The Curious Mr. Tarrant: 8 Detective Stories

by C. Daly King

The Episode of the Codex' Curse: Narration Jerry Phelan winds up, against his better judgment, spending the night locked in a basement strongroom of New York's Metropolitan Museum. He is there to see that nothing happens to a rare Aztec Codex (manuscript) which is rumored to be cursed and will disappear on its third night in the museum.

The Episode of the Tangible Illusion: Valerie Mopish, has just had a new house built adjacent to her old home which she shared with her brother. Soon Valerie is tormented by strange occurrences in the house: phantom footsteps, mysterious lights, and bizarre images in mirrors. But it's not just tormenting Valerie - these are observed by Jerry and Tarrant as well.

The Episode of the Nail and the Requiem: Tarrant's apartment manager has been alerted to odd circumstances at the building's rooftop penthouse. The electrician has heard requiem music coming from the dark, apparently unoccupied penthouse. Tarrant peeks through the skylight to see a dead woman's body. The police come and force the door. The dead woman is alone in the penthouse - and all openings sealed from the inside - so where is the killer?

The Episode of the "Torment IV" : Tarrant hears a story about a cursed boat, the Torment IV. This brings them to discuss the [true life] episode of the Mary Celeste, a brigantine found abandoned and adrift with no crew in 1872. The cursed boat on their lake has had three incidents in which the passengers suddenly panicked, jumped overboard, and were lost. Tarrant takes the "cursed" boat out himself and discovers the cause.

The Episode of the Headless Horrors : Jerry and Tarrant decide to investigate the appearance of several headless bodies, left by the roadside. They have occurred near an all-night gas station. Police set up surveillance on either side and find a body gets deposited yet no cars passing through have stopped. Not only that, but none of the bodies can be identified.

The Episode of the Vanishing Harp: In this locked-room puzzle, a historic harp, kept in a glass case, vanishes from a secure library. The owner is worried, as there is an ominous historical family poem which predicts misfortune if the harp disappears three times. The harp reappears, then vanishes again. Tarrant decides to spend the night in the library to see if it happens a third time.

The Episode of the Man with Three Eyes : Jerry, Valerie, and Tarrant are dining out. Suddenly there is a commotion. One of the diners, Olga Markova, is found stabbed to death. A mysterious man, Monsieur Hor, slips Tarrant a sealed envelope with a clue inside. He claims to have a third inner eye, with powerful powers of observation.

The Episode of the Final Bargain: Tarrant has always had a crush on Valerie's sister, Mary. Now Mary falls into an unexplained coma and the doctors cannot identify why, or treat her. Monseiur Hor appears and offers a solution, involving detecting and treating Mary's aura. But it comes at a steep cost, to which Tarrant agrees.

-RM

Genres: Mystery

284 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1935

About the author

Charles Daly King (1895-1963) was an American psychologist. He was educated at Newark Academy, Yale and Columbia University. After Army service in WW1 he trained in psychology and wrote several textbooks. In the 1930s he wrote seven detective novels while working in psychology. His detective, Michael Lord, is attached to the New York police department. Lord's cases are recounted by a Watson figure, Dr L Rees Pons. King coined the word 'Obelists' to describe suspects, and used it in three of his titles. Another series character, Trevis Tarrant, appears in a book of short stories. After Bermuda Burial (1940) King wrote no further fiction.

Reviews

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: first published in 1935. It includes eight short stories featuring Mr. Tarrant and his solutions to difficult and weird crimes.

[Jay Maxfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Firstly I am very much surprised that no one has made a review for this book as I thought that it would have been well read by aficionados of locked room & miraculous crimes. The book was published by Collins the Crime in 1935 in the UK but wasn't published until 1977 in the US (namely this Dover Edition). The book consists of eight short stories that deal with impossible crimes, supernatural, weird, horror, locked room scenarios - the story titles are given below - King wrote a further 4 stories after 1935 for Mystery Magazines and these extra stories are compiled along with these eight stories in The Complete Curious Mr. Tarrant (2003) by Crippen & Landru. This book is featured in the forthcoming - The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books (2017) by Martin Edwards. The stories protagonists are Trevis Tarrant a kind of Sherlock Holmes who believes that cause and effect rule the world and who is interested in the bizarre and eccentric. And Jerry Phelan a Watson like character who narrates the stories. I very much enjoyed the first three stories - and according to Martin Edwards the third one The Episode of the Nail and the Requiem is the most anthologised of Tarrant's Cases. I agree with Edwards - 'King was skilled at creating an intriguing premise for a story, although he sometimes struggled to resolve the puzzle with equal aplomb.' I did find this very much the case from the fourth story onwards as well as the fact that King started to include the weird, wonderful and supernatural in these later stories. I would give the book 6 out of 10 - however, the first three stories I would give 9 out of 10.
The Episode of the Codex Curse
The Episode of the Tangible Illusion
The Episode of the Nail and the Requiem
The Episode of Torment IV
The Episode of the Headless Horrors
The Episode of the Vanishing Harp
The Episode of the Man with Three Eyes
The Episode of the Final Bargain

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Golden Age short story collection describes some of the cases of amateur detective Trevis Tarrant, who believes that there's a logical explanation for everything. (At least, he does up until the last story in the book, where woo woo takes over to an alarming extent.) It's always hard to review short story collections, as one can't summarize all the stories, so perhaps I should just mention that, enjoyable as the stories are, one has to make up one's mind to ignore 1930's racial, ethnic and religious attitudes. In some ways, King is less offensive than some of his peers, especially in his treatment of Tarrant's butler, a Japanese spy. But it's still a distraction.

[Elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were so many excellent little touches in the stories, and the mysteries were outrageous in a fun way, but it's definitely not a book without problems (for one, the casual racism).

[Rick Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories are what you would get by mixing Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and S.S. Van Dine's Philo Vance. From Doyle we get the format of the Watson companion/narrator/documenter as he accompanies the hobby-detective Tarrant on his "episodes". From Van Dine we get the pedantic academic lectures on obscure subjects which have no direct relation to the investigation at hand. They are a bit longer than the Sherlock Holmes adventures, yet still hold the attention closely.

Each story builds upon and refers back to the previous ones, so these should be read in order. Similar to the Holmes stories, there are also references to other adventures (apparently not documented).

In Codex' Curse, I did see immediately how the theft of the Codex was accomplished. No great revelation here. In The Tangible Illusion the big giveaway came right at the beginning when it is mentioned that Valerie's brother is an architect, but the cause of the phenonema was still clever. The Nail and the Requiem has the locked-room penthouse common to several mysteries of the era, with a unique, interesting solution. The Torment IV has a recap of the Mary Celeste incident, and even offers a possible solution to that mystery as well (although a little literary license is taken in the details of the that incident - compare this account to the more factual Wikipedia article).

The Episode of the Headless Horrors was troubling and cringy. As is sometimes common with writings from this period, there are pejorative references to various nationalities; in particular, it unfairly stereotypes Haitians, even rendering their speech in phonetic English.
The Man With the Three Eyes (not literal eyes, thankfully) introduces Monsieur Hor, who guides Tarrant with a vital clue as to how a killing was performed in a crowded restaurant. The Episode of the Final Bargain is the most "way out there" story, with a lot of mumbo-jumbo about auras, and a somewhat romantic/wistful ending.

[Allan Krummenacker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love a good anthology, or collection of short stories. Naturally, when I spotted this book in a used bookstore, I was intrigued by the title and the image on the cover. After reading the synopsis on the back cover, I decided it was worth checking out. And boy was I right to do so. I thoroughly enjoyed each of these odd little mysteries.

As the cover indicates, there are only 8 stories contained in this volume, and each one (even though a couple of the tales takes place outdoors) have been referred to as a "locked room" mystery, which makes the collection all the more interesting for me. 

Similar to Arthur Conan Doyle's beloved Sherlock Holmes, we are introduced to Mr. Trevis Tarrant, through our narrator Jerry Phelan who first encounters Tarrant in the first story involving an ancient codex in a museum. And also like Holmes, Tarrant has an affinity for 'unusual' cases or problems. But, there the similarities end. We soon learn that Trevis Tarrant is more willing to have feelings we're allowed to see as he deals with Jerry and others. Also, we get to actually watch Tarrant working out the solution to the puzzles they are encountering. He doesn't always come up with the right answer immediately, but through trial and error until a solution is reached.

Furthermore, we're also allowed to learn that Mr. Tarrant is capable of great affection and can even fall in love, although he is a bit awkward about letting those feelings readily visible even to the object of his affections. But nonetheless, reading these tales was quite enjoyable. 

Since finishing this collection, I've learned there are at least 4 more Tarrant stories that I'm eager to find and read as there are still one or two questions regarding this character, that I am hoping they will answer.

A worthy read. Five stars.

[Mentatreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most excellent locked room type mysteries. Last story somewhat disappointing as the hard thinking was softened. Wish there were more.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good. These stories are very much of the time period they were written in; Bolsheviks and spiritualists and so on. Tarrant is rather a Holmesian character and the first stories have a lot of similarities with the Sherlock Holmes stories. The last story, however, reminds me more of Conan Doyle and his interest in fairies and ghosts. And frankly I think the book would have been better without it.

[Jeff Hobbs · Rating 2 out of 5]

Contains:

The episode of the codex' curse--
The episode of the tangible illusion--
The episode of the nail and the requiem--
The episode of Torment IV--
The episode of the headless horrors--
The episode of the vanishing harp--
The episode of the man with three eyes--
The episode of the final bargain--

[Jeff Lewonczyk · Rating 2 out of 5]

I ended up putting this down after six stories, because it was just feeling a bit dull and silly. If I were a detective-story completist I'd stick it out, but I kind of fell off the wagon when [SPOILER] the murderer was revealed to be a giant spider on a motorboat.