That Thing Upstairs: "The Doctor Sees a Ghost" (1933) by Florence Ryerson and Colin Clements

I recently reviewed Fear of Fear (1931) and Blind Man's Buff (1933) by Florence Ryerson and Colin Clements, a husband-and-wife writing team, which I liked enough to bump the other two Jimmy Lane novels, Seven Suspects (1930) and Shadows (1934), up a few places on my wishlist – except that both remain obscurely out-of-print as of this writing. So turned my attention to their short stories to see if they wrote anything for my liking. Well, I definitely found something.

Florence Ryerson and Colin Clements' "The Doctor Sees a Ghost" was published in the December, 1933, issue of Mystery and concerns an unnamed, two-year-old boy who's behavior has been disturbing his father ("...been going on for weeks").

Gessler has been to several, highly paid pediatrics and other specialists, but the boy is perfectly healthy and "normal in every respect." So why has the nurse packed her bags ("...she won't stay another day") and what was the reason for the changing the nursery twice? Gressler, tired and nervous, eventually finds his way to another specialist, Hallowell, tells him the boy plays Pease Porridge Hot after he's put to bed ("and other games like Peekaboo and Simon Says Tumbs Up"). Hallowell tries to assure him there's nothing abnormal about two-year-olds playing games, or prattling to themselves, but Gessler's convinced the boy is talking and playing games with his dead mother – who died six months ago. Gessler begs Hallowell to come to his home to witness the baby's unsettling behavior for himself.

So not a bad premise at all, but, considering the short length of the story, I expected the ending to take one of two directions: Gessler murdered his wife and the guilt is driving him out of his mind or the nurse has some sort of connection to his wife and is avenging her by making Gessler believe her ghost is talking and singing songs to their son. The implied threat there is making Gessler fear what her ghost might tell the boy when he gets old enough to understand. I personally preferred the latter as fear is an important driving factor and theme running through both Fear of Fear and Blind Man's Buff. It fitted both the tone of the story and the authors other work, but then the ending revealed I had been reading a ghost story all along. A better twist than the one the story threw up!

Florence Ryerson and Colin Clements' "The Doctor Sees a Ghost" is exactly as described on tin. But, in my defense, Mystery is a detective fiction magazine and the December 1933 issue even carries a short story from Stuart Palmer's Miss Withers series. So assumed it had to be a detective story, not a ghost yarn, maybe even a detective story with a supernatural flavoring. That didn't turn out to be the case. That leaves only Ryerson's solo short story, "The Purple Shadow" (1925), as of possible interest. In the meanwhile, I'll keep an eye out for Seven Suspects and Shadows.