THE DREAM DOCTOR by Arthur B. Reeve

I'm fond of Reeve's Craig Kennedy stories, not because they're well-written (they're OK, if sometimes clunky), but for the verve with which Reeve gloms on to every scientific fad, even if it was disproven five minutes later. His works end up having a steampunk air to them that's fascinating.

Again, The Dream Doctor (1914) is made up of a series of unconnected cases, and is really a string of short stories put together as a novel...but at least this time has a framing story of Kennedy's Watson, the reporter Jameson, tailing him for a solid month just to see how many cases he deals with. It's also got a slightly interesting structure, in that the cases don't neatly begin and end with chapter openings and closings, but will end and start midchapter. OK, that's not all that revolutionary, but I did say it was slightly interesting.

The Dream Doctor opens with the mystery of a wealthy stockbroker, who falls dead on the street after leaving behind a cryptic letter that some say is a suicide note. His wife claims to have had a premonition in a dream of his death. It's through the examination of several typewriters, and examination of the wife's dreams (done in Freudian style, as if Freud's ideas were a one-size-fits-all proposition and psychology was an exact science) that Kennedy spots the culprit. Then an actress is found dead in a beauty parlor; the cause is not evident, but there are weird glowing spots inside her mouth. It appears she was killed by a phosphorus-tainted enveloped that she licked; but who did it and why? It takes use of a "rayograph" (to detect forgeries) and a "string galvanometer" (a primitive device for recording electrocardiograms) to reveal the killer.

A string galvanometer. I'm glad my cardiologist doesn't use one.

In his next case he comes to the aid of a diplomat who's being threatened by a Balkan terrorist group who wants to keep "American dollars" out of Europe and not incite wars. The solution involves a bizarre telephone that connects through a light bulb (?!??!) and poisoned wallpaper. Then a wealthy art collector is worried about threats to his private museum. For some reason green objects, and green only, were being stolen, but now other things are being swiped. He nabs the thief with a sort of primitive electric eye called an "optophone" and some outdated ideas about absinthe.

An optophone.

Next up, another millionaire (Kennedy moves in only the best circles, you see) calls up; it seems his cook has been stabbed to death in the kitchen. Kennedy at once realizes it's not a normal stabbing, but was done with " a Behr bulletless gun" which apparently fires a knife blade into the body. Kennedy can't touch a mystery that doesn't have a bizarre method of murder...or that doesn't require esoteric equipment to solve. He uses a then-new-to-the-public sphygmomanometer, or what we know today as a blood pressure reader, and some spurious-sounding "blood crystal analysis" to uncover the culprit. The Kennedy is called on to investigate the death of an actress who was the scion of a prominent family but who had been estranged from her clan. She had a drug problem, and Jameson is suspicious of a "queer-looking Jap" that hangs about (oh, that early-20th-century racism!). We also find out Kennedy can be depended on to engineer a truce in a Tong war. There's some basic ballistics involved here, and some exotic "narcotic bullets" that carry a dose of morphia to knock people out with only a slight graze. Of course, someone is not who they seem to be, and a major drug ring is smashed as a result.

Next up is a rash of jewel thefts being pulled by a slick gang of shoplifters. He uses a telegraphone again (he used one before), basically an old-school method of wiretapping, and a galvanometer to test suspects' skin conductivity to catch the thieves...one of whom is a real kleptomaniac more deserving of pity than censure. Then we have his investigation into the murder of a scientist who was on the verge of perfecting synthetic rubber. This ends up being the most bizarre motive and crime I've seen in a while; the murderer is afflicted with sleeping sickness after a bite from tsetse fly, and has dosed on poisonous medications so much he needs to replace his blood with someone else's! It's straight out of a horror film with Lionel Atwill and George Zucco, and makes little sense.

Then a bomb is sent to the district attorney's office; it doesn't go off, but is a scare. The DA's office is involved in a war against a local vice lord, and the safe assumption is that they sent it. Kennedy sets out to uncover the criminal's identity, a chase leading from a seedy cabaret to an underground bomb factory, and he uses a now-common device, a thermopile, and a hydraulic ram to solve the mystery. After that, Kennedy is contacted by the Navy when secret documents are stolen. (And announced in the paper, one of the most unbelievable things in this book.) It turns out the papers were dealing with new work in "telautomatics" or what we today would call "remote-controlled drone ships". Kennedy uses an audion, an old-style wireless wave detector, to nab the culprit.

This mild-mannered object is an audion.

Jameson himself approaches Kennedy with a new case; his paper has received an anonymous note questioning the death of a young banker so soon after his family bank collapses. On the tail of that comes word that his mausoleum had been broken into, and a blackmail note is sent to his widow. What's going on? A Crookes tube and spectroscope to uncover the truth...a story so bizarre and unlikely the denouement is unintentionally funny. And finally, a man is imprisoned for murder, and his wife begs Kennedy to prove his innocence. A fish-eye lens peephole, like in so many apartment doors, comes in handy, especially when connected to a camera, and Kennedy uses an ultraviolet lamp as well to detect a forged will.

A Crookes tube. That would make for a cool lamp.

So, how was it? Enjoyable, if cockeyed and often contrived. Everyone turns to Kennedy when there's a problem, and he's simultaneously a private eye for the wealthy and a top government agent, it seems. It's entertaining, and sometimes preposterous, although seeming to lack the courage of its own preposterousness at times, if that makes sense.

The Dream Doctor is easily available from multiple sources as a free or low-cost ebook. Used copies are out there, but can cost the earth.

THE POISONED PEN by Arthur B. Reeve

From 1912, this isn't a novel, but a collection of short stories published in assorted magazines. Still, it's a fun collection of early scientific-detective works, sometimes seeming rather steampunk-ish.

Reeve's detective Craig Kennedy repeats his usual pattern of being hired to look into some crime, then using what was then high-tech equipment to foil the evildoers.

The first story, "The Poisoned Pen," is a tale involving a seemingly accidental poisoning of a young actress in a New England artists' colony. In fact, when I first read it I thought maybe Reeve had based the story on the real-life death of silent film actress Olive Thomas, who died in Paris of an accidental poisoning, but Reeve's story prefigures the Thomas case by nine years. Yikes! It's solved through skilled chemical analysis.

In "The Yeggman," (an old word for a burglar; sounds almost comical these days, doesn't it?), Kennedy is hired by an insurance company to look into a case of stolen pearls, and a maid chloroformed to death. He analyzes how the safecrackers worked, using low-level explosives, and lays a trap with a high-speed camera while going undercover in a gang of housebreakers. It's all lurid silent-movie stuff, like something out of Feuillade.

"The Germ of Death" is interesting in its sympathies for Russian revolutionaries in the days before the Red Scare, which really took hold in 1919. Kennedy investigates suspicious deaths in a cell of Bolsheviks headquartered in New York, which turns out to be done by a Czarist spy using typhus germs in an early case of bioterrorism. There's also an early appearance of a bomb-transporting device. It's kind of funny seeing Russian revolutionaries being depicted as so noble and idealistic, and the czarists so evil, when in a few short years there would be all sorts of sympathy for the czarists and the Bolsheviks would be so reviled. America is so fickle.

"The Firebug" has Kennedy hired to look into a rash of arsons, but all are around a chain of department stores. He solves the case with handwriting analysis (the arsonist conveniently sends taunting notes to the fire chief), legwork, and a "telautograph," a long-distance writer that allows him to summon a warrant. "The Confidence King" brings in the Secret Service as Kennedy deals with a counterfeit ring; we get a rundown of Bertillon's "portrait parle," and describes a bizarre method of changing one's fingerprints that is so loopy it just HAS to be bullshit, as I've never heard of it being done anywhere else. (My attempts to Google it have yielded nothing, so it's either something Reeve made up or else something that has since been discredited and discarded.)

A telautograph.

In "The Sand-Hog" Kennedy investigates evil deeds committed during the construction of a tunnel (sandhog is a term used for workers in excavation projects). Much is made of how the workers are operating in a pressurized environment, but the case is solved with a "telegraphone" or early bugging device.

A telegraphone.

Up next is "The White Slave," something that folks in the early 20th century seemed to hold in horror, although it's still a problem today. It's just not nice girls kidnapped off the streets to be forced to work as hookers, but immigrants duped into going to another country and end up in forced sexual servitude. Anyway, this story is less about drugs and prostitution and more about Kennedy exposing a fake psychic, and explaining some of the techniques used by such frauds. In that respect, this story is a little dear to my heart...nothing warms me like exposing a fake psychic who exploits the unhappy to line their own pockets. Interestingly, the resolution is brought about by hair analysis.

"The Forger" has Kennedy up against a check-forgery scheme, which was seemingly easy to do back then. The case is resolved by judicious use of a "telectrograph," or early fax machine for sending photos. (It makes me want to dub the fax machine in my office the "telelectrograph," which would certainly bewilder most of my co-workers. My boss would probably join in, though.) "The Unofficial Spy" opens with a mysterious death in a hotel, segues into Kennedy explaining the so-called "endormeurs" of Paris (criminals who drug their victims then rob them, at least according to Reeve), and ends up with Kennedy improvising a bug and stumbling on a plot for freelance spies to sell vital documents. It actually goes to Washington DC, to "the house on Z Street" which doesn't exist. Reeve probably knew that.

"The Smuggler" has Kennedy brought in to foil an attempt to smuggle designer gowns and jewelry to high-fashion shops of New York, reminding me of Patricia Moyes' 60s novel Murder a la Mode that deal with industrial espionage in the fashion world. It's solved with the assistance of a photophone.

A photophone.

Up next is "The Invisible Ray," in which an ailing millionaire is seeking his long-lost daughter, who may be a fraud. He suddenly goes blind and it appears to be connected to a crackpot alchemist who may be in cahoots with the "daughter." The man dies but Kennedy brings him back to life with a Draeger Pulmotor (yeah, you read that right, the man is brought back to life...this one pushes suspension of disbelief a little too far), and Kennedy reveals the man was blinded by ultra-violet rays (!), and the culprits arrested.

A Draeger pulmotor

Finally, "The Campaign Grafter" has a potentially honest politician being besmirched by a seemingly incriminating photograph, something that would be laughable today. The bad guys are brought down by some sneaky photography and a bit of bugging.

Is it good? Not always; sometimes it's just too formulaic and clunky for its own good. But at the same time, it's kind of fun to read these stories that tackle criminal problems with "revolutionary" devices that are so quaintly interesting to us today. Sometimes the attitudes are eye-opening, like in its treatment of Bolsheviks. And from a steampunk perspective, it's a lot of fun. I almost want to experiment with some of these. But they're also fun from the perspective of putting yourself in a silent-movie frame of mind, which is how I read them. So if you're fond of that period, read away!

THE SILENT BULLET by Arthur B. Reeve

Never heard of Reeve? How about Craig Kennedy? No? Not surprising.

In the early part of the 20th century, Craig Kennedy was an enormously popular character, "the American Sherlock Holmes" as he was dubbed. Novels and short stories featured this fearless scientific detective. Movies were made about him. Why has the character dropped off the radar?

A good explanation may be that the Kennedy stories focused on science, and in our age the "groundbreaking" discoveries that were featured in the Kennedy stories are, well, mundane. Lie detectors? Seismographs? Oxyacetylene torches? Gasp!

There is a certain amount of fun in rediscovering these tales, though. The "amazing" technology used can be amusing, especially when Reeve and Kennedy are dealing with outmoded concepts and debunked theories. And the milieu (New York in the 1910s) is kinda fun, like peering into a silent movie.

THE SILENT BULLET was the first volume of Kennedy stories, published in 1912. A brief introduction makes us aware that the hero is Craig Kennedy, professor of chemistry at Columbia University, and his Watson is his journalist roommate, Walter Jameson. Although Kennedy is a chemist, he appears to be adept in all sorts of branches of science, as are revealed in the stories.

The first story is "The Silent Bullet," in which a supposed suicide in a brokerage firm turns out to be a murder committed with an exotic item, a silencer, and is solved by surreptitious use of that new invention, the lie detector. This story also has a terrible cringe-inducing line, toward the beginning, about how another murder was solved and proven to be committed by a black man, because a trace of blood from the scene tested similar to a gorilla's (apparently, caucasian blood reacts similar to a chimpanzee's). I'm willing to give Reeve the benefit of the doubt here, because he's quoting research from the Carnegie Institution...at least, I'm assuming it's genuine research, although Reeve could have been making it up off the cuff. But that's really the only slur in the book, so I'm thinking it was done out of ignorance rather than sheer racism. It's really a lot better than the racism that exudes from Lovecraft and Rohmer.

Next up is "The Scientific Cracksman," which gives us a wealthy man is found dead by an open safe, which was open, but no money taken. Who did it? How did he die? Kennedy uses an electric drill and a dynamometer (we're told he had permission to copy Bertillon's dynamometer), but ultimately the crime is solved psychologically, using a word-association test.

"The Bacteriological Detective" is next. A mysterious and suspicious case of typhoid shows up in the New York elite. The murder is solved through immunization records and handwriting analysis.

"The Deadly Tube" starts to get gothic, with its tale of a woman horribly disfigured, apparently through botched x-ray treatment for some blemishes. Kennedy suspects it wasn't an accident, and to clear the doctor discovers a hideous plan with the help of a hidden microphone. It's actually fairly up-to-date and uncomfortable, and has echoes of some other books I've read in recent years.

"The Seismograph Adventure" has a bit more gothicism; a wealthy man is throwing huge amounts of money at a spiritualist who is supposedly bringing him into contact with his late wife's spirit. As the title implies, it's solved via a seismograph that can differentiate between footsteps, before a murder can occur.

"The Diamond Maker" concerns itself with a murder and a spectacular diamond robbery. What could have burned a hole in the impregnable safe? Kennedy teaches us about the new chemical thermite (he calls it "thermit" but you know what it is); the criminals (including a faux-alchemist) end up being trapped by a crude solar cell.

"The Azure Ring" has echoes of the Holmes adventure "The Devil's Foot," with two people found dead in a locked room. There's a charcoal brazier in there, but the bodies show no sign of carbon monoxide poisoning. It turns out to have been committed with a poison new to western science, curare.

In "'Spontaneous Combustion'" a wealthy man burns to death, and the big question is over his will. Kennedy dismisses the spontaneous-human-combustion angle (a phenomenon still debated today) and uncovers the murderer with bloodspot analysis.

"The Terror in the Air" overflows with period atmosphere. A pilot friend of Kennedy is having trouble with his aeroplanes (that's what they called 'em!), especially when his new gyroscope device burns out mid-flight and causes a crash. Kennedy uncovers a villain using a Tesla-type broadcast energy device to burn out the gyroscopes!

"The Black Hand" is an early story of the Mafia, in which Kennedy and Jameson come to the aid of an opera singer whose daughter has been kidnapped. Italian-Americans are treated with respect, and Kennedy closes the case using a dictograph.

"The Artificial Paradise" is a bit problematic. Kennedy has always been a law-and-order type, but this time he aids and abets a crime. He's called in to find a rubber manufacturer who has disappeared. It seems the man is part of the revolutionary junta in the South American country of "Vespuccia," and has been smuggling guns and ammunition from New York to his comrades. We're to understand that the revolution is a noble cause, but it's also stated that Kennedy invested money in Vespuccian rubber, and the revolution will benefit him monetarily. It's not something I was entirely comfortable with reading the story. It turns out the missing man was involved in a mescal-cult, and the end is totally over-the-top, when the missing man, supposedly dead of an overdose, is electrically resusitated!

"The Steel Door" is the final story, in which Craig aids a police raid of an illegal casino, protected by a thick steel door. There's a lot of great atmosphere in the club, and Kennedy not only bypasses the door with an oxyacetylene torch, but also uncovers the rigged games. It's also rather modern in its depiction of a casino regular who's addicted to gambling.

Reeve started off as a journalist, and his style is evident in the stories, which are straightforward in their storytelling. No flowery language here, just straight-ahead plot with little character development (if any). Reeves continued the series through the 20s, writing screenplays around Kennedy and also for Harry Houdini, until the film industry migrated to California and he preferred to stay in New York. He declared bankruptcy in 1928 after a film deal went sour, but re-emerged in 1930 as an anti-racket crusader, and Kennedy shifted from being a scientist to a gangbuster. Reeves died in 1936, at the age of 55. I've been unable to find anything about his personal life and I'd love to know.

I'll be reading more Reeve/Kennedy in the future, so stay tuned. If you want to read them yourself, it's easy. Much of Reeve's work has fallen into the public domain, and THE SILENT BULLET is available through Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, and Munsey's, and probably a number of other sites, so go look around...