Jim Hanvey, Detective Read online

  Copyright © 1923 by Octavus Roy Cohen

  Introduction and notes © 2021 by Leslie S. Klinger

  Cover and internal design © 2021 by Sourcebooks and Library of Congress

  Cover design by Heather VenHuizen/Sourcebooks

  Cover image: Just One Long Step to Sea Cliff, L.I. Federal Art Project, 1936–1939. Works Progress Administration Poster Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsca-04892.

  Sourcebooks, Poisoned Pen Press, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks, in association with the Library of Congress

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  This edition of Jim Hanvey, Detective is based on the first edition in the Library of Congress’s collection, originally published in 1923 by Dodd, Mead and Company.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Cohen, Octavus Roy, author. | Klinger, Leslie S, editor.

  Title: Jim Hanvey, Detective / Octavus Roy Cohen; edited, with an introduction and notes, by Leslie S. Klinger.

  Description: Naperville, Illinois : Library of Congress/Poisoned Pen Press, [2021] | Series: Library of Congress crime classics | Includes bibliographical references.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020053740 (print) | LCCN 2020053741 (ebook) | (trade paperback) | (epub)

  Subjects: LCSH: Detective and mystery stories, American. | LCGFT: Short stories.

  Classification: LCC PS3505.O2455 J56 2021 (print) | LCC PS3505.O2455 (ebook) | DDC 813/.52--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020053740

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020053741

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Foreword

  Introduction

  Fish Eyes

  Homespun Silk

  Common Stock

  Helen of Troy, N.Y.

  Caveat Emptor

  The Knight’s Gambit

  Pink Bait

  Reading Group Guide

  Further Reading

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  To

  CECILE O. LOPEZ

  Foreword

  Crime writing as we know it first appeared in 1841, with the publication of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Written by American author Edgar Allan Poe, the short story introduced C. Auguste Dupin, the world’s first wholly fictional detective. Other American and British authors had begun working in the genre by the 1860s, and by the 1920s we had officially entered the golden age of detective fiction.

  Throughout this short history, many authors who paved the way have been lost or forgotten. Library of Congress Crime Classics bring back into print some of the finest American crime writing from the 1860s to the 1960s, showcasing rare and lesser-known titles that represent a range of genres, from cozies to police procedurals. With cover designs inspired by images from the Library’s collections, each book in this series includes the original text, reproduced faithfully from an early edition in the Library’s collections and complete with strange spellings and unorthodox punctuation. Also included are a contextual introduction, a brief biography of the author, notes, recommendations for further reading, and suggested discussion questions. Our hope is for these books to start conversations, inspire further research, and bring obscure works to a new generation of readers.

  Early American crime fiction is not only entertaining to read, but it also sheds light on the culture of its time. While many of the titles in this series include outmoded language and stereotypes now considered offensive, these books give readers the opportunity to reflect on how our society’s perceptions of race, gender, ethnicity, and social standing have evolved over more than a century.

  More dark secrets and bloody deeds lurk in the massive collections of the Library of Congress. I encourage you to explore these works for yourself, here in Washington, DC, or online at www.loc.gov.

  —Carla D. Hayden, Librarian of Congress

  Introduction

  The unlikely detective—usually an amateur sleuth not part of law enforcement—has been part of crime fiction almost since its inception. In early novels like The Moonstone (Wilkie Collins, 1868) or The Dead Letter (Seeley Regester, 1866), family members or friends of the victim have stepped up to lead the efforts to discover the wrongdoer. Although these early years of American crime fiction produced parodies of Sherlock Holmes, the comic possibilities of the detective trade went largely unexplored. Two of the earliest American examples, Philo Gubb: Correspondence-School Detective (Ellis Parker Butler, 1918) and George Barr McCutcheon’s Anderson Crow, Detective (1920), both featured ridiculous characters, men who thought themselves to be clever sleuths but who ultimately succeeded by dumb luck.

  It wasn’t until 1922 that one of America’s most popular magazine writers, Octavus Roy Cohen, created a detective whose slow and stupid appearance masked a sharp mind and a tenacious character: Jim Hanvey. The great mystery editor-critic Ellery Queen described him admiringly:

  [Hanvey was a] gargantuan figure with a huge chin and short fat legs. His chief recreation, when he wasn’t just resting with his shoes off, was the movies where, being a supreme sentimentalist, he wept and suffered with the emoting actors on the screen. Fish-eyed, always smoking atrocious black cigars and wearing a golden tooth-pick, this regular-guy gumshoe befriended all criminals who had returned to the strait-and-narrow—the friend and yet “the terror of crooks from coast to coast.”1

  Hanvey was born in the Saturday Evening Post, a magazine for which Cohen wrote frequently, in the May 6, 1922, issue.2 The character proved popular, and Cohen wrote three more stories about him for the Post in 1922, all collected in this volume, which was first published in 1923. Two of the remaining three tales in this collection appeared in other venues: “Pink Bait” was first published in Collier’s, and “The Knight’s Gambit” appeared in the Chicago Tribune, on July 7 and 8, 1923, respectively. “Caveat Emptor” appeared only in the collection.

  Cohen didn’t abandon Hanvey after publication of the book.3 He would write an additional dozen short stories about Hanvey that appeared between 1924 and 1957 (the latter after a twenty-three-year absence), as well as three novels between 1929 and 1932. Hanvey even appeared in two films, Curtain at Eight (Majestic Pictures, 1933), starring C. Aubrey Smith as the detective,4 and Jim Hanvey, Detective (Republic Pictures, 1937) featuring Guy Kibbee in the role.5

  Cohen’s regard for the skills of his own creation was low—he called Hanvey “the apparent personification of the ultimate in human stupidity.”6 Much of the charm of the stories, however, is the confirmation that appearances can be deceiving. While these tales feature neither murder nor any real detection, time after time, Hanvey’s shrewd intervention foils the schemes of con men and women. In that respect, the stories are similar to the “howdunnit” style of mystery popularized by William Link and Richard Levinson in their very successful televis
ion series, Columbo (1968, 1971–1978)—the viewer knew full well who committed the crime, and the pleasure was in watching the detective trip up the criminal.

  Cohen described Hanvey’s “theory of detection” as part of a short biography he wrote for Sleuths: Twenty-three Great Detectives of Fiction and Their Best Stories:

  Hanvey, James H.: b. Bayonne, N.J., June 26, 1889; o.s. James H. Hanvey and Mary (Mordan) H. Unmarried. Educ.: Public School No. 6, Bayonne, and Bayonne High School (for one month). Head of identification bureaus of police departments in several large cities; noted for wide acquaintance among criminal classes; particularly active and expert in cases involving more intelligent criminology, viz: confidence rackets, forgery, embezzlement; employed for several years prior to 1931 as special investigator for numerous organizations, including Bankers’ Protective Assn. Theory of detection: To keep suspect talking, in the belief that a thread of truth will occasionally be found in the warp and woof of lies. More important cases recorded in “Jim Hanvey, Detective,” 1923; “The May Day Mystery,” 1929; “The Backstage Mystery,” 1930, and various magazine accounts by Octavus Roy Cohen. Hobbies: Detective stories, motion pictures of sentimental type, gaudy pajamas, gold toothpicks, strong cigars and equally strong chop suey. Residence: Country at large though maintaining apartment in New York City.7

  In addition, Cohen’s criminals are often more devious than evil, just regular folks trying to make a living outside the law. Because their victims are foolish rich people or banks or insurance companies, the reader has a certain sympathy with the “villains,” whom Hanvey treats with respect. This fresh perspective, together with Cohen’s ear for dialogue (and the stories are filled with slang of the day, some indecipherable almost one hundred years later) make the stories of Hanvey’s cases vivid and fresh. Ellery Queen ranked the collection as one of the 106 most important ever published in the field of crime fiction.8 While that may be a little fulsome, Hanvey is a rare commodity in the world of crime fiction: a warm, bighearted, genuinely likable detective.

  —Leslie S. Klinger

  * * *

  1 Ellery Queen [Manfred Lee and Frederick Dannay], Queen’s Quorum: A History of the Detective-Crime Short Story as Revealed by the 106 Most Important Books Published in This Field since 1845, rev. ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951), 76.

  2 The story was “Fish Eyes.” “Homespun Silk” appeared in the June 17 issue, “Common Stock” in the July 22 issue, and “Helen of Troy, N.Y.” in the October 7 issue.

  3 Cohen was profiled effusively for his stories of “darkies” in Charles Baldwin’s 1924 edition of The Men Who Make Our Novels (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1924) but the four-page profile only notes in passing that Cohen is also “the maker of several hair-raising detective stories” and mentions Jim Hanvey, Detective among other books of Cohen’s (109). The book apparently did well enough to be consistently mentioned in various Gold Star Lists of American Fiction of the era and is favorably mentioned in many overviews of crime fiction, but only briefly.

  4 Smith was certainly an odd choice: tall, lean, and the quintessential stiff-upper-lip Englishman, Smith plays Hanvey in name only. The film is loosely based on one of Cohen’s full-length novels featuring Hanvey, The Backstage Mystery (1930).

  5 Kibbee was far better suited to the part than Smith. He usually played the jovial, bumbling character, and he is a delight in the film, playing a detective called out of retirement to recover a missing emerald. The plot thickens when an innocent man is accused of murder. The script is only loosely based on Cohen’s stories.

  6 Quoted in a “Retro-Review” of Jim Hanvey, Detective by Charles Shibuk, in the Armchair Detective 11, no. 2 (April 1978): 127.

  7 Kenneth MacGowan, ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931), 410. The collection includes “Homespun Silk,” included in this volume at pp. 34–61.

  8 Queen’s Quorum, 76.

  Fish Eyes

  Clifford Wallace was noticeably ill-at-ease. He worked intensively yet mechanically at his post in the Third National Bank, within the narrow confines of a cage bearing the inscription Paying Teller Number One. Horizontal lines of worry creased his forehead and a single lock of white stood out with startling clarity against the deep brown of his hair.

  Beside him were piled great stacks of money divided into neat packages. Behind his back the huge doors of the cash vault gaped, disclosing more money. At the right of his cage were the inclosures of the three other—the junior—paying tellers. The marbled lobby of the big bank was a welter of discordant activity, of impatience—the clink of silver, the soft shuffling of new bank notes, the slamming of ledgers, the hum of banking during the rush hours.

  Today was the busiest of the month for Paying Teller Number One. Today came due the pay rolls of the three largest corporations in the industrial district of which this city was the metropolis. More than a million and a quarter dollars in cash occupied the cage with Cliff Wallace; a million and a quarter dollars in silver and bills, only a few of the latter in denominations of more than one hundred dollars.9 It was Wallace’s task to make up these pay rolls and deliver them to the armed men who came with the checks. He was sorting the money now, indifferent to the exasperated stare of the little man outside the window who impatiently rattled his own modest pay-roll check for $208.

  Behind the irate little man a line formed slowly—two or three other representatives of small businesses, then a strikingly pretty young woman in a blue coat suit, and behind her, two stalwarts from the Garrison Coal, Iron and Steel Company. Cliff knew the proportions of the check they carried—$278,000. Real work there, work requiring intense concentration. It was so easy to make an error of a few hundred dollars when one dealt casually in single amounts greater than a quarter million. Cliff received the little man’s check and counted the money deftly, cramming it into a canvas sack. He was visibly annoyed when the man insisted on opening the sack and counting the money for himself. Cliff’s eyes sought those of the pretty girl and a brief glance of understanding passed between them. Both were taut of muscle and tense of nerves; upon the face of each was an unnatural pallor.

  The little man completed his count, closed his canvas sack and moved off pompously. The next man in line presented his check and received his money. So, too, did the next. The girl pushed her check through the window—the pay-roll check of the wholesale hardware company for which she worked; $728.56. With it she presented a leather satchel. Cliff Wallace unlocked the barred window of his cage to take the satchel. He placed it on the shelf at his right, the shelf containing the mountains of bills. Again that look of understanding—of apprehension—passed between them. They spoke with simulated casualness.

  “Good morning, Phyllis.”

  “Good morning, Cliff.”

  That was all. Yet, save for those first glances, they avoided each other’s eyes. The oldish-young paying teller sorted out the amount of her pay-roll. And then working discreetly, swiftly and dexterously, he piled beside it a small stack of new bills. In that stack of bills was a hundred thousand dollars; one thousand one-hundred-dollar bank notes. Once he permitted his eyes to rove restlessly about the lobby. They paused briefly on the gray-coated figure of the bank’s special officer, who lounged indifferently near the Notes and Discounts Window. Apparently the bank detective had neither thought nor care in the world. Reassured, yet with no diminution of his nervousness, Cliff Wallace returned to the task in hand.

  Into the girl’s brown leather satchel he put the amount of her pay-roll check, and then he crammed into it also the one hundred thousand dollars.

  His face was ghastly pale as he faced her once more. The hand that held the satchel trembled violently. He conscripted a smile which he intended to be reassuring, and the smile with which she answered him was so obviously an effort that it seemed to shriek her guilt. For a second they remained rigid, staring into each other’s eyes, then the envoy
s of the Garrison Coal, Iron and Steel Company coughed impatiently and the girl moved away. The paying teller fingered the $278,000 check nervously, his eyes remaining focused on the blue coat suit which was moving with horrid slowness toward the whirling doors that opened onto the street. And finally she disappeared and Cliff Wallace breathed a sigh of infinite relief. Thus far nothing had been noticed. He gave his attention to the task of assorting huge stacks of bills for the Garrison company.

  Meanwhile the girl in the blue coat suit turned into the swirl of traffic on the city’s main thoroughfare. She threaded her way through the crowd, walking with unnecessary swiftness, with the single thought in her mind of putting as much space as possible between herself and the Third National Bank. Her fingers were wrapped tightly about the handle of the brown leather satchel, her face bore a fixed rigidity of expression, her heart was pounding beneath the plain tailored waist she wore. It seemed incomprehensible that the transaction in Cliff Wallace’s cage had gone unnoticed. It had been so simple—so absurdly simple.

  And now she was making all haste toward the office where she worked. Cliff had warned her that she must return promptly from the bank in order that the inevitable investigation should disclose no suspicious lapse of time.

  She turned up a side street and thence into a gaunt, red-brick building labeled Sanford Jones & Co. Biting her lips with a fierce effort at self-control, she entered the building and turned immediately into the women’s washroom. Trembling fingers found the door key and turned it. Then making certain that she was alone in the room she took from the shelf a large piece of brown wrapping paper which she had placed there earlier in the morning—that and a bit of twine.

  She dropped to her knees, opened the satchel and took from it the one hundred thousand dollars. She felt a vague amazement that so much money should be of such small bulk. She arranged the bills neatly in three stacks of equal height and wrapped them carefully in the brown paper. Then with the package securely tied with twine she closed the satchel, unlocked the washroom door and swung into the office. No one had noticed her brief excursion into the washroom; that much was evident.