CORNELL WOOLRICH “Soda Fountain.” Appeared in The Saint Mystery Magazine,” March 1960. Reprinted from Liberty, October 11, 1930, as “Soda-Fountain Saga.”

   John Spanish is a soda jerk, a description of a job which may not exist anymore, and if it does, it’s a job not nearly as common as it used to be. (I am not as up on things like this as I used to be, either.) He is uncommonly good at this job, or at least he thinks he is, and it’s quite apparent that he really does have an effect on all of the high school girls who come swarming in when school lets out.

   All but one of them, and perhaps she is not really a schoolgirl. She never comes in with books, and she treats Spanish with undisguised non-interest. He tries his best, but, no, the lady is not interested. Then for a couple of days in a row, she meets a man at the counter. A man she knows well, Spanish catches on to that right away. In sort of futile gesture, but he cannot help himself, he fixes the girl’s companion a special drink. A doozy, you might say.

   The next day, the girl comes in, with a suitcase. “What did you do to my husband?” she demands. He gulps, figuratively if not physically.

   And just where is this story going, the reader wonders. I’ll stop here and say no more but only remind you that this is a crime story. A minor one, true, and while it was written early in Woolrich’s career, and somewhat amateurishly phrased now and again, with an ending that needed just a little more punch to it, it has a modicum of a cuteness while not being totally fluff either.

   And while I’m not absolutely positive, and there’s no information provided as a blurb in reprint version I read, but this appears to be Cornell Woolrich’s very first crime story. Not his first published story – there were about a dozen stories he had written before this one, appearing in magazines such as College Humor and the like – but I’m sure happy I came across it late last night, for all of the reasons mentioned above.