Todd Mason at Sweet Freedom sent me several links to archive versions of old mystery magazines in comments on my last Short Story Wednesday post. One of those links was to some Ellery Queen magazines at Archive.org. I looked at a few of the issues, and picked a short story by Michael Gilbert to read from this issue:
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Vol. 29, No. 5, MAY, 1957.
"Three Times Loser" by Michael Gilbert
This is a somewhat humorous, somewhat sad story of a young boy who gets in trouble several times as he grows older. Each time he is looking for recognition of some sort.
Tom Carney was born into a large family which lived in "a depressed part of Swansea" in the 1930s. For the most part they were a happy family. The parents and older children had jobs, but the youngest two children were still living at home and going to school. Tom, the youngest, was unhappy because he wanted to be taken seriously. His first "prank" was quite serious and dangerous, although he may have been, at age six, too young to realize this. Tom spends a lot of time and effort preparing for his exploit, but he doesn't succeed, even with his sister Dilys's help. Tom is dismayed because his father laughs at him when he fails. Over the years, he plots more harmful behaviors towards others.
This is a far as I want to go in a description of the story because it is very short. Michael Gilbert tells a good story and tells it in a light-hearted way, so the reader doesn't know what to expect. The ending is definitely troubling and unsettling.
From what I can tell, the story was first published in The Evening Standard, Sept 15 1954 as "Twm Carney."
I chose this story to read because I had enjoyed Michael Gilbert's short stories about two spies, Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens. I have also read five of his novels and plan to read more.
I used this link to access the story online. Per Wikipedia, the story was published (as "Twm Carney") in a collection titled Even Murderers Take Holidays and Other Mysteries, in 2007, which appears to be scarce and very expensive.
