Mount Hermon, Massachusetts, is far from the “mean streets” Raymond Chandler described, when he was writing in the 1930s. But it was Chandler, too, who said there are “no dull stories, only dull minds,” meaning the failure of a story to be compelling has little to do with the plot and everything to do with the author’s handling of it.
This fall, Crime Literature students tackled the Commonwealth’s longest unsolved murder and offered their renditions on the real-life slaying of NMH Headmaster Elliott Speer. The events of Sept. 14, 1934, at 8:20 p.m. have long been contemplated. (Read details here.) Yet, working alongside NMH Archivist Peter Weis, our eight-student Crime Literature class uncovered information that may have yielded the final clue –– the missing .12-gauge shotgun that was fired through the office window at Ford Cottage, where Speer was working. Theories have been tossed around for years: Is the gun at the bottom of the nearby Connecticut River? In the mud of Shadow Lake? Under the Chapel? In a wall of Crossley Hall?
One question, asked when Mr. Weis visited our A Block class, started the investigative ball rolling: “Did Thomas Elder [the prime suspect] have a child?”
Turns out, Elder’s son, Tommy, was indeed a student at the Mount Hermon School for Boys during the 1934-35 school year and graduated in the spring of 1936, well after his father departed under a dark cloud of suspicion. What wasn’t known, though –– not until this group of 8 a.m. sleuths, working with Mr. Weis, discovered it –– was that Tommy was also a member of the rifle team and had an unclaimed package in the mailroom for 18 months. After he graduated, the package was returned to the sporting goods company for a refund. However, no refund could be provided because the gun in the package was not the same gun the company sent to young Thomas Elder.
Who switched the guns? And why? What happened to the original shotgun? Was it the murder weapon? If so, was young Thomas Elder hiding it “in plain sight” for his father or at the direction of his father, the main suspect? And, more importantly, where is the gun now? No one knows.
The accompanying eight stories are the Crime Literature students’ creative responses to these questions –– and more. Some stories attempt to offer plausible explanations. Others use the information as a spark for his or her own story. All are interesting.
I hope you enjoy reading these works as much as I did –– and as much as these talents young scribes did writing them!
Sincerely,
John R. Corrigan, Northfield Mount Hermon English Chair
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