Murder On The Railways ed' by Peter Haining (1996)

[Calenture]

Cover by Corbis UK Ltd/Colin Garratt

Murder On The Railways ed' by Peter Haining

Published by Orion 1996; this reprint Bounty Books 2003

Introduction by Haining

Murder on the Railways: A Broadsheet Ballad

MURDER EXPRESS: Classic Journeys Into Fear
Express to Stamboul - Agatha Christie
Crime on the Footplate - Freeman Wills Crofts
The Man With No Face - Dorothy L Sayers
Dead Man - James M Cain
Cheese - Ethel Lina White
A Curious Suicide - Patricia Highsmith
Jeumont: 51 Minutes' Wait - Georges Simenon
Three-Ten to Yuma - Elmore Leonard

TRACKED DOWN: The Railway Detectives
The Adventure of the First-Class Carriage - Ronald A Knox
The Murder On The Okehampton Line - Victor L Whitchurch
The Mystery of the Black Blight - Francis Lynde
The Knight's Cross Signal Problem - Ernest Bramah
Once Upon a Train - Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer
The Rhine Maiden - Leslie Charteris
Murder on the 7:16 - Michael Innes
Murder in the Tunnel - Brian Hunt

TUNNEL VISIONS: Death on the Subway
A Mystery of the Undeground - John Oxenham
Death in the Air - Cornell Woolrich
The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway - Baroness Emmuska Orczy
Thubway Tham's Bomb Scare - Johnston McCulley
The Coulman Handicap - Michael Gilbert
A Midnight Train to Nowhere - Ken Follett
Oxford Circus - Maeve Binchy
Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds - Ray Bradbury

END OF THE LINE: Commuter Crimes
The Riddle of the 5:28 - Thomas W Hanshew
Headhunter - Jan Carol Sabine
Escape to Danger - Erle Stanley Gardner
Death Decision - William F Nolan
Broker's Special - Stanley Ellin
Galloping Foxley - Roald Dahl
The Second Passenger - Basil Copper
The Green Road to Quephanda - Ruth Rendell


I’d thought that every Peter Haining anthology had probably been covered by this board, but a while back I found this oversized one, and if it’s mentioned at the Vault, I can’t see it. (If it's here, apologies) I did wonder if a book dealing with trains and murder would really be of much interest here, but after reading a few stories, I figured it would probably be appreciated.

Not been much time to switch on a computer since I wrote-off my car in an interesting head-on close encounter with a wall at the foot of an ice-bound hill, with the inevitable chasing about that followed. (And then NORA called...) But I started writing these up.

Haining’s introductions to these stories are particularly detailed and interesting, I think, and I'm obviously borrowing from them here.

Ethel Lina White was the author of The Lady Vanishes (1936), filmed twice, most notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1938 (the Hammer remake in 1979 was disastrous and all but bankrupted the studio). She also wrote Some Must Watch (1934) filmed by Robert Siodmak as The Spiral Staircase (1938). Her first novel Fear Stalks the Village (1932) had earned her the title of “The new Edgar Allan Poe”. Her short story Cheese (1941) is a bit of a rarity, wrote Haining.

It’s the story of Jenny Morgan, a country girl used as bait for a murderer by Detective Inspector Angus Duncan, Jenny has applied for a job as a ladies companion and received a letter from Mrs Harper, inviting her to a meeting at The National Gallery.

Mrs Harper is elderly so Jenny’s to be taken there by her nephew. Jenny’s a trusting girl and believes she’s safe in the detective’s care; but the place she’s taken to is actually an upstairs room in an apartment house, and she begins to realise that the covert police presence she’s been promised as a guarantee of safety is in fact not there. And instead of ‘Mrs Harper’, there’s a sinister figure waiting for her in the room:

“He was tall and slender and wrapped in a once-gorgeous dressing-gown of frayed crimson quilted silk. At first sight, his features were not only handsome but bore some slight air of breeding, But the whole face was blurred – as though it were a waxen mask half-melted by the sun and over which the Fiend - in passing – had lightly drawn a hand. His eyes drew her own. Large and brilliant, they were of so light a blue as to appear almost white. The lashes were unusually long and matted into spikes.”

Death in the Air: Cornell Woolrich is a familiar name to fans of horror and hard-boiled detective thrillers alike. His novel Black Alibi (1942) was filmed by the well known team of Producer Val Lewton and Director Jacques Tourneur as The Leopard Man, while his gruesome short story Papa Benjamin was damn-near ruined when used for the Roy Castle segment of Dr Terror’s House of Horrors.

Death in the Air is one of the few short stories to utilise the unusual setting of New York’s elevated railway system. Inspector Stephen Lively – inevitably nicknamed ‘Step Lively’ – is on his way home from work on the ‘El’, a journey that carries him down major city streets, sixty feet in the air; then the track veers off into Greenwich Street, where the surroundings change dramatically:

“The old mangy tenements closed in it on both sides, narrowing into a bottleneck and all but scraping the sides of the cars as they threaded through them. There was, at the most, a distance of three yards between the outer rail of the super-structure and their fourth-floor window-ledges, and where fire-escapes protruded only half that much.

“What saved them from incessant burglarising in this way was simply that there was nothing to burglarise. They were not worth going after. Four out of five were tenantless, windows either boarded up or broken glass cavities yawning at the night. Occasionally a dimly-lighted one floated by, so close it gave those on the train startling impression of being right in the same room with those whose privacy they were cutting across in this way.”

It’s during this part of the journey that the policeman notices two people engaged in a strange dance in one of these apartments, then a little further on realises that the man he’s sharing his compartment with is dead, shot by a bullet coming from outside.

‘Step Lively’s’ nickname is an ironic one, as he’s actually the most languid policeman employed by the force. After pulling the communication cord, he realises that the journey back to the lighted apartment which he suspects the bullet came from will involve a tedious journey down to street level, then back up again, and decides instead to simply walk back along the track. The languid detective’s ensuing journey along the busy railway line, then clambering from it to the open window – where he finds a woman’s corpse and has to rescue it from the blazing building while under the influence of a ‘crazy weed’ reefer he’s discovered in the room, makes a riveting read.

If you haven’t yet made the acquaintance of Cornell Woolrich’s stories, I wholeheartedly recommend them to you; and this one's a vintage entry.

More to come.

[dem]

hi Rog, good to hear from you!

i've never understood the thinking behind the 'instant remainder' but that seems to have been what Bounty were all about. They published an edition of Haining's The Dracula Centenary Book too, except they renamed it The Dracula Scrapbook, and i wonder how many people bought it thinking they were getting a reprint of the NEL Dracula Scrapbook: imagine the disappointment! Murder On The Railways looks as if it's intended as a companion volume to 'Richard Peyton's The Ghost Now Standing on Platform One (Souvenir Press, 1990: Futura, 1991), itself a revision of Mysterious Railway Stories, a book Haining edited for Star as 'William Patrick'!

btw, we've had an enquiry about how to order Filthy Creations (here), so perhaps you could PM the gent in question or, better still, post details?

[The Lurker In The Shadows]

"The Adventure of the First-Class Carriage" - Ronald A Knox

This is quite an early (1947) Sherlock Holmes pastiche, written in a bid to bolster the sales of the flagging "Strand Magazine". Knox was regarded as one of THE authorities on Holmes, and was the first to pen a proper critical analysis of the stories. Thousands have since followed.

As for "instant remainder" titles, there are many companies set up to publish just these kinds of books, which go straight to bargain retailers (my first novel, the controversial and utterly terrifying "Heebie Jeebie Holiday" was published by just such a firm). The price on the cover is never the actual price, but is there to make the books look even more of a bargain. Folk might think twice about buying a book with a £1.99 tag printed on the back, assuming it to be a cheaply produced hack job, whereas a book with a £6.99 price printed on the back but a sticker proclaiming £1.99 looks like a great deal.

[Calenture]

Feb 10, 2010 18:21:26 GMT dem said:

Murder On The Railways looks as if it's intended as a companion volume to 'Richard Peyton's The Ghost Now Standing on Platform One (Souvenir Press, 1990: Futura, 1991), itself a revision of Mysterious Railway Stories, a book Haining edited for Star as 'William Patrick'!

btw, we've had an enquiry about how to order Filthy Creations (here), so perhaps you could PM the gent in question or, better still, post details?

I didn't realise that William Patrick was yet another of Haining's pseudonyms. I think I have a couple of anthologies with that name on them, one about haunted cars, the other ghostly sea stories.

Thanks for the heads up, Dem. I've just replied to Robert's PM at the FC board...

Lurker, thanks for the info on Ronald A Knox - and the instant remainders. Whatever the provenance of the book, I have to say that it's turned out to be a good read, with plenty to interest horror readers. I'll get more typed out soon.

[Calenture]

Headhunter by Jan Carol Sabine: This story takes place on the Long Island Railroad, and Haining’s introduction remembers the multiple murders that once took place there when a young man began randomly shooting at commuters with a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, killing five and injuring eighteen more. Since then, the railroad has been featured in many books and stories.

The author of Headhunter, he says, regularly used the Long Island Railroad.

The well-dressed businessman who enters the train-station waiting room opens a newspaper that has a headline reading: THIRD HEADLESS BODY FOUND.

The headhunter’s victims have all been found along the Line Island Railroad, and their heads have not been found.

Three other people occupy the waiting room: a young man and woman and an elderly bag lady. The young woman has a large cooler on the floor beside her – which is odd, because it’s a bleak time of year. The well-dressed man notices that there appears to be the rounded end of a club sticking out of the bag lady’s bag of clothes. The young man doesn’t seem to be in the same class as the young woman beside him.

When the train stops, the young couple step outside; but shortly the sound of a disturbance reaches the others, and the businessman goes to see if he can help.
Short and tense, nothing in this grim story is quite what it seems to be.

Drink Entire: Against the Madness of Crowds by Ray Bradbury: One unbearably hot summer in Manhattan, Will Morgan and Ned Ammniger, rivals who hate each other, pass each other daily as they commute by train.

Walking home from the station, Will follows a cool breeze down an alley to a shop where, abruptly, we know we’re in Bradbury Land, because a sign advertises the services of a witch, and the cool breeze leads to a giant block of ice supported on saw horses, wherein can be seen vaguely, a beautiful woman’s body.

In the pages that follow, Will is offered the world. Or at least the love of a stunningly beautiful woman, sexual favours, professional success, financial security and home cooked meals - if he only has the courage to accept the offer.

Will is, however, a cautious man.

With more prose than plot, this is still enjoyable Bradbury (circa 1975).


The Man With No Face by Dorothy L Sayers: Returning from the Bank Holiday weekend, the talk among the passengers in the carriage is of murder. A man was murdered at nearby East Felpham, his body found on the sands, face destroyed with a broken bottle.

A First Class passenger fairly easily solves the mystery of how the man was killed by a murderer who left no footprints before the train reaches its destination, so it’s no great surprise when he reveals himself to be Lord Peter Wimsey. And naturally, Inspector Winterbottom (another passenger), asks him if he’d like to help the police with the investigation.

The murdered man is identified as Mr Correggio Plant, and The Evening Views promises to publish a portrait of him.

Due to Wimsey’s interest in art, he’s asked to view the painting and he meets the artist, a Thomas Crowder, who was employed by the victim.

The first few pages of the story, where the diverse group of passengers discuss the murder, show a good eye for ‘types’ though slight snobbishness; for all that, it’s humorous and enjoyable.


Death Decision by William F Nolan: William F Nolan is (you'll know) best known for his novel Logan’s Run.

In this story Leonard Blair is taking his two children, Michael and Lucy, on a train journey from Jefferson to Los Angeles, where Blair’s wife, the children’s mother has just died.

The children hate their father, who had turned from their mother as she sank into alcoholism, and they believe him responsible for her death.

Blair has an unpleasant way of controlling the children. He carries a small green bottle which he says is full of poison, and when the children displease him, he threatens to drink from it, telling them that his death will be their doing.

The conclusions of some stories lose nothing through their inevitability.

Terse to the point of bleakness and very effective.

Express to Stamboul by Agatha Christie: One of Christie’s lesser-known detectives, Parker Pyne, investigates the suspicions of young Elsie Jefferies, who has unexpectedly uncovered a cryptic message written by her husband. What exactly could he have meant by the words “just before Venice” scribbled on a pad, and for whom did he intend the message.

Just before the Stamboul express gets to Venice, Parker Pyne and the young woman are alarmed when their carriage fills with smoke, and when it clears, the woman’s jewels have vanished.

Could the grim Slav lady be the thief, and if so, what connection could she have with Elsie’s husband? Unlike Miss Marple and Poirot, Pyne does not consider himself a detective; for as he says, “The human heart is my province.”

Slight stuff.

The Green Road to Quephanda by Ruth Rendell: The narrator had been living for some years in Highgate, only two minutes from the old station, but he’d not known of the existence of the disused railway line close by until his friend Arthur Kestrel told him of it.

Kestrel lives in a gothic house where Highgate and Crouch End merge and writes fantasy novels as “Blasie Fastnet”. The novels have some commercial success, but Kestrel has never gained the critical acclaim that he seeks; the critics seem to pointedly ignore his novels, and he’s gained a reputation as ‘a poor man’s Tolkien’.

Kestrel speaks of the disused track one night when his friends are complaining that there’s nowhere to go:

“A long green lane, he said, like a country lane, four and a half miles of it.” You could get onto it from any of the bridges. Or from the bottom of Arthur Kestrel’s garden.

They plan an outing to follow the road, but when the time comes, something is very badly wrong with Kestrel, so the trip is abandoned.

Later, the narrator finds himself following the green road alone, and an unexpected turn of the track takes him to a strange place. And a curious explanation of Arthur Kestrel’s inspiration is suggested.

This is not in fact a murder story. But it’s one you might want to read again.

[Shrink Proof]

The proverbial curate's egg, this one. Have just finished ploughing through it, oddly enough reading most of it in Cyprus, a country with no railway system at all.

Elmore Leonard's "Three Ten to Yuma" was the one that most impressed me. It's a Western, set in the sort of dusty town that hosted a dozen John Ford movies. The story focuses on two men, one a deputy sheriff, the other a ruthless outlaw. The outlaw is to be taken to the Yuma Territorial Prison in Yuma, Arizona by train (the 3:10 to Yuma), and the deputy holds him in a typical Western hotel (sleazy saloon downstairs) while the outlaw's gang hover outside. The deputy doesn't know who he can trust; every knock on the hotel room door could be much-needed help or another gunslinger. The clock ticks round until the 3:10 is ready to leave. When the time comes, the deputy then has to get the outlaw up the street to the station, knowing that an ambush is inevitable...

The tension's well handled and it's easy to see why this one was filmed. Twice.


As a footnote, having read it, I'm now giving this book away to a good home. If anyone wants it, PM me with your address and I'll send it on.

[dem]

Nov 16, 2012 17:48:15 GMT Shrink Proof said:

The proverbial curate's egg, this one.

I've not read Murder On The Railways, but I think the same can be said of a number of Peter's collections from the mid-eighties through to a return to vintage form with Mammoth Book Of Haunted House Stories. They all have something to recommend them, and his introductions and linking material are seldom dull (!), but the obvious filler to forgotten gem ratio was in decline. He'd also developed a tendency to recycle already over-anthologised stories under lesser known original titles to mislead the reader into thinking they were getting something new, and how many copies of Dracula's Guest do you need?

Mammoth Book Of Haunted House Stories is a return to his roots in that his life-long interest in ghosts, witchcraft and demonology was kick-started when he researched a series of articles for an Essex newspaper at the close of the 'fifties, later expanded into his first book, the endearingly sensationalist Devil Worship In Britain, still a personal all-time favourite.

It's a safe bet he had a number of projects on the go at the time of his death. Ted of the equally fondly remembered Fantasy Center once tipped me off that Peter was buying up all things Elliott O'Donnell, and John Pelan has message-boarded that he turned down a Haining-edited collection of Anthony M. Rud stories for Midnight House on the grounds that, well, it was a collection of Anthony M. Rud stories ("I opted to pass ... for reasons which ought to be apparent to anyone that has read Rud").

Anyway, back on topic. I'm well surprised he didn't work a macabre section into the mix, even if it meant re-sampling The Ghost Now Standing On Platform One & Co.

[Shrink Proof]

Actually, the absence of a macabre section wasn't the real down point to this one in my view. The thing that got me was that it wasn't really "Murder ON The Railways" as such. There were too many tales in which the connection to railways was really pretty tenuous. A couple had almost none of the plot located anywhere near the track.

Not that that necessarily made them bad stories as such, it just left me with a feeling of being somehow short-changed.