Orange Pulp: "The Jewelry of a Widow" (c. 1960s) by Ton Vervoort

Last year, I delved into the work of a long-forgotten, out-of-print Dutch mystery writer, Peter Verstegen, who wrote five classically-styled and plotted detective novels during the 1960s about a dandy, educated Amsterdam homicide cop, Floris Jansen – published as by "Ton Vervoort." The Ellery Queen-inspired Moord onder astrologen (Murder Among Astrologists, 1963) and Moord onder de mantel der liefde (Murder Under the Mantle of Love, 1964) were among last years highlights, but don't overlook the very game Moord onder toneelspelers (Murder Among Actors, 1963) and Moord onder maagden (Murder Among Virgins, 1965). So that left me with one last novel from the series, Moord op toernee (Murder on Tour, 1965), but wanted to take a little detour first to one of only three known short stories Vervoort wrote during the sixties. A story with a slightly unusual publishing history. 

Between 1962 and 1965, Vervoort wrote and published his five Floris Jansen novels, but bowed out of the genre a few years later with a special, expensive and time consuming project. Vervoort wrote and put together a dossier roman (crime dossier) a la Dennis Wheatley. De zaak Stevens (The Stevens Case, 1967/68) was commissioned to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the European Chemical Corporation in Rotterdam. Vervoort plotted and wrote the story, but it took twenty people, eleven days and 10.000 gulden (roughly 25.000 euros today) to produce two-thousand handmade copies. Surprisingly, copies are not exceedingly rare. Just a little pricey.

Vervoort modeled The Stevens Case on an unpublished short story, "De juwelen van een weduwe" ("The Jewelry of a Widow"), which eventually found its way into the fifth, 1974 edition of a short-lived, now obscure publication Pulp – printed as the original Stevens Case. However, the plots of the short story and dossier roman appear to be very different with former concerning missing jewelry, while the later is a murder case in which the victim is found super-glued to the crime scene. Yes, a short story centering on missing or stolen jewelry reeks of uninspired routine and filler material. Leave it to Vervoort to give this routine premise a fresh coat of paint! 

"The Jewelry of a Widow" begins when Tilda Stevens comes to Floris Jansen to report that pieces of expensive jewelry belonging to her late mother-in-law were either stolen or have gone missing. Mrs. Ruby Stevens (née Perlmutter) was according to Tilda a wealthy, widowed lady, but stingy where money was concerned. She never financially supported her son's art dealership "because she believed her son should fend for himself." When Mrs. Stevens died naturally in her sleep, Tilda Stevens discovered "a pearl necklace, a brooch and a ring with a ruby" were missing, but here's the kicker. Nobody has ever seen the items in question. So how does she know they even exist and may have been stolen? Before she passed away, Mrs. Steven had "a very precise portrait" painted showing all her wrinkles and the expensive-looking pieces of jewelry. She also withdrew two-hundred thousand guldens over a two-year period, which she unlikely spend all on her holiday trips abroad.

Tilda is convinced the necklace, brooch and ring exist and rightfully belongs to her husband, but suspects Mrs. Stevens' leeching nephew, Harry Stevens, is in cahoots with the painter, Schaafsma, who claims it was all a practical joke – concocted between himself and the old widow. Tilda refused to take that answer and "practically tore down the house on the Leidsegracht to find the jewelry" without result. So now it's up to Floris Jansen to probe the problem and quickly discovers the situation and people involved are not quite as Tilda had outlined to him.

I think seasoned mystery readers will immediately spot one part of the solution when a certain clue is described (ROT13: "n obggyr bs erq ivgnzva cvyyf"), but the overall solution to the missing jewelry is well enough handled (especially the why). My only complaint is that Vervoort tried to have his cake and eat it too with a last-second twist erirnyvat gung Zef. Fgriraf jnf zheqrerq. This ended the story with too many fingers in the pie and comes across like the jewelry plot needed reinforcement in the end to make the read worthwhile. It really didn't need that last twist. But other than that, Vervoort's "The Jewelry of a Widow" is a decent, if very minor, short detective story that largely succeeded in doing something different with the problem of missing jewelry.