Sunken Secrets: "Death Dives Deep" (1959) by Robert Arthur (writing as "Brett Halliday")

Back in June, I read Murder and the Married Virgin (1944) by "Brett Halliday," a pseudonym of Davis Dresser, which came recommended to me as hard-paced locked room mystery and introduced to Halliday's private eye, Michael "Mike" Shayne – a hardboiled counterpart to Ellery Queen. A series with distinctively different periods and localities, a monthly short story magazine and eventually a who's who of ghostwriters. 

Murder and the Married Virgin was as solid as a punch to the face and invited further investigation, which added several impossible crimes and a potentially interesting-looking World War II mystery to the big pile. But what really caught my attention was a short story by one of Halliday's well-known ghostwriters. A beloved writer around these parts of the internet with a legacy of his own. 

Robert Arthur was a pulp and mystery writer who famously created a radio anthology series, The Mysterious Traveler, but most readers today will remember him as the creator and first author of The Three Investigator series – producing ten novels before passing away in 1969. But his dalliance with the juvenile mystery novel represents only a small portion of his output. Arthur mainly wrote short stories that were published in everything from Amazing Stories and Black Mask to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

During the late 1950s and early '60s, Arthur wrote two short Mike Shayne stories under the Halliday name. One of the stories sounded like it could belong with Allan R. Bosworth's Full Crash Dive (1942), Charles Forsythe's Diving Death (1962), Micki Browning's Adrift (2017) and Joseph Commings' short story "Bones for Davy Jones" (1953) to that rare subcategory of detective stories with submerged setting. So let's walk the plank and find out. 

"Death Dives Deep" was first published in the January, 1959, issue of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine and collected in Mike Shayne's Torrid Twelve (1961).

Mike Shayne, "tough as raw leather" and "not afraid of cops or crooks," is asked by Sandra Ames to undertake a job where he has two employers and "must keep an eye on both" to "see that one doesn't try to double-cross the other" – something "umpires do it every day of the baseball season." So he has no particular objections and deduces that his second employer is Captain Tod Tolliver. Shayne received a package that afternoon with an old, worn Spanish gold coin minted in 1670 and a note telling that "there's more where this came from." Before he can meet his second employer and get to work, Shayne is knocked unconscious and Captain Tolliver is kidnapped from his office by two thugs.

This is where the narrative begins to twist and turn like the Queen of Hearts maze with body around every corner. Seven in total! So you're never quite sure what to expect or what kind of detective story you're actually reading. Early on in the story, I began to suspect "Death Dives Deep" was cleverly played con-game with a hidden, quasi-impossible crime, but it didn't turn out to be one of those hard-hitting, cerebral private eye stories. Just a very well written piece of hardboiled pulp fiction and enjoyed it very much.

I particularly liked the treasure hunt and what, exactly, lay hidden on the seabed. Is it an old Spanish ship with "a strong room full of treasure" collected from all over South America or something more recently? And while the entire story takes place on the surface, the diving expedition is aptly incorporated into the plot and briefly turned the story into survival thriller when Shayne is stuck on a raft in the open ocean. Another point of interest is that, early on in the story, Shayne has a beauty parlor girl, named Ireneabelle, who is linked to the kidnappers and he calls another woman with her own beauty shop – requesting her call all her friends in the business and ask them. If they don't know, she has to ask them each to call five friends and keep the ball rolling until she's located. This is the exact same "Ghost-to-Ghost Hookup" system Jupe, Pete and Bob would go on to employ in The Three Investigators series (e.g. Arthur's The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy, 1965).

So, all in all, "Death Dives Deep" is an engaging, hardboiled private eye story with some good action scenes (the helicopter!) and an excellently used backdrop, which once again made me understand why so many people are fascinated by the figure of the tough private eye figure. I remember someone compared the private eye to comic book superheroes who matured and lost their cape, but stubbornly continued to try to do something good in a hard, crime-ridden world where it's practically impossible to keep your hands entirely clean. Sometimes it seems pointless, but characters like Shayne continue to try to do right thing and restore some good to the world. No matter how many times they get knocked out or crack a knuckle. Arthur's "Death Dives Deep" is a good example where a lot of bad things have to happen before a little good can come out of it.

That being said, you expect something more traditional and plot-oriented in the next post. So stay tuned!

The Return to Terror Castle

"Frankly, I would prefer to have nothing to do with these three youths, but I

rashly promised to introduce them. And I am a man of my word—even though the promise was extorted from me by nothing less than sheer skulduggery, as you will see."

- Alfred Hitchcock (Robert Arthur's The Secret of Terror Castle, 1964)

Back in November of 2015, I took a chance on a series of juvenile mysteries, called The Three Investigators, which was created by a prolific writer and editor, Robert Arthur, who wrote ten of the forty-three books about the three boy-detectives and when he passed away, in 1969, the torch was passed to a small group of writers – consisting of William Arden, M.V. Carey, Nick West and Marc Brandel. All forty-three of the books were published between 1964 and 1987.

My first encounter with that "trio of lads," Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews, came when I picked up their sixth case, The Secret of Skeleton Island (1966), which I wanted to read simply to compare to Case Closed. However, I loved the book so much that, within a year, I had burned through nearly a dozen of them.

One of those books reviewed on here was the series-opener, The Secret of Terror Castle (1964), which proved to be a relatively decent debut with a plot that was prescient of the long-running Scooby Doo series. And as the first entry in the series, the book was picked for two adaptations. A German-South African made-for-TV was made in 2009, Das verfluchte schloss (The Cursed Castle), that aired in 2010 on Disney XD under its original book-title, but the plot and characters appear to have been modernized and modified.

So that makes a little-known dramatization from the 1980s the most interesting of the two adaptations, because it was as loyal as a dog to the source material.

The Secret of Terror Castle and The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot (1964) were dramatized by Rainbow Communications and released on cassette tapes in 1984, but barely anything is known about these productions – except that the audio-plays were adapted by Edward Kelsey and directed by Tony Bilbow. So I can't tell you the names of the voice-actors who played Jupe, Pete and Bob, but they played their roles admirably. Only have two minor caveats about their presentation in this adaptation.

In order to differentiate between the voices of the teenage boys, the ages of the characters varied in this audio-play. Jupe was obviously made the oldest of the bunch, pushing sixteen, while Pete must be around 12 or 13 years old. Bob sounded like he was in the same age-range as Pete, but with a huskier voice and his role had been reduced to a side-character. But that's the only point where the audio-play differed from the book.

Otherwise, the 50-minute audio-play delivers a faithful, but condensed, version of The Secret of Terror Castle and even retained the all-important role of Alfred Hitchcock, "teller of tales of terror," plays in the series and particularly in this story – which established the famous movie-director as their mentor (of sorts). A second, noteworthy, aspect demonstrating just how loyal this dramatization is to the original is that the plot was not transported to the 1980s. The audio-play opens with the announcement that "the story you're about to hear happened in the 1960s" before "any of you were born." So you can argue the play is a (modern) historical mystery.

The story opens, like the book, with Jupe and Pete surreptitiously gaining access to the private office of Alfred Hitchcock (see my book review for details). And in case you're wondering, Bob has been sidelined by "the after effects of a badly broken leg" and primarily does research at the library.

Anyhow, Jupe and Pete cheekily make an offer to the famous director of thriller movies: they want to help him find "an authentic haunted house" for his next picture and in exchange he'll introduce their first recorded case. Hitchcock is initially taken aback by their impertinence and cheek, but admires their initiative and promises that if they can "come up with an interesting story" he'll introduce it – which makes them rush back to the HQ where Bob was waiting with a report on Terril's Castle.

Ancient technology from a long-lost civilization

Terril's Castle stands in a narrow gulch, known as Black Canyon, which has acquired a haunted reputation and locals started to refer to the place as Terror Castle.

The castle was build by a famous horror movie-actor, Steven Terril, who was "a big star back in the silent film days" and known all over "the world as the man with a million faces," but when talkies replaced the silent film he was unable to hide his "squeaky, high-pitched voice" and "lisped" - making him a laughing stock of the industry. One day, Terril simply vanishes from the world stage, but left behind a note saying that his castle is forever cursed to be haunted. So it's exactly the kind of place they were hoping to find.

At this point in the play, Bob is pretty much sidelined as a participating character and the story primarily follows the other two boys, Jupe and Pete, as they investigate the haunted castle. Or dig around in the past of the silent movie actor and get themselves in a couple of tight situations, but what really makes these scenes a joy to listen to is the banter between the brainy Jupe and the smart-mouthed Pete, which was reminiscent of the ribbing between Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.

After they were scared away from Terror Castle, Pete suggests that they call Hitchcock to tell him that "they break out in lumps of goose flesh" whenever they go near the place. And that their "legs go all wobbly" and "start running on their own accord." Jupe's reaction to this suggestion is something Wolfe could've said in response to one of Archie's little quips, "I will ignore those remarks, Pete." Or when they get trapped inside a crevice, Jupe observes that their "exit appears to be effectively barricaded" and this makes Pete ask why "even at a time like this you use long words." Why not simply say that they're stuck there?

I think this interaction between Jupe and Pete helped carry this audio-play, because the condensation of the story made the plot even thinner than in the original and this really showed how much the plot resembled an episode from Scooby Doo, Where Are You! The story is as amusing as a Scooby Doo episode, but, plot-wise, is also about as challenging as one (i.e. not very) when read, or listened to, purely as a detective story. However, it was based on, what simply was, the first story in the series and it would come to include such gems as The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy (1965), The Mystery of the Shrinking House (1972; a rich plot) and The Mystery of the Headless Horse (1977).

So I really enjoyed the fifty minutes spent with, what is essentially, "Suspense for Kids." And it was fun to hear the characters I have been enjoying since 2015 come alive in this theater of the mind. It made want to listen to the second dramatization in this short-lived audio-series, but want to track down and read the book first. Not exactly sure when I'll get around to both versions of The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot, but they'll eventually be reviewed (poorly) on here.

Haunted House Hang-Up

"You know, we do make a pretty good team... especially when the chips are down."

- Jonny Quest (The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest) 

Robert Arthur was the literary father of those three young lads, Jupiter "Jupe" Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews, who together form The Three Investigators and they were formerly introduced to the world in The Secret of Terror Castle (1964).

The Secret of Terror Castle was the point of departure for a successful, long-running series of juvenile mysteries that covered a large chunk of the second half of the previous century and would finally comprise of forty some volumes written by five different authors – such as William Arden, M.V. Carey, Nick West and Marc Brandel. Additionally, there were two, short-lived spin-off series, published as Find-Your-Fate Books and Crimebusters, several audio-plays, puzzle books and even some recent TV-movies from 2007 and 2009.

All of that began with Robert Arthur and his very Scooby Doo-like mystery-and adventure novel, which, after this clunky, rickety written introduction, is going to be the subject of this blog-post.

The Secret of Terror Castle opens, like most of the stories from this series, with an introduction from that famous film director, Alfred Hitchcock, who is a recurring side character in these books. There is, however, an obvious difference in their first outing: the reader is told how this unlikely partnership exactly came about and according to Hitchcock it was accomplished "by nothing less than sheer skullduggery." He sort of has a point.

Jupe, Pete and Bob were probably not the first boys to try their hands at the detective business, but very few kids had the starter-kit they had: a damaged, thirty-foot mobile home trailer hidden among the piles of junk in the Jones Salvage Yard. The boys have converted the trailer in a headquarters and equipped the place with "an office, laboratory and photographic darkroom" with "several hidden entrances." On top of that, they've stack of professional looking, evocatively worded business cards in their pockets and an unrecorded case to their credit – which involved the recovery of a lost diamond ring. There was only one thing missing: a client. Luckily, they've a plan!

A local car rental company held a contest: a big jar full of beans stood in their window and offered the use of a luxurious Rolls-Royce and a chauffeur for thirty days to whoever guessed the nearest to the right number of beans. Jupe spent several days "calculating how much space was in the jar" and "how many beans it would take to fill that space." Suffice to say, he won the thirty day use of the gold-plated Rolls-Royce and the services of an English chauffeur, named Worthington, which are used as a respectable front to get pass the gates of World Studios. It also helped that Jupe drew on his background as a child actor and pretended to be Hitchcock's nephew.

Hitchcock is searching for "an authentic haunted house," which he wants to use as a setting in his suspense movie, but location scouts are scattered across various states and the boys offer to help find a haunted much closer to the film studios – in exchange Hitchcock has to introduce their first case. It takes some additional effort to convince the movie director, but they eventually leave the film studio with a genuine assignment in their pockets.

Well, not surprisingly, the boys already had a location in mind: Terrill's Castle. A strange, castle-like building located in a narrow gulch, called Black Canyon, which became known as Terror Castle in the wake of the owner’s disappearance.

Stephen Terrill was "a big star back in the silent-film days" and played in all kinds of horror pictures about ghosts, werewolves and vampires. He was basically the Vincent Price of his days and loved to frighten people, which is reflected in the construction of his home: Terrill imported construction materials from supposedly haunted buildings world-wide, which included Japanese timbers "of an ancient, ghost-ridden temple" and stones from a haunted castle on the Rhine – stuffing the place with ancient suits of armors, unsettling portraits and Egyptian mummy cases.

On a quick side note, one of the first chapters referenced Ellery Queen and the character of Terrill, in combination with his private "castle," recalled Drury Lane and his castle-like home on the Hudson. A sly nod to Ellery Queen? Anyway...

The dawn of the talkie spelled the end of Terrill's movie career and this devastated the Man of a Million Faces, which caused him to lock himself up in his castle and brood, before he completely vanishing from the face of the earth – leaving only an empty car at the bottom of a cliff and a threatening note behind.

In the note, Terrill placed a curse on the house and promised that nobody would be able to live there. His spirit seems to have made good on that promise, because everyone who tried to stay there ran out of there faster than a bat out of hell. And that scared off a lot of potential buyers.

Jupe, Pete and Bob make several assaults upon the haunting entities of Terror Castle, but they first have to overcome "a sensation of extreme terror" and "impending doom" that befalls everyone who crosses the threshold of the castle. The first time they experienced this they left cartoon smoke behind. Regardless, they slowly penetrate through "the fog of fear" and begin to gauge the truth behind the paranormal activity of the place, which includes a nifty spectral appearance in the projection room – namely "a shimmering blob of misty blue light" that conjured "ghostly wheezes and screeches" from a ruined pipe-organ. A large chunk of these apparently paranormal events can be labeled as semi-impossible problems, but their explanations were of the obvious, timeworn variety. Only how the sense of terror was achieved was somewhat fresh and original. But hardly enough to quality the book as an impossible crime story.

The first explanation offered for the identity of the ghosts and the motivation for creating a haunted house is obvious one, but then Arthur surprises both the boys and the readers by springing a surprise twist on them – which was not foreshadowed and very, very hackneyed. It showed Arthur had his roots in the pulps, but this was pretty bad and the only positive part was that it placed Jupe and Pete in very tight spot. And that always makes for a good scene or two in this series.

Luckily, the second twist rectified all that was wrong with the first twist and provided an overall satisfying explanation for the plot. There was, however, one obvious flaw in the overarching plot: why were Hitchcock's location scouts not aware of a haunted castle so close to the film studio?

The Secret of Terror Castle is, ultimately, a very simplistic story, but therefore not a bad one and for an opening salvo to a long-running series it was actually pretty good. I've read some pretty bad debuts from regular mystery authors and this was definitely not one of them. So this was an auspicious beginning of the series.

Other books reviewed in this series: The Secret of Terror Castle (1964), The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy (1965), The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure (1966), The Secret of Skeleton Island (1966), The Mystery of the Moaning Cave (1968), The Mystery of the Shrinking House (1972), The Secret of Phantom Lake (1973) and The Mystery of the Invisible Dog (1975).

There Are No Minor Cases

"The deeper one digs, the closer together they are."

- Yor, the Blind Miner (Michael Ende's The Never-Ending Story, 1979)

The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure (1966) is the fifth entry in a long-running series of fun, adventurous and imaginative juvenile detective stories about The Three Investigators, which was penned by the series creator, Robert Arthur, who only wrote the first ten of the total of forty-three novels – before passing away in 1969. But the general opinion seems to be that he contributed some of the best stories to the series.

I picked The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure as my next read from this series on the strength of this particular review and the book delivered on the promise of being a lively, roller-coaster of a tale. It was also a pleasure to learn that there was a seemingly impossible theft from a museum attached to one of the plot-threads, which is where the story begins for the three young investigators.

Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews are un-mathematically outvoted, "one to two," by Jupiter "Jupe" Jones to exchange an afternoon of scuba-diving lessons for a trip to the Peterson Museum.

At the moment, the museum is hosting an exhibition by the Nagasami Jewelry Company and the centerpiece of the exhibit is "a special display of fabulous jewels," which comprises of the legendary Rainbow Jewels and an emerald-studded belt of heavy golden plates – which represents a combined value of several million dollars. Jupe is of the belief they could gain valuable experience, for "solving future jewel robberies," by trying "to figure out whether or not the Nagasami jewels could be stolen." However, the only piece of knowledge they can take away from their excursion is that Jupe was not the only person who gave the subject of stolen jewels some thoughts.

The trio of detectives went to the museum on Children's Day and as a result the place is swarming with Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts, which causes the place to drown in pantomime and "a bedlam of sound" when the lights are cut and alarm bells began to wail. Security immediately rushes to the center of the room and form a protective ring around the famed Rainbow Jewels, but when the lights come back on they discover that the glass case, which held the Golden Belt, is smashed to pieces – leaving a painfully empty spot where a treasure was displayed only mere seconds ago. But nobody seems to have been in a position to smuggle the belt out of the building.

No one could have slipped out of the back entrance, because "it had been sealed immediately after the alarm sounded" with "a guard posted outside." All of the windows had been bricked up when the place was converted into a museum and "everyone had been searched," but nobody was carrying the belt. The place itself was searched, top to bottom, but nothing was found. Naturally, the boys offer their assistance to the head of security, Mr. Saito Togati, but he dismissed them as "silly American boys" and stated "this is work for men, not for children." It seems they had no other option than letting this case slip through their fingers.

Luckily, they're soon contacted by their friend and mentor, famous movie-director Alfred Hitchcock, who has a problem for them to look into: one of his friends, Miss Agatha Agawam, is a retired author of children's fiction, but recently she has been plagued by the fabled creatures from her own stories – a gang of pickaxe wielding gnomes! They sneak into Miss Agatha's home to throw stuff about and she wakes up in the middle of the night to "the sound of someone using a pickaxe to dig," which seems to come from basement. She also saw the gnomes in her garden playing leapfrog and doing somersaults! 

As unbelievable as that sounds, Bob is soon convinced gnomes roam the place as one of them, "wearing a peaked cap" and carrying "a tiny pickaxe over its shoulder," is "scowling ferociously" at him through the window. It is decided that they should hold a nighttime vigil to capture one of them on film or even attempt to catch one of them, but Bob has family obligations. So this ungrateful job falls on the shoulders of the other two and their encounter (and scuffle) with the gnomes must have given some of the youngest readers of this series nightmares.

It's an encounter leading them straight to an abandoned, rundown and bat-infested theatre, which is where Jupe and Pete find both an explanation for the gnomes and a considerable amount of danger – one of those dangerous spots provided an image for the cover-illustration. I really like that cover image!  

I’ll refrain from elaborating on the thriller-ish and adventurous parts of the story, which you should discover and enjoy for yourself, but I have to commend Arthur for his excellent and convincing motivation. I guess most of you can probably deduce the true nature of the gnomes and how it related to certain plot-threads, but Arthur uses them to full effect and provides a logical answer as to why there are so many of them in the neighborhood. I thought it made sense. 

It's still extremely pulpy and carny, but the good kind of pulp. Like something from a Fredric Brown story. 

Finally, there's the impossible theft from the museum, which is most prominently used in the opening and closing chapters of the book, but the truly enjoyable parts of this plot-thread are the many proposed solutions. Before the theft happened, Pete suggested a method echoing Hergé's Le Sceptre d'Ottokar (King Ottokar's Sceptre, 1939) and Jupe's first explanation was a variation on Edgar Wallace's "The Missing Romney," which I read in Murder Impossible: An Extravaganza of Miraculous Murders, Fantastic Felonies and Incredible Criminals (1990). David Renwick used a very similar explanation for the Jonathan Creek episode The Scented Room (1998).

The final explanation for the impossible theft was fairly routine and the false explanations were definitely better, but I won't complain about that, because the overall story was solid and fun to read. So I'll continue to dip in and out of this series for the foreseeable future.

I also reviewed the following books from this series: The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy (1965), The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure (1966), The Secret of Skeleton Island (1966), The Secret of Phantom Lake (1973) and The Mystery of the Invisible Dog (1975).

Murmurings from the Past

"Had I been, as you say, dead... it is more than probable that dead I should still be; for I perceive you are yet in the infancy of Galvanism, and cannot accomplish with it what was a common thing among us in the old days."

- Allamistakeo (Edgar Allan Poe's "Some Words With a Mummy," 1845)

Last month, I posted a review of The Secret of Skeleton Island (1966) by Robert Arthur, which is the sixth entry in a series of juvenile mysteries that ran from 1964 to 1987 and starred a group of meddling teenagers – who refer to themselves as The Three Investigators.

I enjoyed the book more than I anticipated and thought it merited a prompt follow-up, but felt insistent on picking another one of Arthur's contributions. Since his involvement kindled my initial interest in the series. The synopses of The Secret of Terror Castle (1964) and The Mystery of the Green Ghost (1965) piqued my interest, but eventually settled for The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy (1965).

The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy opens with a brief introduction by Alfred Hitchcock, who's a minor character in the series, in which he introduces the characters and gives some background information for "the benefit of those of you who have come in late." I already went over the introductions of Jupiter "Jupe" Jones, Peter Crenshaw and Bob Andrews in my previous review, but something that was completely omitted in The Secret of Skeleton Island was any mention of their headquarters – which consists of a converted mobile home trailer hidden in The Jones Salvage Yard. Guess that really wasn't pertinent information for an outdoors adventure story.

Anyway, the trailer has a small office space, a lab, a darkroom and a smattering of equipment, such a surveillance periscope, which the boys rebuilt from junk that came into the salvage yard.

It's at their headquarters where they receive two letters: one of them is from a wealthy, middle-aged lady who has heard about their success in one of their previous investigators (i.e. The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot, 1964) and wants to engage their services to help find her missing cat. Pete and Bob practice their deduction skills on the letter before reading it, which makes for a fun Holmesian scene.

However, it's the content of the second envelope that'll provide the trio of investigators with a bizarre problem that could've been plucked from the pages of a John Dickson Carr or Edward Hoch story. There's even a particular situation that arguably qualifies as a locked room problem and that comes on top of an apparently supernatural phenomena.

The name engraved on the top of the expensive-looking bond stationary is that of Alfred Hitchcock, celebrated film-director, who has a friend with a peculiar problem that they might find interesting: a 3000-year-old mummy has been heard whispering in a long-dead language!

Professor Robert Yarborough, "a noted Egyptologist," has converted a wing of his Spanish-style mansion into a private museum, strewn with "relics taken from the tombs of ancient Egypt," which has become the temporary home for the miraculous mummy – which the professor discovered twenty-five years before inside a well-hidden tomb in a rocky cliff. The professor is a man of science and is of the opinion that it's not natural "for a mummy dead for three thousand years to talk," or "even to whisper," but that's what appears to happen every time he’s alone with the remains of Ra-Orkon.

The problem is that Yarborough can't consult a professional colleague, because they would pity him or spread rumors about him getting old and senile. A private investigator would assume the professor had bats in the belfry, but "three imaginative boys" with "no preconceived notion" just might do the trick.

Jupe has a trick up his sleeve to make the mummy whisper in his presence, but finds himself confronted with somewhat of a locked room problem when the ruse succeeds: mummy begins to murmur when "he was totally alone" and "the door into the room where the professor and Bob waited was shut." Nobody was near the mummy case to "throw" his voice and the possibility of a radio transmitter had already been eliminated. I was a bit skeptical about the actual explanation for this locked room mystery, because it seemed out-of-time, but consulting the all-knowing Internet revealed this was technically possible since the early 1960s. So the trick was technically possible.

I think Arthur should be commended for thinking enough of his young readers to avoid the obvious (radio transmitter) and hackneyed (ventriloquism) and came up with something slightly more complex and original.  

Anyway, the points between the initial investigation and the final explanation is fraught with danger and side-distractions, which include a frightened butler who's deadly afraid of the mummy's curse. There's a colleague of the professor, an expert in Middle-Eastern languages, whose father was part of the original expedition, but "was murdered in a Cairo bazaar" a week after the mummy's discovery. A slender, foreign-looking boy is discovered lurking in the garden and he'll be in tight spot with one of the investigators when coming across a couple of burglars. Even Anubis, "the dreaded jackal god of Ancient Egypt," makes an appearance in our plain of existence.

This compound of danger and mystery makes The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy a very happening kind of adventure/mystery, but not entirely in the same league as The Secret of Skeleton Island – which I loved and adored. However, I still very much-appreciated Arthur's dedication here to create a solid plot with clues, mystification, Sherlockian references and something that amounts to a locked room mystery. Robert Arthur was basically mystery genre's version of the Paid Piper of Hamelin, who lured many children to our beloved detective stories.  

On a final note, allow me direct your attention to the review I posted only yesterday, which is Georgette Heyer's Envious Casca (1941) and has a locked room murder in an old-fashioned manor house during a Christmas holiday. What's not to like there? 

Treasure and Treachery

"Not a problem... we do this kind of stuff all the time."

- Jonny Quest (The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest)

Robert Arthur was one of those prolific and versatile writers who participated in many different genres, which included detective stories, speculative fiction and radio plays, but I know him primarily from a handful of wonderful short stories such as "The Glass Bridge" and "The 51st Sealed Room" – collected respectively in Mystery and More Mystery (1966) and Tantalizing Locked Room Mysteries (1982). Surprisingly, however, is the fact that Arthur's name has not entirely faded from the memory of the general public. 

It's true that the short pieces of fiction Arthur wrote for the popular magazines of the past have fallen into obscurity, but the contributions made to a long-running series of mystery novels for younger readers are still avidly read to this day. Some of those books were even turned into movies during the 2000s.

Arthur wrote ten of the forty-three books published about The Three Investigators, which originally appeared under the title Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators. The Secret of Terror Castle (1964) was first entry in the series and the books would continue to appear until the 1990s, but the general opinion seems to favor the early period when Arthur was in charge of the boy detectives.  

So, as a fan of Case Closed, I wanted to give The Three Investigators a shot and Mike Grost had mentioned one of the books, The Secret of Skeleton Island (1966), on his extensive website on detective-fiction – which made it very, very easy to pick a title. It was already narrowed down to ten titles, but this basically narrowed it down to one. 

The Secret of Skeleton Island has a short introduction, entitled "A Word from Alfred Hitchcock," in which the series and characters are briefly outlined for the benefit of those who missed out on The Three Investigators when they were the "appropriate" age to read them. Hitchcock himself appears in the opening-and closing chapter of the book as sends the trio on a mission and hears who they managed to solve the case. 

Well, they are introduced as follow: Jupiter "Jupe" Jones is the First Investigators and described as "the brains of the firm." He's basically the Nero Wolfe to the other two's Archie Goodwin. Peter Crenshaw, the Second Investigator, is a tall, muscular boy who "excels at athletics" and could be seen as the legman of the group. The Third Investigator is Bob Andrews, "the most studious of the three," who's in charge of Records and Research. 

In the opening chapter of the book, Hitchcock tells them Bob's father is working as a movie technician on a suspense picture called Chase Me Faster, but the final location of the shoot is plagued by a series of thefts and vandalism – as well as a possible haunting. 

The location is a small island in the Atlantic Bay, down on the Southeast coast of the United States, where the movie company is rebuilding an old, abandoned amusement park for the final scene of the movie.

Skeleton Island is the name of the place and has a long, haunted history that stretched back before its discovery in 1565 by an English captain, which is backed up by the bones that are still uncovered in its sands and the occasional gold doubloon washing up on the beach. The Spanish doubloons are a remnant of a lost treasure, scattered over the ocean floor by a notorious buccaneer, named Captain One-Ear, in 1717 when "British troops had made a surprise attack on his quarters" on the island and was cornered in his longboat. However, there's a good explanation, accompanied by a splendid clue, as to what really happened to the golden doubloons. Granted, the doubloons are only a small plot-point and somewhat of a side-distraction, but I enjoyed this part and the clue was wonderful. 

The obligatory spot of danger

Anyhow, Jupe, Peter and Bob were supposed to discreetly enquire about the thefts as undercover agents of the movie company, because who would suspect a bunch of kids of being meddlesome detectives? Well, apparently, just about everybody. The man who picks them up from the air-port, a Mr. Robinson, mockingly identifies them as "the three kid detectives from Hollywood" and "accidentally" strands them on a small island during a thunderstorm. 

It's during this night they see the phantom of the abandoned amusement park riding one of the old, worn horses of the merry-go-round. According to the local legend, it's the ghost of a lovely, but headstrong, woman who was riding the same merry-go-round twenty-five years previously when a sudden storm had blown up, but she wanted to finish her ride and was struck by lightening – and her ghost has been seen riding the merry-go-round ever since. 

However, more importantly, is that they meet Christos "Chris" Markos that very same night. A young boy from Greece who sails around the island in his small boat, searching for treasure, in order to help his father – a sponge diver who fell ill. Locals aren't very fond of Chris, suspecting him of being the thief, and the only one who really seems to believe him are Jupe, Peter and Bob. 

They'll be sharing some very, very tight spots over the course of this mystery/adventure story, both above and beneath the surface, before they can bring the case to a satisfying close and report back to Alfred Hitchcock. The overall plot was much better than I expected from a juvenile mystery novel and could be compared with Scooby-Doo or the 90s version of Jonny Quest, if they had better plots or were written as straight adventure/detective stories. I mean, I figured out the solution, but never expected this kind of pure misdirection (simplified as it was) in a book targeted at children. 

I also think we owe a debt of gratitude to Robert Arthur for the survival of the classically-styled detective story after the 1960s, because I think these book indoctrinated quite a few kids into seeking out more mysteries. Wait... did I say indoctrination? What I meant to say was brainwashing. No. Wait! Hold on for a moment. Not brainwashing. Remember, English isn't my first language. I sometimes confuse certain words. The word I'm looking for is... uh... conditioning? Why is the ghost of Fredric Wertham screaming at me that I just proved him right? 

Anyhow, I enjoyed The Secret of Skeleton Island and I wish I could feel nostalgic about it as well for the complete experience, but it was only my first encounter with The Three Investigators. However, it probably won't be the last. 

Finally, allow me to refer you to the review I posted yesterday of Craig Rice's zany The Big Midget Murders (1942) and I'll probably be back with another review before long. 

Tales From a Mysterious Traveler

Robert Arthur is credited with writing over two hundred short stories, ranging from mysteries to fantasy, won two coveted Edgar statuettes for his radio show, The Mysterious Traveler, and created a popular juvenile detective series, The Three Investigators. But despite these accolades, Robert Arthur's name has all but faded from the publics' collective memory – which I think qualifies as criminal neglect.

I got my first taste of his work last year, when I read the poorly edited anthology Tantalizing Locked Room Mysteries (1982) – consisting mostly of over anthologized stories (Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," Doyle's "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," Futrelle's "The Problem of Cell 13" and Hoch's "The Leopold Locked Room") and a few decent efforts (Kantor's "The Light at Three 'O Clock" (mainly for its Carrian atmosphere) and Woolrich's "Murder at the Automat"), but there was one story that stood out, and that was Robert Arthur's "The 51st Sealed Room." 

Robert Arthur (1909-1969)

"The 51st Sealed Room" concerns the upcoming book from the hands of a famous artisan of impossible crime stories, who claims to have contrived a new method for escaping from a sealed environment that would make John Dickson Carr and Ellery Queen turn green with envy. But before he can put his revolutionary locked room story to paper, his decapitated body, propped up in front of his typewriter with his head gazing down from the bookcase, is found behind the locked doors of a completely sealed cottage.

The solution, however, is not entirely original, but a variation on a ingenious method conjured up by Joseph Commings in one of his famous locked room stories, and most of the fantastical clues turn out to be nothing more than red herrings. However, my curiosity was roused and was thrilled to learn there was an anthology that collected ten of his mystery short stories. 

The tales that make up Mystery and More Mystery (1966) is the only available compendium of his detective fiction, written for a young adult audience, but that takes nothing away from the quality and inventiveness of the plots - and especially the locked rooms in this collection makes you mourn the fact that not more of his work was collected (Douglas Greene, if you're reading this *hint* *hint* *hint*).  

Ten Tales From a Mysterious Traveler:

Mr. Manning's Money Tree

The collection opens with a diverting story, in which a bank clerk, who's about to be arrested on an embezzlement charge, stashes his loot in a secure hiding place, as a comfy nest egg, to help him begin anew when he has served his sentence. Well, at least that was the plan, but, upon his release from prison, he quickly learns that his task is not quite as easy as he first suspected. A fun, moving story with a neat twist on the  "Hoist-On-Their-Own-Petards" gambit.

Larceny and Old Lace

Grace and Florance Usher are two sweet, innocent-looking old spinsters who lived a sheltered existence, tucked away in a small, sleepy upstate town, and the only excitement they ever knew came from their experience as seasoned readers of detective stories. But their humdrum lives is shaken up when they inherit a furnished house from their nephew, who came to a sticky end at the hands of an unknown assailant, inspiring them to pack up their bags and explore the Big City. The only problem is that some shady locals also have a fested interest in the house, but the two elderly maids are a lot tougher than they expected and at times more terrifying than a battalion of hard-bitten homicide cops with hoses. 

The story is best described as a precursor to Home Alone, but instead of a beguiling brat there are two seemingly harmless old ladies who act as a holy terror to the criminal elements of the neighborhood. An unapologetically funny story!

Note that the main characters and set-up of the story share some remarkable resemblances to Torrey Chanslor's Our First Murder (1940), and one has to wonder if, perhaps, one sprang from the other.

The Midnight Visitor

A slight tale, in which a spy attempts to pawn off an important document from a confrere. A fun but forgettable story.

The Blow from Heaven

The first impossible crime story of the collection, offering an intriguing challenge to the reader: how did Professor Natzof Kohn murder his benefactor, Madame Farge, who was alone in a room, under observation, when she was stabbed, while her beneficiary was delivering an animated lecture on primitive superstition and black magic? The dénouement is perhaps over ambitious and belongs to a particular type of locked room solution that tends to leave its readers with a sense of disappointment, but the trick is well handled here and all the clues are there.

The Glass Bridge

Like the preceding story, this is an inverted mystery, of sorts, with a locked room puzzle to mull over – and the solution is diabolically clever. The basic facts of the case are as follow: Marianne Montrose (a blonde blackmailer) was seen entering the house of mystery writer Mark Hillyer, leaving a single track of footprints in the two feet deep snow surrounding the house, from which she vanishes as if she never passed the thresh hold at all. It's a physical impossibility for Hillyer to have carried her body off the premises, without leaving any marks in the snow, nor would his heart condition allow him to place any strenuous strain on his body, like chopping up her corpse or digging a grave, without keeling over. However, he's all to eager to make himself suspicious and gives the police veiled hints, which provides the reader with the maddening problem of knowing who killer is but not how he managed to pull it off. Classic!

Change of Address

Another story in which the culprit proves to be a "Hoist-on-His-Petard," when a long suffering husband bashes in the skull of his nagging wife with a spade and buries her body in the cellar of his newly acquired beach house, but there are always skeletons that simply refuse to stay buried! A very, very satisfying story.

The Vanishing Passenger

This tale involves a murder committed aboard a train, solved by a man and his mystery-writing aunt, but it's not a very interesting story and failed to grab my attention. Duds like these are to be expected in every anthology.

Hard Case

Like the title suggests, this is a tougher than usual story for this collections as a father traps a rural highway man who shot his son (and several other locals) in a mug-killing – and extracts his revenge in a particular ingenious manner that involves a hidden object puzzle. This is probably what the Ellery Queen stories would've been like, if they had a hardboiled edge to them.

The Adventure of the Single Footprint

The police solicit the help of a mentally unhinged person, who thinks he's Sherlock Holmes, to help them solve the murder of his uncle – and this could've been one of the better stories of the collection, if the back cover hadn't touted the identity of the murderer.  

The Mystery of the Three Blind Mice

A brilliant homage to Ellery Queen, in which a private detective and his young son are summoned to a transplanted castle inhabited by a rich and licentious stamp collector, who suspects one or more of his in-laws of theft. But before the father-and-son detective duo can look into the case, someone takes several shots at their client and his near dying message virtually implicates all the major suspects.

As to be expected from an Ellery Queen-type of story, there's someone who proffers a false solution to the mystery and even a code that has to be cracked by solving a riddle. Now that I think of it, this is not only a nod to Ellery Queen, but also foreshadows Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed. In any case, a must read to fans of both series!