Hoch's Ladies Read online

  Hoch’s Ladies

  Books by Edward D. Hoch Published by Crippen & Landru

  The Ripper of Storyville and Other Ben Snow Tales. Available as a Kindle e-book

  The Velvet Touch. Available as a Kindle e-book

  The Old Spies Club and Other Intrigues of Rand. Available as a Kindle e-book

  The Iron Angel and Other Tales of the Gypsy Sleuth. Available as a Kindle e-book

  Diagnosis Impossible: The Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne. Available as a print book and as a Kindle e-book

  More Things Impossible, The Second Casebook of Dr. Sam Hawthorne. Available as a print book and as a Kindle e-book

  Nothing Is Impossible, Further Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne. Available as a print book and as a Kindle e-book

  All But Impossible, The Impossible Files of Dr. Sam Hawthorne. Available as a print book and as a Kindle e-book

  Challenge the Impossible: The Final Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne. Available as a print book and as a Kindle e-book

  Hoch’s Ladies. Available as a print book and (forthcoming) as a Kindle ebook

  Funeral in the Fog, The Occult Cases of Simon Ark. Forthcoming in 2020

  Copyright © 1983, 1984, 1985, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996,

  1997, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008

  by Edward D. Hoch

  This edition copyright © 2019 by Patricia M. Hoch

  Introduction copyright © 2019 by Michael Dirda

  Cover Design by Gail Cross

  ISBN (Clothbound edition): 978-1-936363-41-4

  ISBN (Paperback edition): 978-1-936363-42-1

  FIRST EDITION

  Printed in the United States of America on recycled acid-free paper

  Jeffrey A. Marks, Publisher

  Douglas G. Greene, Senior editor

  Crippen & Landru Publishers PO Box 532057

  Cincinnati, OH 45253 USA

  Email: [email protected] Web: www.crippenlandru.com

  CONTENTS

  Contents

  INTRODUCTION BY MICHAEL DIRDA

  A TRAFFIC IN WEBS

  A FONDNESS FOR STEAM

  A PARCEL OF DEERSTALKERS

  AN ABUNDANCE OF AIRBAGS

  A CRAVING FOR CHINESE

  A PARLIAMENT OF PEACOCKS

  A SHIPMENT OF SNOW

  A SHOWER OF DAGGERS

  A BUS LOAD OF BATS

  A CONVERGENCE OF CLERICS

  A GATEWAY TO HEAVEN

  FIVE-DAY FORECAST

  THE INVISIBLE INTRUDER

  WAIT UNTIL MORNING

  THE CACTUS KILLER

  FIRST BLOOD

  BAJA

  SOURCES

  Hoch’s Ladies

  Subscriptions

  INTRODUCTION BY MICHAEL DIRDA

  Francis Bacon famously observed that “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” Edward D. Hoch’s work, however, doesn’t fit any of Bacon’s categories. His stories are meant to be savored. A collection like Hoch’s Ladies resembles those tasting menus at classy restaurants: Each story is expertly prepared, beautifully presented, at once light and delicious. There’s no fat or gooey sauce in Hoch’s fiction. Every ingredient is there for a reason.

  And what is that reason? Quite simply, it’s the creation of a plot, almost always involving a murder, that will keep a reader turning the pages to find out who done it, and why, and how. In the past, Hoch has been rightly labeled a consummate puzzle-master and even likened to Will Shortz, the celebrated creator of crosswords. Today, though, we might view him as the Marie Kondo of the mystery. His fairplay stories emphasize a clean, uncluttered narrative line, just a handful of characters, and solutions that are logical and satisfying. Each one sparks joy.

  And there’s a lot of that joy to go around. After all, Edward D. Hoch (1930-2008) wrote nearly a thousand short stories. Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine ran a Hoch contribution in every issue for 34 straight years. That’s mind-boggling just on its own, even without taking into account the steady excellence of the work itself. As Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor noted in their magisterial Catalogue of Crime, Hoch stories “should be turned to first in any issue of EQMM” adding that their ingenious denouements never “hinge on a single trifling detail. The plots are lifelike and reasonably complex and the situations are inventive.” His who-and-howdunits are, in short, perfect light entertainments.

  Over the years, Hoch developed more than two dozen recurring characters, including a spy and code-expert named Rand; the contract thief Nick Velvet, who only steals oddball items, such as the water from a swimming pool or the contents of an empty room; Captain Leopold, an American analogue to Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret; and even an occult detective named Simon Ark, who claims to be a 2,000-year-old Copt. In Hoch’s very first published story, “Village of the Dead” (1955), Ark must figure out why 73 people—all the men, women and children in an isolated small town—suddenly flung themselves from a cliff in an apparent mass suicide.

  For many readers, Hoch’s best detective—and certainly his most endearing—is Dr. Sam Hawthorne, a general practitioner in a small New England town but a specialist in solving uncanny, miraculous-seeming crimes. In the very first Hawthorne “problem,” a horse-drawn sleigh enters one end of a covered bridge and never emerges. In another, a trapeze artist disappears before the eyes of a packed audience. Hoch even reworks the hoariest of all impossible crime set-ups: A man is stabbed to death in an isolated cabin surrounded by freshly fallen snow in which there are no footprints.

  Over the years Crippen & Landru have issued several Hoch collections, including the entire Sam Hawthorne series in five volumes. All are must-haves for any aficionado of the classic mystery. Hoch’s Ladies adds one more essential volume, for it gathers together the adventures of Hoch’s three female investigators: Libby Knowles, who works as a bodyguard; Susan Holt, the promotions director for a huge department store who possesses a knack for seeing what others have overlooked; and Annie Sears, a homicide detective who moves from El Paso to San Diego.

  In some ways, these three women may seem roughly alike: They are young, attractive and ultra-competent, as well as regularly subject to heavy-handed passes and bedroom invitations from the various men they encounter. This sexual attention is nearly always unwelcome, another one of those tiresome things a twenty-something woman was forced to put up with in the 1980s and 90s (when most of these stories first appeared). Libby and Annie do count avuncular older police officers as mentors or colleagues. Susan, however, must deal on her own with a persistent and obnoxious male co-worker.

  While Hoch’s stories are invariably clever, often culminating in a double-whammy ending, they draw considerable energy and inspiration from unusual backgrounds, places and occupations. For example, the plots in Hoch’s Ladies turn on weather prediction, race track construction, deerstalker caps, elite security systems, a Southwestern town’s cactus festival, Iceland’s use of steam heat, Christmas decorations in Japan, and an inexplicable stabbing death in a shower. Sometimes the fairplay merges into the truly far-fetched, but that only adds to a story’s surprise-quotient. There’s always pleasure in learning the secret pattern linking seemingly disparate elements, no matter how improbable the actual murder method might be. For instance, “The Cactus Killer”—featuring Annie Sears—is simultaneously hackneyed and deeply bizarre. Reading Hoch, though, you quickly learn to pay close attention, recognizing that every detail, even the most trivial—especially the most trivial—is there for a reason: You can shake any of his stories and nothing extraneous will fall out.

  Still, Hoch can be more than a mere technician, frequently adding small humanizing touches to his characters. For instance, Libby Knowles started her protection agency after resigning from t
he police force: She did so because the man she loved, another cop, turned out to be a crook, eventually killed in a high-speed chase. Susan Holt slowly ages through her 11 adventures in various parts of the world, while also gradually climbing the corporate ladder at Mayfield’s department store. Annie Sears wants desperately to prove herself on her new job with San Diego’s homicide department. As for suspects: Either the least likely or the most likeable may turn out to be a cold-blooded killer. Some stories end with a real emotional wallop. In “A Traffic in Webs,” Susan Holt’s visit to Japan—to acquire a unique Christmas display—inadvertently causes two murders. In “The Invisible Intruder” Libby Knowles unearths enough tragic family backstory for an entire Ross Macdonald novel. So uniformly smooth and expertly wrought are the stories in Hoch’s Ladies that it’s almost impossible to pick a favorite, let alone the best. Being a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, I did find “A Parcel of Deerstalkers,” set in Meiringen, where Sherlock Holmes grappled with Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, to be especially dazzling. But then, as a John Dickson Carr fan, I was also wowed by what one might call the locked-bathroom murder in “A Shower of Daggers.” Still, there’s no need to choose. Just buy Hoch’s Ladies. To paraphrase a certain insurance company’s catchy slogan: You’re always in good hands with Ed Hoch.

  Michael Dirda is a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The Washington Post and the author of several books about books, including On Conan Doyle, which received a 2012 Edgar Award.

  A TRAFFIC IN WEBS

  It was during her college days that Susan Holt first encountered Walter Pater’s essay on Leonardo da Vinci with its celebrated evocation of the Mona Lisa. One phrase read: She . . . has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants. That last part especially stuck in her mind. She did not know exactly what it meant but she knew, like Mona Lisa, that it was something she wanted to

  do—to traffic for strange webs with Eastern merchants.

  Careers often move in strange directions after graduation, and for Susan her course in art appreciation led somehow to a job in retailing, in the promotions section of Manhattan’s most famous department store. She’d been there seven years, handling a good bit of the Christmas promotions and the displays that went with them, when Saul Marx, the head of the department, entered the office on the first working day after Christmas.

  “Time to get started on next year’s planning,” he said, as he always did right after Christmas. “We’ve got to top this year.”

  “That’ll take some doing,” Mike Brentnor said from his desk opposite Susan’s. “Got any ideas?”

  Saul Marx always had ideas. That was why he was head of the department. “I’ve been reading about something really spectacular in Tokyo this Christmas. One of their big stores has a display of spider webs that—”

  This was too much even for Brentnor. “Spider webs! I can find some up at our country place if you really want them.”

  “I’m serious,” Marx assured him. “In fact, I want you to fly over there while the display is still in place. These aren’t your ordinary spider webs. They’re said to be bizarrely beautiful, almost like works of art. Once you see them I want you to phone me. If they’re as wonderful as I’ve heard, we’ll make the artist an offer to show them here next Christmas.”

  “The artist?” Mike Brentnor scoffed. “You mean the spider who wove them? What would I offer him—ten thousand flies?”

  “There’s a Japanese professor who creates them by feeding various drugs to the spiders—LSD, pot, that sort of thing.”

  “My God! We’d have the SPCA on our necks!”

  Strange webs, Susan thought, and suddenly remembered that phrase from her college reading of Walter Pater: . . . trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants. “I’ll go,” she said almost without thinking. “Let me go to Tokyo.” Saul Marx turned to stare at her, as if only then remembering she was in the room. “You, Susan? Do you think you could handle something like this?”

  “I arranged last year’s spring show of exotic flowers, and I handled negotiations for the Best of Britain promotion two years ago,” she reminded him.

  “You sent me to London for that.”

  He thought about it, but not for long. It was obvious Mike Brentnor wasn’t enthused with the idea, and the only other person to send was on vacation till after New Year’s. “I want someone to see these webs on display in the Tokyo store,” Saul said. “They come down after New Year’s, so it has to be this week. Are you up to that, Susan?”

  She glanced at Brentnor, who was sinking into his pouting mode. “You bet I am!”

  “Very well. See me in my office at two and we’ll go over the details.”

  That evening she broke the news to Russell, an off-and-on live-in boyfriend who was rehearsing for a play down in SoHo. Arriving at the loft where the actors were just finishing their run-through, she got him aside. “Bad news, Russell. I can’t make Nell’s New Year’s party. I have to fly to Tokyo for the store.”

  “What? Tokyo?” His face showed disappointment and the beginning of anger. “I was counting on it, Susan. What happened?”

  “Brentnor doesn’t want to do it and I’m next in line. I have to catch a display while it’s up and negotiate to bring it to New York for next Christmas.”

  “Tokyo, for God’s sake! There’s no chance you can get back in time?”

  “Today’s the twenty-seventh already. I’m flying over Wednesday but it’ll

  be late Thursday their time when I get in. That gives me Friday to see the display and that’s New Year’s Eve. Even if every-thing went perfectly, it would be Saturday night or Sunday before I could get back. You can tell Nell how sorry I am.”

  “I don’t know that I want to go alone.”

  “Why not? You know everyone.”

  “It’s not the same going alone on New Year’s Eve.”

  My God, she thought, he’s pouting just like Mike Brentnor at the store. “I’m sorry,” she said firmly. “It can’t be helped. It’s my job.” He turned to walk away and she added, “What about tonight?”

  He gestured toward the others. “I’m rehearsing. That’s my job.”

  She nodded. “You can use the apartment while I’m gone if you wish. You still have the key, don’t you?”

  “It’s around somewhere.”

  She turned away, trying to mask her annoyance. “I’ll be back next week. You can call me.”

  “Sure.”

  Susan caught the Wednesday morning flight to Tokyo, settling in with her laptop computer for the long journey ahead. The trip took about fourteen hours, and Tokyo was fourteen hours ahead of New York time. Her eleven-a.m. flight from New York would land her at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport at three o’clock Thursday afternoon. It was a day lost to her, and there was little consolation in the fact that part of it would be regained on the return flight. The airport was on the southern fringes of the city and the newer Narita Airport was even farther away. Something she noticed in the terminal after landing was that she was taller than most of the Japanese men. Back in New York she rarely thought about her height. Suddenly one of these Japanese men was right in front of her, bowing from the waist. “Miss Susan Holt?” he asked in perfect English. “I—Yes, that’s me.”

  “I am Takeo Keio, manager of Fuji Star. I have come to meet you and guide you around our city.”

  “How nice!” She shook his hand. “This is my first visit to Tokyo. I was worried about finding my way around.”

  “We will claim your luggage and pass through customs. Then I will deliver you to your hotel.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Keio.”

  His limousine was long and white, like one that might be rented for a wedding back home. She settled into the plush leather seat, anxious for her first glimpse of the sprawling city. “Tokyo extends over nine hundred and thirty square miles,” Mr. Keio explained as they headed away from the airport on the expressway into
the central city. “Yet everything is crowded. It is a very confusing city to a visitor.”

  “New York is crowded too,” she assured him.

  “Ah, but not like Tokyo. I have been to New York many times. Your stores are always a great inspiration to us.”

  “I understand Mr. Marx spoke to you on the phone about our interest in the webs display.”

  “Yes, yes! Professor Hiraoka has performed a miracle. Wait until you see his webs!”

  “I’m anxious to get a look at them.”

  “Fuji Star is open late tonight if you care to—”

  Susan glanced at her watch. It was after four already and she wanted nothing so much as a warm shower and a bed. “I’d better wait till morning,” she pleaded. “The long flight really exhausted me.”

  “Very well.” He spent the rest of the drive pointing out the sights to her, and when she remarked on a large structure that looked like the Eiffel Tower he announced proudly, “It is fifty-nine feet higher than the Eiffel. Our Tokyo Tower is for radio and television transmission. We have four major commercial rivals here—Fuji TV, which has no connection with our store, Nippon TV, Tokyo Broadcasting System, and TV Asahi. You may view them all on the set in your room. And that large building just ahead is your hotel. It is across the square, only a five-minute walk from Fuji Star.”

  “Thank you so much for the tour, Mr. Keio.”

  “I will look for you in the morning, then? We will be closing early for the New Year’s holiday, so I suggest you arrive before noon.”

  “I’ll be in your office by ten,” she promised.

  Susan knew virtually no Japanese, so she spent little time with the network stations on her TV. She ordered dinner in her room and relaxed with a channel showing English-language news. Presently she stretched out on the bed to get more comfortable and fell asleep almost at once. When she awoke it was dark outside. She turned off the television and noted that the time was just after midnight. Then she took the shower she’d promised herself and went back to bed sleeping restlessly until around five in the morning.