Since the spooky season is upon us, I thought it was time to do a quick look at one of the more unusual tales from Starrett’s deep past. The story is an odd one for those who only know Starrett’s writings about Holmes or his Jimmie Lavender mystery tales. 

We are going to spend some time with “The Fugitive,” which has a dreamy-into-nightmarish flavor that pushes credulity while remaining within the realm of the real. Starrett’s affinity for Poe is apparent and his deft hand at making an unrealistic moment feel urgent was never better engaged in a tale. 

Summary

In some unidentified region of France in some unnamed time, the thief Duplessis has escaped from Tarantelle prison. A vain man, he does not immediately leave the area, even though he knows that the brilliant detective, Lemieux, will soon be after him. Duplessis goes to the village of Saint-Just to get lost in its alleyways and ask old friends for help in his escape. 

The relationship between the thief and the policeman is central to the tale. Duplessis and Lemieus spoke while the thief was in prison, exchanging polite repartee, more like old lovers than prisoner and police. Here is a bit from their most memorable encounter. I’ve stripped out everything except the dialogue. This takes place at some point before Duplessis’ escape.

Duplessis: I would confess I would rather be outside there with you, than inside here with me.

Lemieux: I almost wish you were, I have much affection for you, my friend.

Duplessis: Perhaps you would care to prove it by opening this cell door?

Lemieux: Don’t tempt me! Life has become a bore without you, Duplessis.

Duplessis: Cheer, up, I shall escape soon; and when I do you will hear of it.

Lemieux: Good luck, old fellow! But really I should not advise it. It would be so much easier to catch you a second time. You see, I know how your mind turns. I should be ahead of you at every step.

As Duplessis tries and fails to get food, money and shelter from old friends, he discovers that Lemieux (a master of disguise) is true to his word. Every step Duplessis makes is foiled, with a creeping certainty that Lemieux is getting closer. Duplessis grows desperate. Is that knife maker looking at him merely a stranger or Lemiuex in disguise?  Is that Lemiuex in the next room? How is Lemieux able to be everywhere at once? Duplessis finds himself evolving from thief to murderer as his arrogant control frays, his confidence fails and his instincts lead him away from escape. 

In the end, Duplessis finds himself cornered in a grand chateau where a festive dinner party is underway to celebrate the unveiling of a handsome new portrait. Lemieux is present at the fête (of course) and Duplessis—who slowly goes insane as he realizes Lemieux has been playing with him for the policeman’s amusement—decides to cut away the portrait and take its place as the curtain is drawn back.

“A roar of laughter swept upward from his lungs and burst from his lips. It pealed across the long chamber and echoed in the rafters. He screamed with delight. And suddenly, the curtains sprang aside.” 

History

“The Fugitive” was published in the extremely rare pulp magazine Tip Top Stories for December 1923. This was the first issue of Tip Top Stories and I have yet to find a copy for sale anywhere. I am not alone. I am not alone. Dave Truesday wrote about this hard-to-find pulp in 2017. Here’s a link. 

• In January 1931, The Golden Book Magazine republished the story, along with an extended letter by Starrett explaining its history. (Starrett scored back-to-back successes with The Golden Book Magazine. The previous month, the same magazine had published “The Real Sherlock Holmes,” which would become a chapter in the book edition of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes in 1933.) 

• “The Fugitive” became the first entry in Starrett’s anthology Coffins for Two: Stories of Life, Death, Love and Other Mysteries. The book was published in 1924 by Covici-McGee Co. of Chicago.

• It was also the first story in a second anthology of his weird stories, The Quick and the Dead, published in 1965 by Arkham House in Sauk City, Wisconsin and edited by August Derleth. 

• The tale also made an appearance on radio in 1948, 25 years after its first appearance.

Commentary

The story is one of Starrett’s most popular of his eerie tales. I don’t want to give too much more away, but let me say here that it’s not so much the events in the story but its mood of growing unreality that makes the biggest impression.

There is a strong influence of Poe here, as the cool and assured nature of Duplessis slowly breaks down after his escape. Each step he makes seems natural and reasonable but soon he comes to question his instincts. Friends seem strange and act in unexpected ways. Soon the whole town seems to be watching him. He races from one placte to another seeking shelter or an escape. Duplessis realizes with growing horror that he is the mouse and not the cat. And everywhere he catches a glimpse of Lemieux, smiling.

I also caught a touch of the Holmes/Moriarty relationship, didn’t you? First there is the confrontation in Duplessis’ cell, where the dialogue has stylistic echoes of the confrontation between Holmes and the Professor in “The Final Problem,” with each man anticipating the response of the other. That feeling continues as Lemieux complains that he is bored now because Duplessis is behind bars, in much the same way Holmes complained of being bored after Moriarty’s death. And the race around Saint-Just echoes the race across the continent with the Professor in hot pursuit, no matter what actions Holmes takes.

Starrett’s view

Here’s what he had to say about “The Fugitive,” in a little essay published in The Golden Book Magazine in 1931: 

I suspect “The Fugitive” of being a highly romantic tale, for which reason perhaps or in spite of it, it is still one of my favorites. The action goes forward, I think in some fabulous country labeled for convenience France. I had not seen France when I wrote the story, and if there is a place called Tarantelle I have not yet heard of it. Nor, I imagine, does any such background as I have given Duplessis’ flight exist anywhere in one vicinity. It is a mosaic, a patchwork, of many neighborhoods, actual and imaginary.

The idea of the man in the picture frame came to me, one day, I have no notion how, and from it the story was worked backwards. Then I read somebody’s book on France and Spain and by selecting here and there exactly what I liked I created my setting. I have no very clear idea of the period of the story—probably it is early 19th century; but it occurs to me that I have mentioned a President somewhere in it, so I cannot be sure.

In short, it was—and is—a story written for the sheer pleasure of imagining reckless and romantic figures in fantastic situations. I would rather write that kind of a story than any other kind known to the profession.

The first duty of an author is to entertain. After that, he may indulge his idea of his other duties as he sees it.

Starrett also commented on the tale in an article for an obscure publication called The Creative Writer, published by The Creative Writers Guild of Los Angeles, for March 26 1934. I can’t find out much about the publication, but it appears to have been associated with a creative writing class at the time. The clipping from The Creative Writer is among the Starrett archives at the University of Minnesota’s Anderson Library holdings. 

The editors commented praise “The Fugitive” saying,

One short story which almost every student of reader-interest technique knows backwards and forwards is “The Fugitive,” by Vincent Starrett. Class members have been over its diamond-pointed paragraphs so many times, charting the colored lines of readers-certainty up and down towards Duplessis’ heaven or hell, that the story has transcended its original purpose to entertain and has become a valuable little text book in itself. Frankly we hold such admiration for the author’s ability that we have sought his acquaintance by mail.

Here’s what Starrett had to say in return:

Dear Sirs:
I am happy to know that “The Fugitive” has been among my early stories (all hotly romantic); and I think, one of the most successful of them. I gave it first place in my volume of short stories, Coffins for Two (Chicago, 1924), and once tried to make a motion picture scenario out of it, without conspicuous success. I suppose I was conscious, in the writing of it, that it was technically good—how good is a matter of opinion. But I am glad to know that you believe it is flawless in technique.

I have never studied short-story writing, and whatever ability I have in that field has been acquired by a reading of the masters, and by great diligence on my own part. I have written and published, I think, about 200 short stories in the last thirty years. I don’t think “The Fugitive” is my best, even in the matter of build-up; but I think it is one of my best dozen.

CBS Radio’s ‘Escape’

“The Fugitive” was adapted, with several changes to fit the radio format, and broadcast on August 15, 1948 as part of the CBS “Escape” radio anthology series. The highly successful series used many older tales for radio, in addition to offering new stories for its more than 230-episode run. (For example, Arthur Conan Doyle’s tale, “The Ring of Thoth,” was the eighth story in the series.) Like its more popular sister show, “Suspense,” “Escape used a distinguished cast of players, along with solid hands behind the scenes, including Norman Macdonnell as producer and the prolific Les Crutchfield as lead writer. (Macdonnell and Crutchfield worked together regularly in radio, most notably on “Gunsmoke.” )

There were variations on the “Escape” introduction over the decades, but the one that introduced this episode is characteristic of the show’s promise, intoned by radio regular William Conrad:

“Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you — ESCAPE!”

It must have given Starrett a little thrill to hear the announcer say, “Tonight, we escape to the south of France, and to the manhunt of a master criminal as Vincent Starrett told it in his unusual story, ‘The Fugitive.’ ”

In conclusion

I wasn’t able to find a copy of the text online. You’ll have to hunt down one of the two anthologies to read it. Or listen to the CBS radio version, which is available for free at several online sites.

Reading “The Fugitive” and Starrett’s other outré tales would be a fine way to spend some time on a rainy evening in late October.

Pleasant dreams.