Simon Ark #03 - The Witch is Dead

“The Witch is Dead” was the third Simon Ark story, and it appeared in Famous Detective Stories' April 1956 issue. It was reprinted in the Fall 1966 issue of Startling Mystery Stories. There were a total of at least 45 Ark stories, and they are all penned by Edward D. Hoch. The concept is that Ark travels the globe searching for Satan while also solving crimes that possess a weird menace. Most of the stories include an unnamed narrator presenting the story in first-person. 

The story begins with the narrator describing a woman named Marie Carrio and her career as a fortune-teller named Mother Fortune (how original). She operates her mammoth crystal ball in Westchester County, New York. The narrator states that Mother Fortune died in a burst of flames and that her death proved even more fantastic than her life. 

The narrator then describes the events leading up to Mother Fortune's fiery demise, which is the story. He says it was October in 1950 and he was now working for Neptune Books, a paperback publisher (great nod to the era). He is now married to a woman named Shelly. He meets Simon Ark unexpectedly at a train station. Ark catches up with the narrator on the last couple of years since they had worked together. He says, “There is evil everywhere these days, and it is most difficult to separate the man-made evil from the more ancient type.” This statement pretty much sums up the Simon Ark series – deciphering supernatural or simple logic. 

Ark explains to the narrator that he is in Westchester County to investigate weird happenings at the Hudsonville College for Women. The narrator laughs when Ark advises that the college has somehow become cursed by Mother Fortune. Three students are near death and another forty are critically ill. Ark is there to determine the real cause of the outbreak and if it is somehow linked to an unfortunate event that occurred between Mother Fortune and the school years ago.

This was probably my least favorite of the Simon Ark stories thus far. The plot development was a bit murky and the final solution to the school's epidemic was hard to believe. I enjoyed the exchanges between Ark and the narrator and appreciated the PI-esque investigation. The story just moved a little too slow with such a limp payoff. With this many stories across four decades the output is certainly going to vary. You could skip this one.