ERLE STANLEY GARDNER “Second Story Law.” Bob Crowder #1. First published in All Detective Magazine, September 1933. Collected in Behind the Mask (Pulpville Press, softcover, 2013).

   The story begins with a masked intruder making his way up a ladder and into the window of a room on the second floor of a large fancy manor house. Asleep in the room is a girl who does not immediately awaken, but soon enough she does – but her reaction is not what the masked intruder had obviously expected. She is cool and collected, asking him quietly what he is doing in her bedroom.

   Frustrated, he puts all but one object back – that being a silver-backed mirror, – and calls the police himself. He is a fellow by the name of Bob Crowder, and he has a plan. In the same house, a couple of nights before, the theft of much more valuable jewelry had taken place. The question is then, what is the connection and what is Crowder’s plan?

   In the early days of his writing career author Erle Stanley Gardner honed his writing craft by creating all kinds of heroes in hundreds of stories. A common theme is the kind of chap who solves a case by reading about it in the newspaper and figures out a way to cut himself in, and always in the most mysterious way possible.

   This is, of course, a prime example. We don’t learn a lot about out hero’s background – nothing, in fact – but then again what have we ever learned about the private life of Perry Mason? Not a lot, that’s for sure.

   No, throughout his writing career, Gardner never took his readers into details of his characters’ lives, even at the start. The story was the thing, and I can only imagine how much better this one probably was, compared to the other tales of the same issue it first appeared in.

   On the other hand, the skill set owned by Bob Crowder was admittedly rather limited, and Mr. Gardner had plenty of other characters to write about. The young adventurous Mr. Crowder appeared in only three other tales. You can find all four in the Behind the Mask collection.