From Afar (6 page)

“As mischance had it, one of the people I wanted—Harkness—lived quite near to here. That started the police off and made my work far more hurried than I had intended. I chose this lonely house so I could work in peace and quiet.... And you fools talk of murder!”

“It's still murder!” Peterson shouted. “You are Mrs. Shaw, and this is the biggest trick set-up I ever—”

Beryl looked at me. “I could have killed you long ago,” she said slowly, “but as I read your pathetic thoughts I felt sorry for you—sorry I had had to take your wife from you. Now I do not need to kill you because my job is done. But I see you still need proof....”

She looked at Hilton thoughtfully, then said, “Usually I need the Christian name of a person to call them at a distance through hypnotic command. There are thousands of similar surnames, but few with the same Christian and surname. It makes the task easier—and had I known your Christian name before this, Hilton, you would not be here now. Now I do not need it because you stand here face to face....”

“Now wait a minute—” he began, then he stopped with the words frozen on his lips, his eyes staring into hers fixedly.

I too—all of us—was held by that awful hypnotic grip as for the first time the inhuman intellectual power operating through Beryl flooded forth in all its power. Her eyes were deep pools of compulsion—iron, ruthless compulsion. Hilton turned slowly and took up a length of cord from the bench, began to wrap it three times round his neck.

He knotted it, started to draw it tightly. I screamed suddenly.

“Beryl!
Beryl
!”

The light died in her eyes. She looked almost wistful.

“Fools,” she sighed. “Poor earthbound fools. Why should I kill this blundering ignoramus when I have shown you already what I can do? Usually I close my eyes and concentrate, then I— But what can you hope to know of thought projection over the wastes of space?”

She was silent for a moment, then staggered a little. I caught her quickly.

“Dick,” she whispered. “Dick, what happened? Did the car blow up, run into something, or what—?”

She looked up sharply, and her blue eyes were the same as I had always known them to be—clear, vital, alive.

“Where—where on earth are we?” she gasped.

“Andromeda,” Hilton whispered, sweating as he took the cord off his neck. “
Gone
!
Back to Andromeda
—”

“And try making that murder charge stick now,” I said to Peterson, as his jaw lolled stupidly. “You can't do it—”

“Is—is this your wife or not?” he breathed, staring at the mystified Beryl.

“
This
,” I said slowly, “is my wife. The other was only her body.”

“What other?” Beryl demanded. “What monkey business is going on here?”

“Upstairs,” I said briefly, taking her arm. “We all need a drink. Then there's a tale to tell....”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in Worsley, England, in 1908,
John Russell Fearn
began his career as a fiction writer by writing science fiction novels for the then-leading American pulp magazine
Amazing
Stories
. His first two novels,
THE INTELLIGENCE GIGANTIC
and
LINERS OF TIME
, had been serialized in the magazine in 1933 and 1935 respectively. Both these early classics were restored to print a few years ago by Wildside Press.

After his debut in
Amazing Stories
, Fearn had continued to write magazine science fiction, but by 1937 the market had expanded—and changed.
Amazing Stories
had been overtaken by
Astounding Stories
as the leading sf magazine, and had been joined by
Thrilling Wonder Stories
. The magazine field was in a state of continuing flux.

Fearn became a leading contributor to all three magazines, but had discovered that in order to continue to sell to constantly changing markets, he needed to be able to change his style, and to be versatile. With the encouragement of his American agent, Julius Schwartz, Fearn created several pseudonyms, which greatly facilitated his experimenting with different styles, and increased his sales chances.

Then in July 1937, Fearn wrote to his friend Walter Gillings (editor of Britain's first sf magazine
Tales of Wonder
, to which Fearn was also a contributor) to reveal that he was planning to switch from science fiction to the wider detective story market:

“I'm turning my scientific angles to account in the production of a scientific detective for England. A book, by the way. Be two years in the making, I expect. Chief guy is a scientist, and solves all kinds of things that puzzle Scotland Yard. I'm trying to get out of the rut of Frenchman, Chinamen and what-have-you with this yarn. Guy will be something like Nero Wolfe, only he drinks tea, not beer.”

In 1938, Fearn successfully introduced detective and mystery elements into science fiction, writing under the pseudonym of ‘Thornton Ayre'. The new technique (which Fearn called ‘webwork') involved connecting seemingly unrelated elements together to unravel a complex mystery. The method was already known in the detective field, the leading exponent being U.S. writer Harry Stephen Keeler.

By 1939, Fearn was expressing to friends his liking for crime mysteries, in preference to sf writing, but commercial exigencies dictated that, as a full-time writer, he had to continue to concentrate on science fiction during the early years of the war.

However, the American sf magazine market continued to expand, and so Fearn—as a full-time professional writer with a widowed mother to support—was obliged to continue writing mainly science fiction, with only occasional forays into detective and crime short stories for the American pulp magazine
Thrilling Mystery Stories
(the best of which are to be found in another Wildside title,
LIQUID DEATH AND OTHER STORIES
). Fearn's proposed book for English publishers, featuring his tea-drinking scientist detective, remained unwritten.

In November 1939, Fearn sent a letter to one of his regular correspondents, tyro-author (and cinema buff) William F. Temple, in which he referred to
Amazing Stories
editor Ray Palmer's acceptance of his story, “The Man Who Saw Two Worlds.” Fearn wrote:

“In this I introduce Brutus Lloyd, the first genuine criminologist who dabbles in scientific riddles, who is conceited, masterful and breezy. Palmer seems to like him immensely and requires more. I called him Alka Lloyd, but Palmer refused to be sold on it! The story is actually Wells' “The Plattner Story” brought bang up to date, and Lloyd is based on Ernest Truex in the film
Ambush
(starring Lloyd Nolan).”

Brutus Lloyd was popular with
Amazing Stories
readers, and so two further novelettes were published over the next couple of years. But by the mid 1940s, Fearn was beginning to raise his sights from the US pulp magazines, and he began to move into new book-length markets in England.

Since Fearn was well-known as a science fiction author, he was obliged to adopt pseudonyms for his detective fiction, writing hardcover novels as ‘John Slate' and ‘Hugo Blayn.'

As John Slate, he created the brilliant female detective “Black Maria,” who debuted in
BLACK MARIA. M.A
. (1944) and as Hugo Blayn he created “Dr. Carruthers” whose first adventure,
FLASHPOINT
appeared in 1950. All of their books have been reprinted in the UK in recent years, and a few of them were also issued by Wildside Press, most notably
FLASHPOINT
.

This was one of Fearn's best-written, and most carefully plotted novels, and the character of Dr. Carruthers is brilliantly realized. This is not so surprising when one realizes that the book is one he had been working on for several years: Carruthers is, in fact, the very same character that Fearn had first conceived back in 1937, and who had been first developed as Brutus Lloyd.

Writing an introduction to
OTHER EYES WATCHING
, a science fiction novel published in England by Pendulum Publications in 1946 (reprinted from the U.S. pulp
Startling Stories
) Fearn revealed that his favourite mystery and detective writer was John Dickson Carr, famous as the master the ‘locked room' mystery.

Fearn's own detective novels are classics of the ‘locked room' and ‘impossible crime' genres, but because they were written under pseudonyms, he did not achieve in England the recognition in the detective field that he deserved.

Fearn decided to try writing mysteries for the Toronto
Star
Weekly
under his own name
.
He knew he faced terrific competition in this genre: regular contributors included Margery Allingham, John Dickson Carr, Erle Stanley Gardner, Philip MacDonald, Ellery Queen, and Roy Vickers.

During the war, Fearn had worked for three years as a cinema projectionist in his home town of Blackpool, and he continued to be an avid filmgoer. He had seen the many great ‘film noir' crime thrillers that Hollywood produced in the 1940s, with their atmosphere of menace and mystery. So he felt equal to the task.

His first ‘impossible crime' novel for the
Star Weekly
was
WITHIN THAT ROOM!
(1946) published under his own name. However, so great was the success of his science fiction character “The Golden Amazon” in the same magazine, that Fearn again switched to pseudonyms for his next detective novels there, writing as ‘Thornton Ayre' and ‘Frank Russell'.

Over the next ten years, Fearn's
Star Weekly
detective novels included
WITHIN THAT ROOM!
(1946),
THE CRIMSON RAMBLER
(1947; as Thornton Ayre),
SHATTERING GLASS
(1947), and
THE FOURTH
DOOR
(1948) both as by Frank Russell, and under his own name
ROBBERY WITHOUT VIOLENCE
(1957) this latter novel having a distinctly science fictional flavour.

Up until 1955, Fearn's Toronto
Star Weekly
novels were also reprinted in various American newspapers near to the Canadian border, in the New York and Maine areas, including
The Bangor News
(later as
Bangor Sunday Commercial
),
Newark Sunday Star Ledger,
and
Long Island Sunday Press.
In recent years, all of Fearn's
Star Weekly
mysteries have been reprinted in England and elsewhere, but no American book editions have ever been published. Until now!

Borgo Press will be reprinting all of Fearn's
Star Weekly
mysteries, along with several of his best detective novels, including some posthumous works. This ambitious programme is being launched here with
THE CRIMSON RAMBLER
, written in the vein of John Dickson Carr.

No discerning collector of locked room and ‘impossible crime' stories can afford to miss them!