HILDEGARDE IS BACK!
Hildegarde Withers, the creation of Stuart Palmer (1905-1968), is the original schoolmarm detective. After she first appeared in The Penguin Pool Murder in 1931, she was so popular that a series of movies starring Edna Mae Oliver and James Gleason followed, and Palmer wrote short stories about Miss Withers for Mystery, a slick-paper magazine sold only in Woolworth's stores between 1933 and 1935. These stories, filled with the sights and sounds of New York during the depression - museums, flea-circuses, burlesque shows, Latin gigolos - are genuine forgotten classics. The introduction is by Stuart Palmer's widow, Jennifer Venola.
Stories Included:
The Riddle of the Dangling Pearl
The Riddle of the Flea Circus
The Riddle of the Forty Costumes
The Riddle of the Brass Band
The Riddle of the Blueblood Murders
The Riddle of the Forty Naughty Girls
The Riddle of the Hanging Men
The Riddle of the Marble Blade
The Riddle of the Whirling Lights
The Riddle of the Tired Bullet
The Riddle of the Dangling Pearl
Rushing through the wide doors of the Cosmopolitan Museum of Art came Miss Hildegarde Withers, out of the blinding sunlight of Fifth Avenue in August into a hushed, dim world. Pausing for a moment to sniff the musty odors which cling to the vast treasure house wherein men have gathered together the objects saved from vandal Time, the angular school teacher went on, sailing serenely past the checkroom to be halted by a gray uniformed guard at the turnstile.
“Have to check your umbrella, ma’am.”
“Young man,” she advised him sharply, “can’t you see that I need it?” She leaned on the umbrella heavily, and the guard, with a shrug of his shoulders, let her through. She was not lying, even by implication, for this day she was to need her only weapon as never before in all her assiduous, if amateur, efforts at crime detection.
It had been some months since Miss Withers had last found occasion to visit the museum, and today there seemed to be fewer guards and more visitors, particularly juvenile visitors, than formerly. She threaded her resolute way through the crowd, entering the Hall of Sculpture and pushing on toward the staircase at the rear of the building. In this hall the visitors were fewer, and only a solitary art student here and there was copying a painting, lost to the rest of the world.
“You’ll find Professor Carter somewhere in the Florentine Wing,” the Inspector had told her over the telephone. “You can’t miss him, he’s a tall, dried- up old fossil with a big round head bald as an egg.” But at this moment Miss Withers had no idea how, and where, she was to find Professor Carter, associate curator of the Cosmopolitan. For all her haste, she paused for a moment beside a crouching marble nude labeled “Nymph — by Hebilly West.”Using her dampened handkerchief, Miss Withers frowningly removed a penciled mustache from the classic stone face, shaking her head at the laxity of the guards. Then suddenly she looked up.
From somewhere came the patter of light footsteps — the quick steps of a small man or perhaps a woman — fading away down some distant corridor. As they passed, she heard a hoarse masculine scream, thin with surprise, which set a thousand echoes ringing in the vaulted halls. After the school teacher turned and ran on down the hall, turning toward the stairs, she stopped short.
A man was coming, slowly and horribly, down the hundred marble steps — a man whose hoarse scream had almost become a bellow, and who clutched unavailingly at thin air. His body was bent forward almost parallel with the slope of the steep steps...
Miss Withers was frozen with horror, for at the foot of the stairs loomed a gigantic statuary group upon a granite base. As she watched, powerless to move, the plunging man collided headlong with the base of the statue, and his screaming stopped.
There was no doubt in Miss Withers’ mind as to the identity of this man. Inspector Oscar Piper had told her that Carter, the man she had come to see, was a tall and dried-up “fossil” with a head like an egg. And like an egg the round hairless skull of Professor Carter had cracked against the implacable stone.
Almost instantly the hall was filled with gasping, curious onlookers. Here and there a guard began to push his way through. But Miss Withers turned swiftly away, and moved up the stairs. She was looking for something, and when she reached the top step she found it. Then, and not until then, did she rejoin the murmuring, excited group at the base of the stairs.
Rushing through the wide doors of the Cosmopolitan Museum of Art came Miss Hildegarde Withers, out of the blinding sunlight of Fifth Avenue in August into a hushed, dim world. Pausing for a moment to sniff the musty odors which cling to the vast treasure house wherein men have gathered together the objects saved from vandal Time, the angular school teacher went on, sailing serenely past the checkroom to be halted by a gray uniformed guard at the turnstile.
“Have to check your umbrella, ma’am.”
“Young man,” she advised him sharply, “can’t you see that I need it?” She leaned on the umbrella heavily, and the guard, with a shrug of his shoulders, let her through. She was not lying, even by implication, for this day she was to need her only weapon as never before in all her assiduous, if amateur, efforts at crime detection.
It had been some months since Miss Withers had last found occasion to visit the museum, and today there seemed to be fewer guards and more visitors, particularly juvenile visitors, than formerly. She threaded her resolute way through the crowd, entering the Hall of Sculpture and pushing on toward the staircase at the rear of the building. In this hall the visitors were fewer, and only a solitary art student here and there was copying a painting, lost to the rest of the world.
“You’ll find Professor Carter somewhere in the Florentine Wing,” the Inspector had told her over the telephone. “You can’t miss him, he’s a tall, dried- up old fossil with a big round head bald as an egg.” But at this moment Miss Withers had no idea how, and where, she was to find Professor Carter, associate curator of the Cosmopolitan. For all her haste, she paused for a moment beside a crouching marble nude labeled “Nymph — by Hebilly West.”Using her dampened handkerchief, Miss Withers frowningly removed a penciled mustache from the classic stone face, shaking her head at the laxity of the guards. Then suddenly she looked up.
From somewhere came the patter of light footsteps — the quick steps of a small man or perhaps a woman — fading away down some distant corridor. As they passed, she heard a hoarse masculine scream, thin with surprise, which set a thousand echoes ringing in the vaulted halls. After the school teacher turned and ran on down the hall, turning toward the stairs, she stopped short.
A man was coming, slowly and horribly, down the hundred marble steps — a man whose hoarse scream had almost become a bellow, and who clutched unavailingly at thin air. His body was bent forward almost parallel with the slope of the steep steps...
Miss Withers was frozen with horror, for at the foot of the stairs loomed a gigantic statuary group upon a granite base. As she watched, powerless to move, the plunging man collided headlong with the base of the statue, and his screaming stopped.
There was no doubt in Miss Withers’ mind as to the identity of this man. Inspector Oscar Piper had told her that Carter, the man she had come to see, was a tall and dried-up “fossil” with a head like an egg. And like an egg the round hairless skull of Professor Carter had cracked against the implacable stone.
Almost instantly the hall was filled with gasping, curious onlookers. Here and there a guard began to push his way through. But Miss Withers turned swiftly away, and moved up the stairs. She was looking for something, and when she reached the top step she found it. Then, and not until then, did she rejoin the murmuring, excited group at the base of the stairs.
Release Date: December 11, 1936
Release Time: 69 minutes
Cast:
James Gleason as Oscar Piper
ZaSu Pitts as Hildegarde Withers
Owen Davis, Jr. as Robert 'Bob' Wilkins
Louise Latimer as Alice Stevens
Arthur Aylesworth as Kendall
Paul Fix as Joe
Richard Tucker as John Carter
Barbara Barondess as Marie, the Maid
James Donlan as Jim
Agnes Anderson as Dagmar, the Sculptor
Oscar Apfel as H. G. Robbins
Stuart Palmer (1905–1968) was an American author of mysteries. Born in Baraboo, Wisconsin, Palmer worked a number of odd jobs—including apple picking, journalism, and copywriting—before publishing his first novel, the crime drama Ace of Jades, in 1931. It was with his second novel, however, that he established his writing career: The Penguin Pool Murder introduced Hildegarde Withers, a schoolmarm who, on a field trip to the New York Aquarium, discovers a dead body in the pool. Withers was an immensely popular character, and went on to star in thirteen more novels, including Miss Withers Regrets (1947) and Nipped in the Bud (1951). A master of intricate plotting, Palmer found success writing for Hollywood, where several of his books, including The Penguin Pool Murder, were filmed by RKO Pictures Inc.
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