his tall, narrow house. It had
been a fine, large casement, made up of dozens of small, expensive triangles of colored glass held together by H-shaped lead rods. Now blackened wood and missing panes told a terrible story. I was at the same time fascinated and horrified. I could not look away.
Sturgeon had been standing just inside that window when he’d been struck by lightning. His death was quick, but it must have been excruciatingly painful. The stable boy who bore witness to his passing said Sturgeon looked as though he was wrapped in exploding fireworks. By the time the flames were extinguished, it was too late to save him.
You may well ask how such a thing could happen. Some said it was an act of God. Others called it a portent of disaster—a strange,
unnatural death. I believe I am the only one in all of England to suspect that Edward Sturgeon was most foully murdered.
I am Mistress Dowsabella Threadneedle, childless relict of a prosperous mercer. I married beneath me, having been born the daughter of a knight. In my widowhood, I live in considerable comfort in a house in Catte Street in the parish of St. Lawrence Jewry. Most of my neighbors are well-to-do merchants of one sort or another. Edward Sturgeon was the richest of them all, not only a goldsmith, but a moneylender, too.
Even as I ruminated upon the strange manner of his death, the Goldsmiths of London were bearing his body in solemn procession from their guildhall to the churchyard. From where I stood, I could hear the wailing of professional mourners and imagined them in their new black gowns, tearing at their hair and weeping.
Inside the Sturgeon house, the new-made widow grieved in seclusion with her kinswomen and closest female friends. The spouse of the deceased never attends the funeral. I have no idea why this is the custom, but it was the same for me two years ago when my beloved Richard was taken from me.
Although I knew I would be welcome to mourn with Mary Sturgeon, I did not go to her. When we’d first met, she’d made it all too plain that she would value my acquaintance not because of any pleasant characteristics I might possess, but solely because my gentle birth made me desirable to know. I am related by blood to certain persons who have influence at the royal court. My husband benefitted from those connections, which brought additional custom to his mercery, but I am not inclined to ask my cousins to do similar favors for anyone else.
Instead of entering the Sturgeon house, I returned to my own. I would bide my time before confronting Mistress Sturgeon. I had much to ponder before I took action.
Why, you must be asking, did I imagine that a crime had been committed? No one has the power to call down lightning from the sky, let alone direct it at a specific target. Even the most powerful necromancer would be hard put to accomplish such a feat.
To explain, I must first tell you that my husband indulged me to a degree most people would find peculiar. Having been taught the skill at an early age, I had already developed a passion for reading by the time we wed. Knowing this, he made it his habit to gift me with books instead of jewelry.Thus have I acquired all manner of reading material, but in particular I am partial to the tales of brave knights, impossible quests, and strange happenings. As a widow with control over my late husband’s entire fortune, I continue to purchase such stories. Anyone who hopes to persuade me to speak on his behalf to one of my kinsmen at court, or keep me sweet for any other reason, is encouraged to find an appropriate token in one of the booksellers’ stalls in Paul’s Churchyard. So it was that, about a year before Edward Sturgeon’s strange death, I acquired a slim volume entitled The Sorcerer Knight. This is the story of an arrogant knight’s attempts to turn base metal into gold, raise the spirits of the dead, and find lost treasure. All these things defy both the law of man and the law of God, and when the knight seeks to call down the power of a storm by holding a sword over his head, he suffers divine retribution. He is struck by a bolt of lightning and dies.
I know for a certainty that Edward Sturgeon was familiar with the story. He was the one who presented me with the book.
The more I thought about the knight’s tale and compared it to what happened to Master Sturgeon, the more convinced I became that the circumstances of Sturgeon’s death were suspicious. If for no other reason than to ease my conscience, I felt compelled to investigate.
* * *
A week after the funeral, I paused once again in the garden. I studied the scorched and boarded-over casement for a long time before passing through the narrow alley between the houses. Like a proper visitor, I went to the door of the house that now belonged to the widow and was admitted by one of her maidservants.
Mary Sturgeon herself received me in an upper room at the front of the house. The faint smell of smoke still lingered in the air but we both ignored it.
“How kind of you to call.” She seemed surprised by my visit.
“I have brought a gift to cheer you in this sad time,” I said, presenting her with a small packet.
Her forced smile turned genuine as she opened it and found a sampling of the best my late husband’s mercery had to offer—assorted ribbons and tassels and a decorative border for the front of a French hood. The latter was made of the finest black silk and garnished with jet beads.
“You are most generous, Mistress Threadneedle.”
“It was the least I could do, Mistress Sturgeon. Even the deep est mourning allows for a few adornments.” I glanced at the sewing abandoned beside my hostess’s chair. She had been attaching a length of black cord to a black sleeve. “Shall I work on its mate?” I offered, catching sight of more of the same cord wound into a ball and tucked into a corner of her sewing basket.
I reached for it, but she stayed my hand, delving into the basket herself and producing a smaller segment of the cord, together with a
needle and a short length of black thread. She was still rummaging after I had seated myself and taken up the materials she’d provided.
“What do you lack?”
She gave a nervous laugh. “I am unable to locate any pins. I have been more distraught of late than I realized. I forgot that I needed to buy more.”
It was a trifling matter, but odd all the same. Pins, whether small fine ones or long dress pins, are customarily purchased a thousand at a time.
Together with Mary and her two maidservants, I sat and stitched. I offered news of the royal court, where there had been a recent outbreak of smallpox. A goodly number of highborn ladies in the service of Queen Elizabeth had been afflicted and those who survived were likely to be scarred for life.
Mary Sturgeon had little to offer in return, save that the butcher’s wife had been deliv
ered of twin sons. “They say twins are unlucky, but surely it is better to have two at a time than be barren.” She sounded wistful and then, too late, remembered that I was also childless.
I let her comment pass unanswered, for to tell you true, I look upon my barren state as a blessing. Too many women, burdened with fatherless chicks, are pressured into remarrying and once again become little more than a husband’s chattel. Now that it had been forced upon me, I prized my independence. I especially liked being answerable to no one but myself when it came to how I spent my money and managed my property.
After a little silence, I began, by a circuitous route, to approach the subject that had brought me to Mistress Sturgeon’s door. “Will you need to replace your roof? I have heard that when the steeple of St. Paul’s was struck by lightning last year, molten lead poured down onto the street below.”
“There was no lead in my roof to melt. The tiles are scored but intact.”
“I did not realize anyone had climbed up to inspect them,” I said. “You must not think I spend all my time spying on my neighbors, but a ladder that tall would be most conspicuous.”
“There is a trap door in the garret that gives access to the roof,” she said. “It is not difficult to open and go through. Thus I have seen for myself that the roof does not need repairs. Only the window must be replaced.”
I executed a few more careful stitches before I spoke again. “Did your husband stand at that window every time there was a storm?”