The last story in this collection that is marked as a mystery is “Wake for the Living” by Ray Bradbury. It is not really a detective story, but it was published, in 1947, in Dime Mystery Magazine. Many years ago in high school, I believed I had read everything Bradbury ever wrote, but I was of course mistaken, and this story is one I’m pretty sure I haven’t read before.
The story, like most of Bradbury’s, is simple. It is a standout in this collection not only because of the author’s fame but because it is characteristic of the author’s style: Poetical language, fantastical details, minimal plot, and an ironical, bitter ending.
To describe the story at any length is to give it away, though the ending is easy enough to see coming. The story features two brothers, Richard and Charles Braling, who hate each other. Both are elderly, and Charles, in his workshop, is building what he claims will be the ultimate coffin, capable of saving the expense of most funerals. The coffin is huge and full of complex mechanical parts. Charles asks to be buried in it when he dies, but his younger brother Richard defies his wishes.
Once Charles is dead and in the ground in a conventional coffin, Richard, out of curiosity, climbs into Charles’s invention. It turns out that the coffin is a machine capable of carrying out all the elements of a funeral and burial service by itself: It slams the lid shut on Charles, and the story from there proceeds just as you might expect.
This tale does not exactly have any unexpected twists, and aside from the mystery of what Charles’s coffin is (which the reader can easily guess), it contains no mystery. Bradbury’s whimsical writing, however, keeps it interesting despite its predictability.