Magazine Review: The Shadow #60: Prince of Evil | Messenger of Death | Room 1313 edited by Anthony Tollin
There were multiple authors who operated under the house name Maxwell Grant to write the pulp magazine Shadow stories. This volume of Shadow reprints features three of them and is an interesting study in compare and contrast in their treatment of the main character.
“Prince of Evil” by Theodore Tinsley starts off the volume with the first of four parts about the titular Prince of Evil. (I have previously reviewed the second part, “Murder Genius,”) A businessman, John Harmon, has been experiencing bouts of missing time, and has come to the reluctant conclusion that he must sell out to pay his debts, take care of his invalid wife, and make sure his children will be able to afford finishing college. He’s approached by a venture capitalist and offered $500,000. That’s considerably less than the company is actually worth, but it’s quick money in 1940, the tail end of the Depression.
Harmon signs the paperwork and gets the check. But when he looks at the check later, it’s only for $50,000! Moreover, the contract copies also only say $50, 000! After careful examination by the police, there’s no evidence of tampering with either the check or the contracts, and the other party, David Chester, is above suspicion, being an entirely above board businessman never before even suspected of wrongdoing. Faced with the apparent evidence that his mind is further gone than he had thought, John Harmon commits suicide as his life insurance will pay the remaining debt. (The policy does not have a “no suicide” clause.)
So far this might have seemed like an ordinary story of a man cracking up, or a clever but mundane swindle. But the Shadow suspects something’s up, and has that hunch soon verified. Hubert Jackson, Harmon’s attorney, is starting a fundraiser for Harmon’s widow and orphans. He invites Lamont Cranston (or rather the Shadow in the guise of Lamont Cranston, man about town) to his apartment to discuss the effort. When they get there, Jackson’s beloved dog has been slaughtered and his art collection slashed to ribbons!
Cranston immediately realizes that this is a direct result of trying to help the Harmons, and persuades Jackson to publicly announce that he’s retiring from the fundraiser and putting Cranston in charge. Within minutes, the Shadow has his reply, as a boy Cranston tipped to watch his car is thrown into oncoming traffic!
What follows are a series of cruel attacks on what remains of the Harmon family as the Shadow’s agents investigate the various threads of the case and face peril themselves. The Shadow posits that there is one sinister intelligence behind all the events, a master manipulator he dubs “The Prince of Evil.”
When young Bob Harmon is suddenly hired by reclusive billionaire Benedict Stark, the Shadow is fairly certain he’s found his target. Stark is an ugly but brilliant man, whose other hires are all extremely attractive men and women. While Bob is not chopped liver, he doesn’t exactly fit the profile. But even this sudden clue may be a trap.
By this point in the pulp novels, it had been revealed that the Shadow’s true identity was aviator Kent Allard, who’d been missing and presumed dead for some time. He’d been forced to revive the Allard persona to solve a case, but still also maintained a life as Lamont Cranston. When Stark meets Cranston, he invites the man about town to a party, but only on condition that he bring along his friend Kent Allard!
Now, it’s true that there’s an actual Lamont Cranston that the Shadow impersonates, and bringing him in would solve the “two places at once” problem, but he’s not available. How to solve this?
The story ends on a rare (for this series) cliffhanger. The remaining Harmons are safe, but every criminal that could lead the Shadow up the ladder to the mastermind is dead, and he has no proof that Benedict Stark is in fact the Prince of Evil. Worse, one of the Shadow’s own agents is missing and presumably in the hands of the enemy!
This is an exciting story with many hairsbreadth escapes and twists, and a high body count. The Prince of Evil is exceedingly clever but obsessively cruel–we never know what grudge if any he had against the Harmons or if it simply amused him. (The check and contract swindle is explained, but was the initial missing time problem also part of the plan, or just convenient to it?)
Content note: In addition to the suicide and dog murder, there’s torture. The Shadow uses a scientific cell to cause discomfort and mental anguish to a criminal (remember, he’s a “dark hero”) but no actual physical damage. Later, the same criminal is tortured to death the old-fashioned way by other crooks.
“Messenger of Death” by Walter B. Gibson involves a group of scientists who have developed a new wonder material they’ve named Glassite. Each of them has one step of the secret process for creating this transparent metal. Wayne Dunstan, the final man in the chain and the spokesman for the group, wants to prove the material is bulletproof. Dunstan asked for a revolver permit, but was turned down by Police Commissioner Weston. Weston did, however, agree to be at the meeting of investors with his own gun, his best officer, Inspector Cardona, and the help of his good friend Lamont Cranston.
During a demonstration, Dunstan dies in a lab “accident” that is transparently a murder. Turns out Glassite actually is bulletproof. Dunstan’s garbled dying words indicate the scientist who is fourth in line. The Shadow naturally realizes the actual name first, Hugh Staffert.
Staffert has learned of Dunstan’s death, and is now the designated spokesperson. To gather the remaining pieces of the formula, he hires unlicensed private eye Chet Ferris. The Shadow learns of this and concocts a plan. His agents will waylay Chet so that the Shadow can impersonate him and gather the pieces of the formula while solving the murder.
Margo Lane is one of those agents, having been written in to the pulps from the radio show. She plays a very minor part.
Making the Shadow’s job tougher is that the murderer has hired a criminal gang which includes a master of disguise, who is also impersonating Chet Ferris. Which of the imposters will succeed, and who, truly, is the messenger of death?
This story is more of an actual mystery than the first one, scattering clues that the reader can use to solve the case along with the Shadow. Which is not to say there aren’t exciting bits, like the Shadow being trapped inside a large safe made of Glassite. Yes, he’s got his guns, but Glassite is, again, bulletproof.
The strangest thing about the story is, although it was published in 1943, it is not taking place during World War Two. No global war is mentioned, and the Shadow drives cross-country in a fast car without even a handwave towards gas rationing. It can’t be taking place before the war, because of the ending, but it also doesn’t seem to be taking place in the future. Weird.
“Room 1313” by Bruce Elliott, another former magician like Gibson, fills out the issue. This one came out in 1947, when the name of the magazine had been changed to “Shadow Mystery.” The story takes place in England, where a peer of the realm stands accused of robbery and murder.
Jackie, Earl of Bostick, is telling a fantastic story. He got seriously drunk one night while dealing with his post-combat depression, and in the wee hours of the morning, followed a little dog until he was quite lost. At that point, two fellows he’d never seen before took him to a tall building, and to Room 1313. There was a wild costume party going on, led by a man who was purported to be Count Germain!
(On this blog, we last saw Count St. Germain in Castlevania.)
After being introduced to the Count, Jackie passed out. When he awoke, he was standing over a corpse, his pockets stuffed with gems! Only his high rank prevented the Earl from being arrested on the spot. Police investigation proved that the only building in the area that could have a Room 1313 definitively doesn’t. There’s a sensation in the papers, and only Jackie’s solicitor Louis Yorke and his fiancee Bobby Rawson are on his side.
Certain features of the case fascinate Lamont Cranston, so he has flown over from America to help.
Elliott’s Shadow is a bit more urbane and subdued than Tinsley’s or Gibson’s. Indeed, he’s only the Shadow for a short portion of the story, where the Cranston identity does most of the legwork.
Count Germain is a striking villain, and perhaps wasted on this relatively short piece–and his ending is more reminiscent of the radio show than the earlier pulps.
The weakest part of the story is that it’s written as “gee, England is quaint; look at all the weird little differences with the United States.” Which is fair, a bit, if the readers had somehow never read any British mysteries. But then the writer persistently calls Louis Yorke a “barrister.”
Content note: Suicide, and the treatment of mental health issues may be fishy.
The usual ancillary material includes “In the Shadow of Judex” by Rick Lai, which talks about a French film serial character who bears a striking resemblance to the Shadow, but came out a decade earlier. (Conclusion: He probably was a result of convergent evolution.)
Two of the three stories in the issue are excellent, so good value for money.
Let’s have a scene from the 1963 version of Judex, which may or may not make more sense in context:
