SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: GRAND GUIGNOL

 "Grand Guignol" by John Dickson Carr (first published in two parts in The Haverfordian, the literary magazine of Haverford College, in 1929; included in the third volume of Tony Medawar's Bodies in the Library [2020]; reprinted in Carr's The Kindling Spark:  Early Tales of Mystery, Horror, and Adventure, 2023, edited by Dan Napolitano)

From 1922 to 1929, beginning when he was fifteen years old, John Dickson Carr published at least thirty stories in his high school and college magazines.  In the recent The Kindling Spark, noted Carr authority Dan Napolitano collected nine of these amateur stories (a tenth was included as a separate chapbook to the limited edition of the book), tracing the development of the fledgling writer as he moved toward professional status; an additional nine pieces of juvenalia were included in Douglas Greene's collections The Door to Doom and Other Detections (1980) and Fell and Foul Play(1991).  Carr's earliest stories, despite being overly flawed, were a notch above most apprentice fiction, and over a period of seven years, culmulated in "Grand Guignol," a rather mature mystery novella that marked the end of his apprenticeship.  The following year, Carr substantially altered and expanded the story to formhis first novel, It Walks by Night.

"Grand Guignol" was presented as a "Mystery in Ten Parts." The first seven parts were printed in one issue of The Haverfordian, ending with a challenge to the reader and a blank page in which the reader could note the name of the character he suspected as the murderer; the final three parts were included in the next issue.

The time is 1927.  The place, Paris.  The scene, a miniature private casino in a discreet section of the city, complete with a rather poor jazz band in the background.  The detective, Henri Bencolin, the Mephistotilian prefect of police.  Carr had used Bencolin before in several of his earlier tales and the character had matured as Carr's writing did.  Bencolin would eventually be featured in five novels by Carr.  The narator is presumed to be Carr himself, an American friend of Bencolin's named Jack. ("Jack" was Carr's college nickname.)  The character of Jack morphed into Jeff Marle in It Walks by Night and other novels.

Bencolin was there because of a threat to Raoul, the fourth Duc de Saligny, a noted sportsman who had earlier that day married the former Louise Laurent.  Louise had been formerly married to Alexexandre Laurent, who had turned out to be a psychopathic killer.  After Laurent had attacked Louise with a razor and she had managed to subdue him, he was locked away in an insane asylum in Geneva and Louise was granted an anullment.  For the past two years she had been seeing Raoul and they finally got married, spending their wedding night at the casino before heading off for their honeymoon.  Six months ago, however, Laurent had escaped from the asylum.  He wa known to have his appearance alter4d by a plastic surgeon, whonm he subsequently murdered.  Laurent -- a consumate actor nd linguist -- could now be anyone; no one knew what he now looked like.  And he has vowed to kill Raoul.  Hence, the appearance of Bencolin at the casino.

While Louise was sitting with Bencolin and Jack, Raoul went to the casino's empty smoking room, saying that he would ring for a special cocktail.  After the bell rang, A waiter brought it into the smoking room on a tray, then exited immediately, shocked. and dropping the tray.  Raoul's decaptated body lay there, his hea posed several feet away.  There were only two entrances to the smoking room -- the one by the main salon that Bencolin himself had been watching, and one leading to the hallway, which was being watched by one of Bencolin's most trusted men.  A thorough search of the smoking rom had shown that there were no secret compartments or hiding places in the smoking room.  How had the murderer managed to escape?

As the title suggests, this is a grisly crime, later compunded by another murder and the discovery of a third body walled into a cellar.  The clues are fairly placed, as are the decptively clever red herrings.  The story hints strangly of Carr's future place in the history of detrective novels as the fair play master of the locked room. 

Also included arer some of the sly humor that would embellish Carr's later works.  Om' fairly fond of this scene where Jack's "charitable" landlady discovers "a couple of blood spots when I sent my dinner clothes out to be pressed, and became sympatheic to  such an extent that I hesitated to tell her that they had been caused by a severed head.   Madame Hirondelle is prone to hystrics."

An amateur story verging on professionalism, entertsaining even for someone not interested in the growth and maturity of a major figure in detective fiction.

I should note that Napolitano provides an excellent 68-page academic introduction to The Kind;ling Spark, as well as individual "Notes for the Curious" after each story.