Peter Washington

THE BODY-SNATCHER BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

When the past rings two times.

First time: a group of friends, Fettes among them, are reunited talking and drinking. A sick man in the village needs a doctor, so they are waiting for this doctor to show up. Eventually the doctor rings at the door and Fetter is shocked: MacFarlane enters, he is an old Fetter’s companion from the time of medical school. Fetter and MacFarlane pick up corpses for the school of anatomy; sometimes when dead corpses lack, MacFarlane, in disagreement with Fetter, kills someone.

Second time: Fetter and MacFarlane after resuming a woman’s corpse from the grave and returning to the city from the graveyard, when rain is pouring and every light is (also) dead … they become aware that they are carrying a different corpse: a man who Fetter and MacFarlane have already dissected in the past …
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THE HORLA BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT

‘But what is this being, this invisible being who is ruling me?
This unknowable creature, this wanderer from a supernatural race.’ (p.57)

The word Horla means - out there - (from the French ‘hors’ meaning out, and ‘la’ meaning there).

The Horla is a short story by Guy de Maupassant, written in 1887 and tells how an invisible being influences the mind of the narrator.
The narrator writes in his journal the progressive domination of the Horla on his thoughts and actions.

Akaky wants to be another person buying a new cloak: The Cloak by Gogol (1842).
Golyadkin thinks that another person has stolen his identity, and this second person step by step replaces Golyadkin’s life: The Double: a Petersburg Poem by Dostoevsky (1846).
A person discovers another side of himself: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Stevenson (1886).
At the end Gregor Samsa becomes a beast: The Metamorphosis by Kafka (1915).
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THE FRIENDS OF THE FRIENDS by Henry James

‘What was her nervousness therefore but a presentiment? She had been hitherto the victim of interference, but it was quite possible she would henceforth be the source of it. The victim in that case would be my simple self.’ (p.82)

A woman is narrating a weird story of another woman. Every person who meet this strange woman after a while dies, but also reappear as a ghost.
At the end the woman follows the same fate.
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THE MONKEY’S PAW by W.W. Jacobs

‘It had a spell put on it (the monkey’s paw) … He wanted to show that fate ruled people’s lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow.’ (p. 107)

The Monkey’s Paw is a horror short story written in 1902 by William Wymark Jacobs.

The paw of a dead monkey is a talisman that grants its possessors three wishes. But the wishes, of course, come with a price to pay.

The White family becomes the owner of this monkey’s paw, a ‘gift’ from their friend Sergeant-Major Morris (just arrived from India).
Mr White’s first wish is 200 pounds. The price is very high: the life of his son.

Mrs White asks to his husband to express their second wish: Herbert (their son) back to life. Mr White has seen the mutilated corpse of his son and disagrees with his wife about this second wish.

But at the end, and after expressing the wish to the monkey’s paw ... the Whites hear knocking at the door …
‘A third knock sounded through the house.
- What’s that?, cried the old woman.
- A rat, said the old man in shaking tones, a rat. It passed me on the stairs.’ (p.117)

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OH, WHISTLE AND I’LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD

Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You my Lad was written in 1904 and it’s a ghost story from the stories collected in Ghost Stories from an Antiquary by Montague Rhodes James (M.R. James).

‘... there must be rats …’ (p. 142)

One man, two beds, and one ghost, or ...

A professor takes a vacation, unfortunately he can rent only a double-bedded room.
Nearby the inn there is a Templars’ Preceptory, where the professor finds an old whistle with some inscriptions on it.

In the evening the professor blows in the whistle …

Although the professor sleeps only in one of the two beds, the other one is always unmade.

Ghosts, rats, or ‘he should be … careful about using a thing that had belonged to a set of Papists.’ (p.137)






… (més)

Peter Washington compiled an outstanding collection of detective stories in this volume. He roughly arranged stories from newest to oldest. I read this for our book club at work where we typically read one or two short stories per week and complete it in a semester. We began the collection back in January, reading the first selection. At that point we decided we would rather read them in reverse order--oldest to newest--so we could see the influence older authors might have on the newer ones. Of course, the book club was interrupted by COVID-19, so we did not resume our read until fall semester. We then did not meet in person, but on Zoom. We enjoyed the collection.

Stories included were "The Takamoku Joseki" by Sara Paretsky, "Window of Opportunity" by Ian Rankin, "People Don't Do Such Things" by Ruth Rendell, "Inspector Ghote and the Miracle Baby" by H. R. F. Keating, "Mademoiselle Berthe and Her Lover" by Georges Simonon, "Death and the Compass" by J. L. Borges, "Leg Man" by Erle Stanley Gardner, "I'll Be Waiting" by Raymond Chandler, "The Gatewood Caper" by Dashiell Hammett, "The Blue Geranium" by Agatha Christie, "A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell, "The Blue Cross" by G. K. Chesterton, "Silver Blaze" by Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Stolen Cigar Case" by Bret Harte, "Long Looked-for, Come at Last" by James McLevy, and "The Purloined Letter" by Edgar Allan Poe.

If you are looking for a great selection of detective stories, I highly recommend this collection. It features a nice binding and a ribbon bookmark. It is not available on Kindle or other electronic formats.… (més)