Fri 19 Jan 2024
Locked Room Stories I’m Reading: JOHN DICKSON CARR “The Third Bullet.”
Posted by Steve under Reviews[4] Comments
JOHN DICKSON CARR. “The Third Bullet.” Colonel Marquis #1. Novella. First published as a novel in 1937 under Carr’s “Carter Dickson” pen name (Hodder & Stoughton, UK). A shorter version appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, January 1948 (cut by perhaps 20%). Collected in The Third Bullet and Other Stories (Hamish Hamilton, UK, hardcover, 1954; Harper & Bros., US, hardcover, 1954). Collected in Locked Room Puzzles, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Bill Pronzini (Academy Chicago, paperback, 1986).
This one is a good one, but only if you’re already a fan of locked room mysteries. If you’re not, I don’t think it will go down well enough to convert you. It’s too single-minded as to the plot, with the barest amount of time spent of either the setting or the characters. But for the record, here’s the basic setup and hold on tight. It’s complicated:
A murder is committed while the police are watching from the outside through a window and while another policeman is knocking on the only inside door leading to a hall inside the house. The windows are sealed tight (but footsteps are found leading from one of the windows). Only one person was in the room, other than the victim. No one else went in nor went out. No one was hiding inside.
Two guns are found in the room. One was the one the suspect used; the other is found hidden in a vase. However — and this is a big “however” — ballistics show that neither one was used to kill the victim, a judge who had previously sentenced the suspect quite severely (flogging as well as a prison term).
The investigation begins on page one, and it continues non-stop until the case is solved. Colonel Marquis is clearly a forerunner of Colonel March, one of Carr’s other more well-known detectives. Even if this was his only appearance, which is likely, he’s the sort of fellow who relishes a case such as this one, and almost as much as I do. The basic explanation is both very intricate and very simple, but the latter doesn’t mean I solved it before Colonel Marquis does.
To my mind, very nicely done.
January 20th, 2024 at 8:43 pm
Carr’s best tricks were always slight of hand, not the mechanics so much as the reader looking the wrong way or misunderstanding if not misdirected by the sleuth of the moment for his own reasons.
January 20th, 2024 at 10:45 pm
Yes. You are right. I have been thinking about what I might have said in my review that would hint at the solution, without giving it all away. What I have finally come up with is this. Carr has the reader looking/thinking one way, while he/she should be looking exactly oppositely.
February 1st, 2024 at 5:09 pm
I read “The Third Bullet” about 32 years ago in its 1948 EQMM appearance. I remember enjoying the tale, but recall none of the story’s details.
Guess I’ll have to read it again! But this time I’ll tackle the full-length version.
February 1st, 2024 at 6:05 pm
Arthur
You should be able to find a full version somewhere without too much trouble. The way I understand it is that as a good-sized novella, when Dannay (?) wanted to use it in EQMM, it was way too long, and it had to be cut, perhaps by 20 percent. And so it was done, with Carr’s advice and consent, or so I’ve read.