Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

Until the telephone became standard in people’s homes, it was hard to communicate with those who didn’t live nearby. Letters could take a long time to get where they were going, and long-distance telephone calls were very expensive, if you even had a telephone. So, when the message was urgent or time-dependent, people sent telegrams. Most were short, since companies charged by the word. But they served their purpose. It’s hard to imagine now, with modern phone calls, texts, and emails, but at one time, telegrams were a regular form of communication. And they play important roles in some crime novels.

Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes frequently communicates by telegram, and so do his clients. For example, The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter begins when Holmes receives a telegram from Cyril Overton, with Trinity College, Cambridge. It seems that his star rugby player, Godfrey Staunton, has gone missing. He’s urgently needed for a game the next day, so Overton wants him found as soon as possible. Holmes agrees to look into the case and begins his investigation. He finds Staunton had a very good reason for disappearing.

Fergus Hume’s The Mystery of a Hansom Cab was originally written and published in 1886, before many people had telephones. In the novel, a Melbourne cab driver discovers that a passenger he was carrying is dead. There was another man aboard at the time – supposedly a friend of the dead man – but the cab driver didn’t really see what he looked like. Detective Samual Gorby starts an investigation, and before long, finds out that the dead man’s name was Oliver Whyte. As Gorby looks into the matter, he finds that several people could have had a motive for murder. A young man named Brian Fitzgerald is arrested for the crime, but the woman he loves is convinced he’s innocent. And Gorby doesn’t want to imprison an innocent man. A key point in the novel comes when Gorby receives a telegram that confirms the identity of the other man in the cab that night, and clears Brian’s name.

Agatha Christie used telegrams in more than one of her stories. In After the Funeral, for instance, Hercule Poirot is asked to find out whether wealthy Richard Abernethie was murdered. At first, his death is put down to natural causes, but at his funeral, his sister, Cora Lansquenet, blurts out that he was murdered. The next day, she is murdered. So the family attorney asks Poirot to investigate. As he looks into the matter, Poirot seeks some information that he needs. The answer to his question comes in the form of a telegram, and when he receives it, Poirot finds a critical clue to the identity of the murderer.

In Cornell Woolrich’s Night Has a Thousand Eyes, we are introduced to Tom Shawn, a New York homicide detective. Late one night, he’s taking a walk when he sees a young woman about to jump off a bridge. He rescues her and takes her to an all-night diner, where she tells him her story. She is Jean Reid, daughter of wealthy businessman Harlan Reid. She’s in distress because she believes her father will die soon. It seems that he’s fallen under the spell of Jeremiah Tomkins, who can predict the future. It all started when Harlan Reid took a plane trip to San Francisco on business. It was predicted that his return flight would crash, but just in time, he got a telegram urging him to take another flight. He did so, and that choice saved his life. His original flight did, indeed, crash. It turns out that Jeremiah Tompkins was the source of the dire prediction, and now Reid depends on him for every decision. So, when his death is predicted, Reid believes it utterly, and so does his daughter. The question now becomes: is that prediction going to come true, and if there is a threat, can Harlan Reid avert it? Shawn decides to try to help the family if he can, and to get to the bottom of this mystery.

As A.G. Barnett’s A Rather Inconvenient Corpse begins, Lord Hugo Bingham and his valet, Gladstone, travel from Oxford to the seaside for a holiday. They’re both looking forward to a relaxing break. One night, Lord Hugo gets into an altercation with a man he thinks has been cheating at cards. The next morning, a dead body is found in the hallway outside of Lord Hugo’s hotel room. Naturally the police investigate, and Lord Hugo is a person of interest. But Lord Hugo claims he was very drunk, didn’t kill anyone, and didn’t notice the dead body in the hall when he got home the night before. He’s trying to think of a way to clear his name when everything changes. Lord Hugo receives a telegram from his mother, saying that she is planning to join him and Gladstone for a few days. To Lord Hugo, nothing would be worse. So, he decides that he will have to solve the dead man’s murder himself, so he and Gladstone can leave the hotel. In this case, that one telegram proves crucial.

People don’t think much about telegrams now, as more modern forms of communication have taken over. But they were once essential, so it’s no surprise that they play important roles in crime fiction.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from The Five Americans’ Western Union.