"The Death Cry" by Arthur B. Reeve (first published in Weird Tales, May, 1935; reprinted in The Television Detectives' Omnibus [also published as Great Tales of Crime and Detection], edited by Peter Haining*, 1994; and in Dead Men Tell Tales, a collection of seven Craig Kennedy stories, Black Dog Books, 2008)
Craig Kennedy, "The Scientific Detective" first appeared in "The Case of Hilda Bond" in Cosmopolitan, December 1910, the first of a long series of 81 stories for that magazine through July 1915. At one time, Kennedy rivaled -- and perhaps out-passed -- Sherlock Holmes in popularity. Kennedy appear in about 171 stories (an accurate count is beyond my ken) and in 30 books, both novels and collections. In addition, there were eight films about the character (three of which featured Harry Houdini), an unknown number of radio programs, two comic strips, and a 1951 television series. Many of the Craig Kennedy stories bordered on science fiction with the use of scientific devices. It is possible that a number of tales about the character were ghost-written.
The man behind this was prolific author Arthur B. Reeve (1880-1936), who also created detective characters Constance Dunlap and Guy Garrick. Reeve was also a screenwriter, and would also adapt a number of films written by others for newspaper syndication (one of these was for the "lost" 1928 film Tarzan the Mighty; Reeves adaptation was published in book form in 2005 from ERBville Press); he also wrote a number of scenarios about fake spiritualists for millionaire-murderer Harry K. Thaw (the guy who killed Stanford White over Evelyn Nesbit, the "Girl in the Red Velvet Swing"); Thaw refused to pay and a lawsuit resulted which Thaw eventually lost.
Kennedy began as a scientist who would solve crimes using both chemistry and psychology, with his repertoire eventually widening. Kennedy was also a man of action, carrying two pistols and not afraid to use them. As the series progress, the character became more of a hardboiled detective and faced both racketeers and spies. By 1930 the author became an anti-racketeering crusader, hosting a national radio program on the subject. During World War II Reeve would help establish a spy and crime detection laboratory in Washington, D.C.
"The Death Cry" may have been the last Craig Kennedy story the Reeve published.
Kennedy has been called to the Three Pines Hotel in the Catskills to investigate a mysterious murder. The victim was found in a locked room, killed while in bed, blood covering his throat. When the blood was wiped away, two small puncture holes were discovered over the jugular vein. Previous to the body being discovered, a terrifying and inhuman cry was heard, but no one could ay where exactly it came from. The hotel itself had been in business for ten years; most of the guests had fled after the murder, but eight remained in residence, including a self-proclaimed psychic, a nervous old lady, a professor claiming to be a great scientist, a smug New York broker, a young married couple with a secret (she would later try to commit suicide), and a man who appeared strangely amused by the whole affair. Also at the hotel were the manager, the hotel clerk, and Old Peter, a queer duck of a handyman who kept disappearing. Soon after Kennedy arrived, that mysterious, fearsome "death cry" was heard again, signaling another impossible murder. Add to the mix a ten-year-dead hermit, a hidden cave, a missing grave marker, a British inheritance, and a strange black figure seen in the distance, and lyou hav+e all the ingredients for an atmospheric melodrama:
"A gust of dark musty air came from the yawning hole. There was something fetid, mephitic, bestial in it. Black as jet, the yawning cavern opened in front of Kennedy and Blount."
And:
"Then came the second scream, this time the weird, inhuman scream that started in a low wail and increased until it echoed and re-echoed in the night, It was the scream of death -- inhuman, terrifying, unearthly."
The story is good fun, despite plot holes you could drive a truck through. And, frankly, Reeve is not a good writer, but he is able to pull the reader along breathlessly without stopping to consider how the sausage was made. And, really, stories like this are not meant to be examined, but are to be read uncritically and hastily.
Recommended for what it is.
The May 1935 issue of Weird Tales is available to be read online from the usual suspects.
* Haining (1940-2007) was a prolific and oft-times sloppy anthologist who should rightly be credited for bringing to light a number of forgotten and overlooked works, although his research could be very flawed, and bibliographical details can be both confusing and irritating. The volume listed above first appeared in 1992 as Great Tales of Crime and Detection as an instant remainder, but carries a 1988 copyright notice; it appeared in 1994 as The Television Detectives' Omnibus; the book contains 32 stories about fictional detectives who have been portrayed on television (Perry Mason, Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, Father Brown, Sherlock Holmes, Jane Marple, Hercule Poirot, Lord Peter Wimsey, as well as a number of characters less familiar to American readers), and the book's back cover and inside front cover flap both proclaim a story about Mike Hammer which does not appear and likely was wishful thinking. the book also at one point states Antonia Fraser's detective Jemima Shore as "Jemima Shaw." I prefer to think both of these flaws belong with the publisher rather than the anthologist.
