Review: SF/Detective Story: "The Haunted Bell" by Jacques Futrelle

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Franklin Phillips is a financier with nerves of steel, yet tonight he’s rattled by something he can’t explain. The Japanese gong his wife gave him is ringing seemingly of its own accord. The gong is a series of six bronze disks, like upside down bowls, hung largest to smallest, on a silk cord. The window is open behind the curtain, but there’s not a breath of wind. Why is it ringing, not once, but multiple times? And why only the fifth largest bell? When he asks the proprietor of the curio shop where his wife bought it about the gong’s history behind it, or whether it has any odd properties, a German named Wagner—a foreigner—vehemently denies ever having such an item in his shop, much less selling one. Later, the Phillips’s son, Harvey, brings home a friend from Harvard, a Japanese student, Mr. Matsumi—another foreigner—with whom he shares a love of art. In showing him the various objects around the house, they come across the gong. Mr. Matsumi examines it in detail and makes a point of asking whether it has rung eleven times. Mr. Phillips replies no. Mr. Matsumi then asks if he’d be willing to part with it. (Oh, how gauche for the usually meticulously polite Japanese!) After being told no, he then asks where Mr. Phillips got it. There may be another like it. Within a few days, letters come from Johann Wagner, asking if he can buy the gong back. He’s willing to pay handsomely for it. The Phillips refuse. And then, Wagner is found dead in the study, shot through the heart. The only door is locked, but the window, looking out over a second floor, is open. Blood is smeared on the fifth bell. Missing is the servant, Francis. The next part is the ruminations of one scientific detective Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, referred to as the Thinking Machine. He’s irritable. Anyone talking to him is interrupting the important work of his thinking. He asks questions, tells everyone they’re wrong, and then shows them how he’s right. While there is some humor here, the last laugh is on the Thinking Machine. And the xenophobia in this work is a bit heavy-handed. Just can’t trust them dem furriners, ya know. The German is a fence for stolen goods (oh, say it ain’t so) and the Japanese student is… inscrutable. But he’s a lot of trouble just the same. According to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (SFE), author Jacques Futrelle was one of four science fiction authors known to have gone died when the Titanic sank. (The others were John Jacob Astor, F. D. Millet and W. T. Stead.) His best known stories are those featuring the “Thinking Machine,” the scientific detective Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, who solves mysteries, like the one in this story, by the rigorous application of logic. The story is available from Project Gutenberg Australia: _____ Title: “The Haunted Bell” Author: Jacques Futrelle (1875-1912) First published: The Saturday Evening Post November 17 1906 Source: ISFDB