Black Cat Thrillogy #1

by Reginald Bretnor

  Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  INTRODUCTION, by John Gregory Betancourt

  PAPER TIGER

  THE MURDERERS’ CIRCLE

  THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF THE DEAREST DEFUNCT

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  “Introduction,” by John Gregory Betancourt, is original to this volume and copyright © 2017 by Wildside Press LLC.

  “Paper Tiger,” by Reginald Bretnor, was originally published inOriginally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, May 1969. Reprinted by permission of the copyright owner, Wildside Press LLC.

  “The Murderers’ Circle,” by Reginald Bretnor, was originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Jul 1988. Reprinted by permission of the copyright owner, Wildside Press LLC.

  “The Photography of the Dearest Defunct,” by Reginald Bretnor, was originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, July 1990. Reprinted by permission of the copyright owner, Wildside Press LLC.

  INTRODUCTION, by John Gregory Betancourt

  Welcome to the first volume of The Black Cat Mystery Community’s “Thrillogy” series, celebrating classic mystery short stories. This first offering focuses on Reginald Bretnor (1911-1992).

  Reg was born Alfred Reginald Kahn in Vladivostok, Siberia. He was the son of a Latvian Jewish banker and an English governess. The family moved to Japan in 1917, then to San Diego, California, in 1920. Bretnor, whose name was taken from the maiden name of his maternal grandmother and who many acquaintances thought to be the perfect English gentleman, never left the United States in the 72 years he lived here and did not once set foot in Great Britain.

  He is most widely known in the science fiction field for his humorous “Feghoot” pun stories featuring time-traveler Ferdinand Feghoot. He also published a handful of science fiction novels and a single mystery novel (A Killing in Swords) in addition to more than a hundred short stories in both the mystery and science fiction genres. In addition to fiction, he wrote extensively on cats and swords (he was an expert on Japanese swords), and both elements feature in many of his works.

  * * * *

  We invite your feedback in the forums of The Black Cat Mystery Community at bcmystery.com or by email at wildsidepress@yahoo.com. If there are other classic authors you’d like to see included in the Thrillogy series, let us know!

  PAPER TIGER

  Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, May 1969.

  Loring Giroux was the direct opposite of Marshal Feng Teh-chih. There was nothing spectacular about him. He had not won the Presidency of the United States by ruthlessly exterminating all his rivals. He had not even campaigned for it dramatically at a time of crisis. He had inherited it. He had been a compromise Vice President, chosen for his Southern votes and as a solid, stable counterweight to the flamboyance of Cardey Corcoran.

  Then, two months after taking office, to the sorrow of the ladies and the relief of many high-placed people in his own administration, Cardey had crashed his private plane into a mountainside, taking half his Cabinet and several Secret Service men along with him, and Loring Giroux had moved quietly, with his wife and one unmarried daughter, his shaggy sheepdog and his yellow cat, into the loneliest house in the world.

  That was when Marshal Feng Teh-chih had started in on him.

  Loring Giroux’s background was as quiet and solid as his person. He had been a naval officer, a junior deck officer aboard high-tech tankers. He had a decoration or two, awarded after forgotten actions in which nothing much had happened to his ship. He had served in the Louisiana State Legislature. He had been appointed to a board or two in Washington, to something in the Organization of American States, then to a South American ambassadorship. In between, he had practiced law at home. Finally, he had been elected Governor, and then—to everyone’s surprise—Vice President.

  His ancestry went back before the Louisiana Purchase on the one hand, and to the Revolution on the other. His grandfather had finished up the Civil War as a young captain under Jubal Early; afterwards he had wandered angrily into the West and Mexico, finally returning to a late marriage and a reconciliation with his country. His father had gone to West Point, and had retired, a colonel. He himself was neither short nor tall, fat nor thin. His main distinguishing feature was a slightly Teddy Rooseveltish moustache, which the political cartoonists—Chinese and American alike—at once latched onto.

  They also (and the Chinese especially, because they had been ordered to) went for the big striped yellow tomcat. American cartoonists, even the opposition, were almost kind about it; they loved to show Giroux asking the cat’s advice on how to catch the mice of international politics, or how he could turn himself into Cardey Corcoran. But the Chinese used it to plug their ancient paper tiger theme. Loring Giroux, they screamed, had brought Beauregard to the White House to prove that the American paper tiger wasn’t made of paper after all. The Chinese madness had made lots of headway since the days of Mao Tse-tung and his Red Guards, and Marshal Feng, a Red Guard graduate, had turned it to his private purposes.

  Feng concentrated on President Giroux. The Russians now were seldom named, and then only as Giroux’s criminal, treacherous, and unspeakable collaborators. Giroux was a weakling. Giroux was the degenerate symbol of a decadent bourgeois society. The missiles, the fusion weapons, which he as President controlled—these were the paper tiger. The young and vigorous Maoist Workers’ State, wielding its unconquerable weapon—the thought of Mao and of Feng Teh-chih (though Mao was fading rather rapidly)—would triumph certainly, because survival was the natural prize awarded to the fittest.

  “The fittest would survive!” cried Marshal Feng. It was a curious Marxist Darwinism, naive, grossly oversimplified, trumpeted out with each new insult, each new provocation. It accompanied the overrunning of Nepal. It became even more personal and more strident when Feng launched his invasion of North India, penetrating deep into Assam.

  It was ridiculous. The press of the Free World thought so, and laughed about it several days a week. The State Department thought it was absurd; so did the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Every Security Council meeting included a few moments of innocent merriment focussed on it.

  Until, that is, the Council met on the 16th of September. It was a crash session, with the Joint Chiefs in attendance. Marshal Feng had gone on the air that morning, and President Giroux opened the meeting five-and-a-half hours later. He looked around at the faces, the uniforms, the business suits.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I know that you all either have watched Feng’s latest performance or else heard about it. Still, we’re going to replay it, so there’ll be no misunderstanding.”

  “Mr. President,” exclaimed the Secretary of Defense, “Feng’s just a crazy thug. Aren’t you taking his nonsense a little seriously?”

  “A little, Jake. It isn’t every day a man gets this kind of invitation. Let’s watch our boy again.”

  He gestured them to silence; picked up translation headphones but didn’t put them on immediately. Feng appeared without warning on the screen, a tall, long-faced North Chinese with basalt eyes. He was lean and hard, an obvious athlete. Giroux turned Feng’s speech on suddenly, full blast, like turning on a fire siren.

  “Who does he remind you of?” asked the President, unsmiling—knowing that no reply was necessary, that despite the difference of race, language, doctrine, the image of Hitler came instantly to every mind. The speech was Feng’s usual one, a screaming rodomontade using all the old clichés, but this time, after barely fifteen minutes, coming to a very different climax.

  “You are a filthy Capitalist coward, Loring Girou
x. You are afraid of me and of the irresistible thought of Mao Tse-tung. You are afraid because the working masses and their leaders do not fear your paper tiger. We spit on you, Giroux! You are not fit to survive. I will destroy your vile imperialism. I will humiliate you. I, Feng Teh-chih—I myself will rub you face in filth. Coward! You are afraid to fight. I challenge you to fight, to fight me, with your hands, with guns, with knives, anywhere, at any time, with any weapons you desire! Do you understand? Do you dare to fight me, Feng Teh-chih, before the world? No, you do not. You know that you could not survive, corrupt weakling! I will show you how I will destroy you, paper tiger—”

  On the screen, an aide stepped into view, carrying a striped orange cat—a cat as much like Beauregard as possible. Feng’s left hand grasped it, lifted it. Then, with a swift and brutal judo chop, he broke its back. He hurled the poor small body against a wall, showed all his teeth, and screamed, “That is how I will kill you, weak Giroux!”

  The screen went blank. The show was over. There was silence. Such a display was difficult for men used to the normal courses of diplomacy to understand. Even the Joint Chiefs, men of war, still could not quite believe what they had seen. Had it not been a replay, their reaction would have been immediate. As it was, they hesitated, looked at the President questioningly, began to simmer as the pressure rose.

  Before it could erupt, he touched them with his voice. It was not harsh. It was not cold. But it was quiet as cold steel. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t comment. That’s not the purpose of this get-together.”

  State looked at CIA, CIA at Defense; the Joint Chiefs exchanged anxious glances.

  “You are here for one reason and one reason only_” Loring Giroux rose. “—to hear my decision regarding Marshal Feng’s proposal. I have accepted it.”

  There are things which never should be dropped: rare porcelains, pots of molten lead, live hand grenades. People react too naturally. Instantly noise erupted. But it’s illegal for a Presi… Constitu… Without any consultation!… B-but we’re a civilized peo…

  Loring Giroux looked at Quinton, Army, who was sounding off as loudly as the rest. “General Quinton!”

  Quinton stood, large and dark and graying. He put his palms flat down on the shining table, letting his jaw and football shoulders jut out over it. The others quieted.

  “Mr. President,” boomed Quinton. “You’ve flipped. You, sir, are out of your ever-loving mind.”

  “Why?” rapped Giroux.

  “Because, goddammit, you’re 61 years old. You’re in no shape to fight him hand to hand. Even when we were kids, you couldn’t learn to shoot for sour apples. Feng’s in top condition. There’s not a weapon he’s not expert in. You’re outclassed.”

  “Is that all, Quinton?”

  “Mr. President—Laurie—” Quinton pleaded now. “Look, you just can’t do it. Anyhow, military law prohibits duelling, you know that. We—we’ll have to stop you!”

  There was noise again.

  “Be quiet!” There was a lash of discipline in Giroux’s voice. “You cannot stop me. My message of acceptance went an hour ago. It is already being broadcast to the world. General Quinton, I am as expert in the weapon I have chosen as Marshal Feng can be. My physical condition is more than adequate to its employment. As for legality, we’ll fight in Uruguay, where duelling’s legal. Besides—” He stopped; regarded them. “What the hell do you propose to do about it? Use violence? Mount a quick palace revolution? Don’t be damned fools. I am not only President of the United States, gentlemen. I am Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces. I have already issued orders to those immediately concerned.”

  State pushed his chair back. Blood draining from his face, he stood erect. “I cannot be a party to this—this savagery, th-this absurdity. Man, can’t you think what you’ll be doing to this country’s image everywhere? To your own? I—I resign.”

  “Earneshaw,” Giroux said, “what will Feng do to our image if I ignore him? If I refuse to fight? Don’t you see—it may be I won’t win, but I can’t lose. Even if he kills me, Feng can’t win. And if any of you does try to stop me—if you so much as try—what will that do to our country’s image when the news gets out? What will it do for Feng?’

  He sat down slowly and deliberately. The others hesitated, weighing the chances, each trying to guess what all the rest would do. Almost imperceptibly, the Joint Chiefs seemed to move in a little closer to each other, to the President.

  Quinton seated himself immediately. Finally, muttering, the Secretary of State lowered himself into his chair. Their breathing was the only sound.

  “For a long time,” said the President, “something has been needed to clear the air. To clear it of Feng, preferably. I’ll grant you my acceptance is a break with all tradition, with diplomatic usage, but—believe me—I know what I am doing.”

  “That’s asking us to take a lot on faith,” Quinton put in. “I’ll grant you, sir, you’ve called your shots right in the past, but—”

  “Feng and I will fight at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. With weapons of my own choosing, under conditions set by me. Exactly equal weapons and conditions, naturally. No practice will be necessary for either of us. And each of us will bring three seconds, including an interpreter.”

  “Who will they be, sir?” Navy asked.

  Giroux smiled. “First, if he cares to come, Lieutenant-General Quinton, who has watched me shoot. Major Harrison Ouyang, of Air-Space, who will interpret for our side. And Sergeant Easting, Sergeant-Major of the Army, who holds the Congressional from Vietnam and who was good enough to carry my message to the Chinese Embassy,” Giroux saw annoyance on the face of Navy. “I myself will represent our service, Admiral,” he explained. “Who Feng’s seconds will turn out to be, I, of course, do not know. That is all, gentlemen. Turn on your televisions tomorrow. Our encounter will probably get worldwide coverage, live.”

  “Or dead,” the Secretary of State said through his teeth.

  “Or dead,” the President agreed. He rose, making a gesture of dismissal. They filed out, bearing a strange silence, and politely he walked them to the door.

  Quinton, last to leave, held back a little. “How’d I do?” he whispered.

  “Beautifully, Tom, beautifully.” The President touched his shoulder. “Just like you’d never heard a word about it.”

  “You’re still nuts,” Quinton growled.

  The world press reacted—unpredictably, chaotically, often hysterically. Frequently, policy was drowned under the enthusiasm of newsmen—enthusiasm for unsuspected courage, for the brave cutting of a Gordian knot, for lost chivalry, for Giroux himself. Only very rarely was there enthusiasm for Feng, and that, as Le Monde later pointed out, was usually of an “or else” variety. There were solemn and prestigious protests in the United Nations—protests which went round and round and ended nowhere. The temperate Scandinavians, the Dutch, the Indians, the more leftish Britons disapproved—but their disapproval was usually of the principle, and seldom of the man. The French, not too surprisingly, changed sides at once, recalled the duels of men like Clemenceau, attributed Giroux’s most admirable sense of personal and national honor to his Gallic ancestry.

  The press at home was even more confusing and confused. The San Francisco Chronicle-Examiner perhaps outdid the rest. It ran three major editorials: one damned President Giroux as a racist Southerner bent on national suicide; another compared him quite favorably with Generals Andrew Jackson and MacArthur; the third said flatly that no institution as evil as the duel could possibly solve problems which were sociologically insoluble.

  Secretary of State Earneshaw resigned, as publicly as possible, and demanded instant emergency action by the Congress. Neither the Congress nor the press paid much attention to him. Before the subject could even be brought up in either House, Giroux was on his way—and every politician knew that, in spite of any odds, he might come back the win
ner. It was no time for self-commitment, nor for drastic action.

  Before he went to bed that night, the President said his good-byes to his lady. He told her that he loved her, and they remembered something 30 years gone by, something small, and really unimportant, and very precious only to themselves. She knew already what he planned to do.

  He kissed her, and she asked, “How—how are you going to fight him, Loring?”

  He looked away from her. “Like Cousin Kerby fought the steamboat man.”

  “I was afraid of that,” she whispered, remembering all the details of that duel a century and a quarter in the past, when Kerby Loring and the steamboat man had met each other on the Mississippi. “I was afraid of that.”

  Then, to make things easier, the President said, very softly, “Good-bye, Jen,” and kissed her through her tears, and went away.

  Next day, when his plane set down at Montevideo Airport, he seemed fresh and rested, though some observers thought they saw signs of strain around his mouth. He met a hero’s welcome. The President of Uruguay was an old fishing and poker playing friend, from OAS days; before either of them had been a President, they had exchanged visits in each other’s houses, in each other’s countries. Besides, Fernando Estrada Orde had himself fought a duel or two, with sabres, once against another Uruguayan colonel, again with a combative professor-journalist. Now, under his properly sober brows, his eyes were flashing, for the personal drama which his friend was facing, for the unprecedented history which would soon be made. They walked together to the waiting limousines, under the guns of four protecting armored cars.

  “Feng is here,” Estrada said, when they were under way. “He arrived less than an hour ago. I have given him an unusually heavy escort.” He smiled, showing his strong teeth. “I almost hope he violates our hospitality. I do not like the man.”

  “All the arrangements have been made?” Giroux asked, in Spanish.