Magazine Review: High Adventure #98: The Crimson Mask edited by John P. Gunnison
When Robert Clarke was young, he watched his police officer father be gunned down by criminals. The image of his father’s blood-soaked face never left him. So after training himself in disguise, hand to hand combat, criminology, and becoming a PhG (Graduate in Pharmacology), “Doc” Clarke was ready to don a red face-concealing cloth to become the Crimson Mask!
Robert Clarke’s drugstore is a tiny place in the slum district, with no fripperies. It sells drugs and medical supplies only, with no distractions to draw casual customers. It’s also well known that Doc Clarke is a generous man who finds ways for the destitute to be able to get life-saving health care. But he’s also frequently absent from the store, leaving it in the hands of his chubby friend and fellow pharmacist Dave Small.
Dave is one of three people who’s aware of the Crimson Mask’s true identity. Theodore Warrick used to be police commissioner, and still holds considerable influence in the department. A friend of Bob’s father, Commissioner Warrick put him through school and is the official contact person for the Crimson Mask. Sandra “Sandy” Grey became involved in one of the Crimson Mask’s early cases and uses her expert driving skills to assist him. She and Bob are sweet on each other, but crimefighting comes first.
The Crimson Mask stories ran in Detective Novels magazine, written by Norman Daniels under the name Frank Johnson. This issue reprints two of those stories, plus two other mystery-thrillers.
“The Crimson Mask and the Vanishing Men” by Frank Johnson, from June 1941, starts us off with a baffling mystery. Bank messengers, trusted men who’ve been working steadily for many years, are suddenly vanishing one by one with the money they conveyed. Then each of them turns up shot dead, the money still missing.
The latest disappearance happened even as the messenger was closely guarded by two burly police detectives! Even the Crimson Mask, who was watching in disguise, is baffled.
Now it’s true that you might be able to suborn one or two bank messengers into betraying their trust for a cut of the money–but by the fourth one, they’d be wise to the turning up dead thing so it’s not just corruption. The Crimson Mask works out that each of the dead messengers stopped at a particular bank somewhere on their route, and the last dead man came home stinking of alcohol the night before he went missing, even though he was a notorious abstainer.
The Crimson Mask must figure out what the real clues are from the red herrings, as well as deal with a couple of kidnappings.
“Spy Manhunt” by Norman Daniels from April 1942 has a prison break by a German seaman from a Canadian prisoner of war camp. He flees into neutral America during December 1941. On the advice of his embassy, he surrenders to attorney Tom Bishop, an idealistic young fellow who agrees to represent the seaman in court.
But the fugitive is in fact not ordinary seaman Ludwig Kopf, but brilliant Nazi submarine designer Dr. Heinrich Knullinger. He’d disguised himself in a sailor’s uniform when captured to make it easier to eventually escape. Dr. Knullinger boasts to Tom about how his new even more fiendish designs will kill more of the Allies and especially innocent civilians, before heading off to New York.
Tom decides that since he’s responsible for letting this jerk get out on parole, it’s his job to return him. Following the trail, Tom winds up in Brazil, where a nest of Nazi spies are determined to find a way to return the evil doctor to Germany. Tom crosses paths with a beautiful British agent, and action ensues!
The story ends with news of Pearl Harbor, and America is neutral no more! Content note: ethnic slurs, even when people are trying to be friendly.
“The Money Trail” by Frank Johnson from April 1942 has a series of troubling events happening to armored cars in the city. Engine trouble, flat tires, abortive robbery attempts…it’s making some of the drivers and guards nervous. One of the drivers is particularly disturbed–he’s sure something big is about to go down, and even delayed his wedding because of his fears.
When that young man is blown up in a robbery attempt, it seems that he was on to something. The armored car union is threatening a strike while the owners sweat.
The Crimson Mask is certain there’s more going on here than meets the eye. He’s noticed that according to the blast pattern, the bomb was inside the truck! He must protect the dead man’s fiancée, determine which if any of the union members are infiltrating criminals, and expose the true mastermind.
One of the plot points is a bookkeeping trick that would be much harder to pull off in the modern world.
“Doctor Dynamite” by Van Jason, from June 1937 is a short twist tale about a doctor who’s lured into providing medical care for a wanted criminal. We all know that the crook is going to kill the doctor once he’s cured, but what if the doctor drinks poison first? Pretty obviously chosen for number of pages to fill out the issue, but it has charm.
The Crimson Mask isn’t quite as bloodthirsty as say the Black Bat, but does mow down quite a few criminals in the course of the stories. It’s a good thing no one on the police force is seriously looking to find out who he is.
These two tales are okay, but not superior, and I can see why the Crimson Mask never made it big. Overall though, a quite acceptable issue of this magazine, worth picking up if you find it.
