Last
year, I reviewed Gerald Kersh's "Karmesin
and the Meter" (1937), alternatively published as "Karmesin,
Swindler" and "Karmesin and the Big Frost," which Brian Skupin
listed in Locked Room Murders: Supplement (2019) and the
description of the impossible crime sounded interesting – a "continual supply of gas to an apartment" while "there
is never any money in the locked and sealed meter." The story
turned out to be a very enjoyable locked
room mystery in miniature devised by a self-professed master
criminal, Karmesin.
Karmesin
is an immense, purple-faced old man with a "vast Nietzsche
moustache, light brown with tobacco-smoke, which lay beneath his nose
like a hibernating squirrel" and his "air of shattered
magnificence." The premise of the series is Karmesin telling
Kersh about his countless criminal exploits. Some of his tall tales
beggar belief, which is why Kersh can't decide whether Karmesin is "the greatest criminal, or the greatest liar of his time."
A kind of sleight-of-mind intended to leave Kersh and the reader, "it
must be a lie... or was it?"
This
premise worked so well in "Karmesin and the Meter," I moved
Karmesin: The World's Greatest Criminal—Or Most Outrageous Liar
(2003) to the top of the pile. An early title in Crippen
& Landru's Lost Classic series that gathered all seventeen
stories that originally appeared, between 1936 and 1962, in various
magazine publications. Nearly every story was reprinted in Ellery
Queen's Mystery Magazine under an alternative title. So let's get
started!The
first story in the series, simply titled "Karmesin," originally
appeared on May 9, 1936, in the Evening Standard and has
Karmesin bragging to Kersh he has committed perfect crimes, because
he has never been "so obliging as to knock cigar-ash all over
the floor" or "to trample on the dower-beds with peculiar
boots" – only gracefully admitting he once made "a
slight miscalculation." Kersh points out that "the crime
couldn't have been perfect," but Karmesin disagrees and pulls
out an old passbook, dated 1910, which has a credit balance of over
three thousand pounds. Karmesin continues to tell about the swindle
he perpetrated with that passbook all those decades ago and how he
could have made miscalculation without ruining the crime. A good, fun
little introductory story, but the scheme sounded familiar. I've read
about variations on it before. Just can't remember where.
The
second story is "Karmesin and the Meter," but I'm skipping it
here since I've already read and reviewed it (click on the link
above). Needless to say, it's really good and fun locked room
mystery.
"Karmesin
and Human Vanity," originally published in the 1938 Spring issue of
Courier, in which Karmesin explains to Kersh that "greatest
blockhead on earth is the clever man who thinks himself cleverer."
To illustrate the point he tells about the time he swindled a hundred
thousand francs from a dangerous, well-known and clever crook. Medved
was a slippery customer and there's "no dirty business with
which he had not soiled his hands." Karmesin got him with that
age-old motto of the conman: get someone greedy who wants something
for nothing and then give him nothing for something. Another
thoroughly entertaining, shortish short story, but Medved was not
half as clever (for a hardened criminal) as he was presented by
falling for such an obviously staged scam.
The
next story, "Karmesin and the Tailor's Dummy," was first
published in the Autumn 1938 issue of Courier and has the old
rogue telling about his time as a young lawyer in Paris. But not one
who kept to the letter of the law. Kersh gets to hear how he helped a
young, impoverished bank clerk rob his employer, packed him off the
America and kept the authorities off his back – while pocketing
some of the change. Just another day in the life of Karmesin.
"Karmesin
and the Big Flea' originally appeared in the Winter 1938/39 issue
of Courier and has Kersh hearing the story of how Karmesin was
once caught in a web of blackmail, which concerned corrupt policemen
blackmailing a highly placed politician – even among the
blackmailers there were attempts to blackmail each other. One
foolishly tried to blackmail Karmesin. So he had to turn the tables
on them. Just like "Karmesin and Human Vanity," this story is
more enjoyable for its storytelling than the gimmick Karmesin
employed.
Next
up is "Karmesin and the Raving Lunatic," published for the first
time spring 1939 issue of Courier, in which Karmesin gives an
account of the Betzendorfer affair. At the time, Karmesin was in
Vienna, Austria, to unburden a jeweler of a twenty thousand pound
diamond bracelet and a five thousand pound emerald. But he does not
fiddle around with locks or burglar alarms. Karmesin goes to work
like a confidence trickster to have the items simply handed over
them, but there's something very mean-spirited about what he did to
that jeweler. However, this is one of the stories in this volume that
feels like it could have been one of Maurice
Leblanc's Arsène Lupin stories. I liked it.
"Karmesin
and the Unbeliever" was originally published in the Summer 1939
issue of Courier and one of the two stories collected here
that I hate with a passion. Karmesin lectures Kersh that there are
two kinds of ass, "one believes all he hears" and "the
other believes nothing," which is the category he assigns to
Kersh. So tells him a story about an unbeliever he once met on a
cliff and it turns out to be a somewhat conventional ghost story.
Karmesin telling a ghost story to tease Kersh as revenge for him
writing down and publishing his exploits would have been just fine,
but then he tells how he went into business with the ghost! Even
worse, Henry the Ghost appears in a second story. The whole point of
the series is to leave you in doubt whether Karmesin is "either
the greatest criminal or the greatest liar the world has ever known."
Or, at the very least, is grossly exaggerating his criminal career.
Henry the Ghost ruins all of that and breaks immersion.
"Inscrutable
Providence" was first published in the December 24, 1944,
publication of The People and has Karmesin, who disapproves of
murder, he once had murder on his mind, but the prospected victim,
Skobeleff, "richly deserved to die" – a criminal of the
worst kind. A vile blackmailer who targeted women and Karmesin decide
to help a distressed woman get back an incriminating letter. And to
put a permanent stop to Skobeleff. But it's not by Karmesin's hand
that he meets his end. Karmesin observers, "such men are always
punished in the end" as "Nemesis is always upon them. They
are never more than one jump ahead of a terrible vengeance. It is not
for man to kill: only for God." This story is basically Kersh's
take on Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of Charles Augustus
Milverton" (collected in The Return of Sherlock Holmes,
1905). A very good take at that!
Sadly,
the same can't be said about the next story, "Karmesin and the
Invisible Millionaire," originally published in the Winter 1945
issue of Courier. Henry the Ghost returns to assist Karmesin
in getting the titular millionaire out of a locked bathroom unseen.
This is easily one of the worst short impossible crime stories I ever
come across.
"Karmesin
and the Gorgeous Robes" was first published in the May 1946 issue
of Courier and tries, not wholly unsuccessfully, to repeat "Inscrutable Providence." Karmesin tells when he traveled to
Rouen, France, in 1907 to rob the safe of an extremely rich,
downright evil antique dealer, Potdevin – who dealt in women and
had an interest in numerous houses of ill-repute. The way into his
safe and safely out of his antique shop rests on a cloak of
incomparable splendor ("stupendous waterfall of jeweled silk"),
which is put to magnificent use to stage a robbery with the unwitting
assistance of the law. Very clever! But providence, "like a
haggard Nemesis," has the final, brutal say in the case. One of
the better stories in the series!
The
next story, "Chickenfeed for Karmesin," originally appeared in
the December 1946 issue of Courier and has Karmesin getting
angry at Kersh ("you... species of camel") over wanting to
give him a paltry sum as a commission. Kersh has sold an account of
Kersh's exploits to a magazine, but Karmesin has only consented to
work on commission once. A commission that involved an unnamed,
illustrious man on a mission from a foreign government to buy
weapons, but this person had lost part of the money in a Monte Carlo
casino. Karmesin was commissioned to fix the whole mess. But did he?
A decent, rogue-ish tale, but nothing outstanding.
"The
Thief Who Played Thiel" appeared in the Saturday Evening Post
on February 13, 1954, which surprisingly turned out to be a
quasi-locked room mystery, of sorts, with a historical angle. When
the poet Edmund Spencer died in 1599, "the greatest of his
contemporaries wrote poems to throw into his grave." One of
those contemporaries was an obscure, now long-forgotten playwrite,
William Shakespeare, who dashed a few lines on a scrap of vellum.
Something of great value to collectors of rare items and
collectibles. Karmesin is hired by such a collector to "walk
into Westminster Abbey, open one of the famous graves, rummage in it
and walk out undetected." So this part of the story reads like
an inverted locked room mystery and, on a whole, a pretty
straightforward story. Simply a theft of a priceless piece of vellum,
but, while the world remains ignorant of the discovery, Karmesin has
evidence to offer for its existence. Normally, these lost manuscripts
or undiscovered either get destroyed or disappear again. It goes
without saying I liked this story.
A
note for the curious: a more fine-tuned variation on Karmesin's
locked room dodge would turn up decades later in one of Edward
D. Hoch's countless impossible crime stories.
"The
Conscience of Karmesin" was published in the April 1954 issue of
Lilliput and tells the story of the greatest robbery of all
time. A robbery Karmesin claims to have masterminded and executed.
When another World War loomed on the horizon, Karmesin is approached
by an Argentinean cattle millionaire, "King" Tombola, who wants a
crown of the King of England to go with his nickname and is willing
to fork over millions to possess it – which is easier said than
done. Karmesin combines good old breaking-and-entering and a
psychological effect to achieve its goal. A psychological blind spot
at the time when England tried to see "no Mussolini, heard no
Hitler, spoke no Franco," but were very conscience of the
I.R.A. While he claims to have succeeded, Karmesin suffered a crisis
of conscience that undid the greatest robbery in the annals of
British crime. Not a bad story and entertaining as usual, but
plundering the jewel room in the Tower of London begged for a much
grander, more ingeniously put together plot.
"Karmesin
and the Royalties" originally appeared in the January 1956 issue of
Courier and is one of the more amusing stories collected here.
Kersh asks Karmesin why he never considered writing his life story,
but Karmesin says he has already sold his autobiography at the tune
of nearly a hundred thousand pounds. Only problem is that it never
got published. And nothing was written beyond a synopsis. So how did
he pull it off? A scam bordering on banality, but also very amusing
coming from Karmesin's echo!
“Skate's
Eyeball” was first printed in the April 1960 issue of Argosy
(UK) and the first story to be published in the post-Golden Age of
the genre. Karmesin tells Kersh about another time he tangled with
another dangerous criminal. Carfax "fenced, fiddled, and
organized" his way into becoming a millionaire, which he did
with absolute ruthlessness. Anyone "who took a shilling off
Carfax would be found at ebbtide in the Thames" in "an
advanced state of decomposition," but now his organization has
met its match in the Department of Inland Revenue. So now he can't
touch his money and needs Karmesin to get his capital to the United
States. Karmesin sets up a marvelous, hard-to-believe scam (in 1960!)
to impoverish and declaw the mob boss. A fun, pulp-style crime story.
"Oalamaoa"
was originally published in the December 1960 issue of Playboy
and together with "Karmesin and the Meter" the best and
strongest entries in the series! Karmesin tells the story of "an
impecunious painter," named Molosso, who was "a little
like the Dutch hero," Hans van Meegeren. A forger "who
painted pictures alleged to be by old Dutch masters with such
consummate skill" he "fooled all the German experts"
and "got undisclosed millions out of such collectors as the
Reichsmarshal Goering." Karmesin was determined to pull a
similar stunt with Molosso and a newly discovered picture supposed to
be the work of the French artist Paul Gauguin. A picture with several
coats of paint which represent the layers of Karmesin's scheme, which
he uses to play several collectors of each other while pocketing
large sums of their money. This is precisely what I hope to find when
turning to these charming rogues and gentlemen thieves!
Finally, "The Karmesin Affair" appeared in the Saturday Evening Post
on December 15, 1954, which ends the series with Karmesin telling
Kersh how he once helped out an old friend in the sale of his beloved
library. Sir Massey Joyce is stone broke as practically all he
possesses is either mortgaged or entailed, which in addition to taxes
and up keep left him completely broke. So now he's forced to clean
out his library and asked Karmesin to act as his representative, but
getting some good money for the obscure volumes is going to be
difficult. Sir Massey was not looking forward to dealing with the
Society for the Clarification of History, "heritage busters and
tradition wreckers," whose "great ambition is to prove
beyond doubt that Francis Bacon wrote the works of William
Shakespeare." Karmesin sees an opportunity to save his friend's
beloved library, get the money and get one over those snooty
Baconians. So a very simple case of forgery and, plot-wise, nothing
really special, but a nice story to both close out the collection and
end the series.
So,
on a whole, Karmesin: The World's Greatest Criminal—Or Most
Outrageous Liar has the usual mix of good, bad and average
stories with a few standouts on both sides of the spectrum. I thought
the two stories featuring Henry the Ghost were not only prosperously
bad, but detrimental to the series as they undermined the whole
premise of the series. On the other side, you have "Karmesin and
the Meter" and "Oalamaoa," which were so good that even an
excellent stories like "Inscrutable Providence," "Karmesin and
the Gorgeous Robes" and "The Thief Who Played Thiel" look
average in comparison. The rest of the stories are good to average
and usually pretty entertaining, but not always memorable. When I
began writing this review, I noticed some of the stories had already
blended together in my memory and needed to go back to check which
was which. Not the best collection of stories to recommend to the
traditional, puzzle-oriented mystery reader unless they also happen
to have a fondness for classical rogue
fiction.