Kelton seems to have been based to a large degree on Arthur Conan Doyle's, Sherlock Holmes. Both Holmes and Kelton enjoyed bee keeping. Both had a band of children that assisted them; with Holmes it was the Baker Street Irregulars, with Kelton it was a local group of boy scouts. Both considered ordinary murders a waste of their valuable time. And the expertise of both gentlemen was highly sought-after whenever the police were baffled.
Matthew Kelton was a chemist who, due to some very profitable inventions early in his career, was able to devote his life to solving puzzles and he considered a clever murder the best of all puzzles. The Sting of the Wasp is generally considered to be Connell's best Matthew Kelton story. While it has the attributes of a good mystery story from the late 1920's, it does not come close to being the literary achievement that his story, The Most Dangerous Game, was.
The story opens at night with Matthew Kelton trying to solve a particularly difficult cryptogram. Cryptograms, anagrams, and other word puzzles often play a part in tales of mystery and horror, as evidenced by story's like Poe's, The Gold Bug, and Ira Levin's, Rosemary's Baby.
Kelton received a phone call from Evan Turner, a lawyer. It seemed that one of Mr. Turner's long-time clients, a banker named Guy Oakley, was the chief suspect in a murder that had taken place and Turner wanted Kelton to see if he could prove his man innocent of the crime.
Kelton agreed to meet Turner at the Oakley estate, a large Victorian mansion on the edge of some pine woods. In those days all murders were committed in large Victorian mansions. The case against Mr. Oakley did seem pretty cut and dried. There was bad blood between Oakley and a fellow named, Lewis Cope, and each man let it be known publicly that he hated the other with a passion. The exact reason for the feud between the two men is never given, although we are told that Lewis Cope's wife, who is now deceased, was at the heart of it, so it must be assumed that we are dealing with some sort of love triangle.
According to Oakley's butler, Mr. Oakley had consumed enormous quantities of booze during the course of the evening, which was not an unusual thing for him to do. At 9:30 Lewis Cope arrived in a highly agitated state and the two men went to Oakley's library where the butler could hear them yelling at each other in anger.
Sometime later the butler entered the room and found Mr. Oakley alone, passed out drunk in chair. He helped Mr. Oakley to his bedroom and then retired for the evening.
It was 11:20 when Oakley's chauffeur pulled into the driveway leading to the house. The chauffeur and his wife, along with the gardener and his wife, all had the night off and they had gone to the movies. They spotted Lewis Cope's body about twenty-five feet from the house. Mr. Oakley was awakened and Police Captain Lamotte was summoned, along with Police Surgeon Usher.
Things did not look good for Mr. Oakley. Even Evan Turner, his lawyer, thought that he was probably guilty. Only a few days before Oakley had told him -
"That cur, Cope! I saw him today looking at me with those evil green eyes of his. I'll never be happy - or safe - while he's in the world. I'd kill him like a rat if I thought I could get away with it."
This is not a particularly good thing to say right before a guy gets bumped off. When Kelton talked to Oakley, Oakley swore that he didn't do it. He said that he'd argued with Cope in the library and that Cope had told him that his lungs were bad and he had less than a year to live so he wanted to settle old scores. He dared Oakley to kill him but Oakley was so drunk that he couldn't even get out of his chair. Cope laughed and proclaimed that he was going kill Oakley and that Oakley's death was going to be extremely unpleasant. Then, according to Mr. Oakley, Cope left.
During his questioning of Mr. Oakley, Kelton noticed that one of Mr. Oakley's black pearl shirt studs was missing. (In those days studs and cufflinks were standard apparel for the upper classes.) Oakley said that he had been unable to find it and that it might have been taken when his house was burglarized a few weeks ago. This is one of those little glitches that bother me. Why would a guy bother to put on one when he knew the other was missing?
Kelton decided it was time to take a look at the body which was still laying in front of the house. Powder burns on the shirt indicated that Mr. Cope had been shot at close-range. Police Surgeon Usher suspected that the weapon was a relatively rare gun, a Skomak pistol. The Skomak was a very small .25 caliber weapon manufactured in Czechoslovakia. It was nicknamed, 'The Murderess', because it was small enough to fit in a lady's purse and it was much favored by women.
Perhaps Connell should have added a female to the cast of this story to make the guessing harder. But part of the beauty of this mystery is that there is only one logical suspect and each step makes the case against him tighter. As fate would have it, Mr. Oakley owned a Skomak pistol, but he swore it was locked in his desk drawer and had never even been fired. When the gun was examined it was found that it had been fired and there was a spent shell casing in the chamber.
If you're going to read this story then now is the time to stop reading this review. The story was first printed in the August 1928 edition of American Magazine. You may be able to find a copy of it at your local library. Its beautifully illustrated. It has also appeared in some mystery anthologies, including one of the Ellery Queen anthologies. I will reveal the ending only because I know that most of you won't be able to acquire the actual story.
Up until now everything has pointed to Guy Oakley as being the murderer of Lewis Cope and the case against Oakley fits like a glove. When Kelton examined the contents of Mr. Cope's pants pockets he found the missing black pearl stud, another damning piece of evidence against Oakley. But he also found something very strange, a small bag of cut-up beef steak. Only a moment or two later a horrible cry was heard coming from the woods. Turner said that it sounded quite like the cry of an owl. It sounded as though the owl was being eaten by some sort of predator.
Do you have enough to solve it? Kelton almost did, but he wanted one more day to check a few things out and the police captain obligingly said that he would wait a day before arresting Oakley. Could you imagine that happening in real life?
When Evan Turner visited Kelton the next day he found him at work in his apiary. Kelton lapsed into a philosophical speech about insects. He told Turner that a wasp had gotten into his apiary that morning and that he had caught it in his gloved hand. This type of wasp died when it stung its victim. Yet, even though it knew that it would die, it hated Kelton so much for trapping it, that it was willing to die in order to sting him. Kelton is giving us the psychological motivation for the crime here (as well the pretext for the title).
Kelton and Turner then went to examine Lewis Cope's house. The fact that they had no search warrant and weren't even police officers did not seem to trouble them a whole lot. They found that Cope's only books were a complete set of the works of Edgar Allan Poe and an Encyclopedia of Ornithology. Kelton remarked that you could see into a man's mind by seeing which books he owned and it was disturbing that these were the only books that Cope possessed. While I own Poe's works myself, I don't have an Encyclopedia of Ornithology. so I guess my mental state has not completely deteriorated yet.
They also found a parrot cage with drops of blood on its floor. Turner joked that the bird must have said something that Cope didn't like and that Cope strangled it. I must admit that I found the thought of a man owning a parrot that continually insulted him to be sort of amusing.
Next Kelton and Turner went to the scene of the crime, Oakley's estate.
Have you solved it yet? Last chance.
Kelton had a group of boys scouts that he sponsored combing the area for something. What they found was the half-eaten body of an owl. There was a Skomak pistol attached to one of its legs by a string. Cope hated Oakley so much that he killed himself and tried to blame his death on Oakley. Cope had broken into Oakley's house, stole the black pearl stud, and fired the gun. He then purchased the same model of gun. Because the gun in question was quite small he was able to attach it the leg of the tame owl that he had been keeping in the parrot cage. The blood in the bottom of the parrot cage was from live mice that Cope fed to the bird. The bits of chopped steak were to quiet the owl on its trip to Oakley's house. Like the wasp he was willing to die to get revenge.
Contrived? Well, somewhat. But it is rather ingenious.
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RICHARD CONNELL
LINKS
Which animal really is 'the most
dangerous game'? Find out here.
Article about comic books and TV shows
that have elements of 'The Most Dangerous
Game'.
Complete text on Connell's short story,
'The Most Dangerous Game'.
Films written by Connell and films based
on his stories.