Out for Delivery: "The Jersey Devil" (1971) by Edward D. Hoch

Some months ago, I reviewed a short story from Edward D. Hoch's Captain Leopold series, "The Rainy-Day Bandit" (1970), which Alessandro favorably compared in the comments to the subject of today's review, "The Jersey Devil" – originally published in the October, 1971, issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. Famously collected in Leopold's Way (1985).

"The Jersey Devil" begins when Captain Leopold gives Lieutenant Fletcher a lift home following a long shift working on a barroom knifing when the police radio gives out an alert of a house alarm. Leopold and Fletcher are only a block away. So they go to investigate and chase two figures fleeing the burglarized home, a young man and woman, who escaped. But not without a fight. Leopold broke his wrist when trying to grab the man, ripped his pocket and spilled most of the loot. A valuable collection of stamps belonging to Oscar Bailey, a collector and dealer, who's still missing one of his most valuable stamps from his collection.

That missing stamp is "a rare Hawaiian Islands stamp, two cents, issued in 1851," but Leopold is drawn to one of the recovered, unusual looking stamp. A large, brown and poorly printed stamp showing "a crude drawing of a winged demon flying over a row of houses" with words across the top – saying "Jersey Devil—Ten Cents." Bailey is very evasive about that stamp calling it joke with no value, but there's where the case should have ended for Leopold. However, Leopold decides to consult a stamp collector from the area, Dexter Jones, who tells him the Jersey Devil is part of "a semisecret, privately-owned postal system operated in competition with the government" ("...isn't that against the law?"). This operation is run by the owner of a New Jersey trucking company, Benedict Corflu. A character I would like to have seen more of and found his illegal, but convenient and tacitly tolerated postal system fascinating.

After this, "The Jersey Devil" regrettably takes a different track as Dexter Jones is shot and killed. I have to admit it's a small, technically achievement how Hoch constructed the plot to allow for a last-minute solution, but the need for a body spoiled this story. The thief really made a mad dash up the escalation ladder by going from pawing a stolen stamp to first degree murder, especially when the story itself pointed out the culprit had a ready-made excuse (ROT13: cergraqvat gb svaq vg jura erzbivat gur pnfg). So, technically, the plot holds together, but not convincingly. I know that's rich coming from someone whose obsession with locked room mysteries and impossible crimes has been called alarming and a red flag galore, but the murder here had the same effect as dropping a brick through wet tissue paper.

“The Jersey Devil” had a good and promising start, but the ending left me unconvinced and underwhelmed. It should have been just about the stolen stamps and shadowy postal system. So not one of my favorite Captain Leopold stories.