One look at the cover illustration by Denis McLoughlin and you are hooked. Cowboy is in the process of making his cigarette the old-fashioned way while quick-drawing and flinging lead at some hombre. It’s a badass action scene that quite honestly does not ever appear within. Let’s be honest with one another: they rarely do.
Marshal of Abilene
Published by Fiction House Ltd. is Marshal of Abilene, the 278th novella under their Piccadilly series imprint, this appearing in 1949. The book measures 4.5 x 6.75 inches, is staple-bound with glued covers. Story text begins on Page 3 and concludes on Page 96, however, several concluding pages sport ads. Pages 81 and 83 feature half-page ads, while pages 85, 87, 89, 91, 93, 95 sport full page ads. Inside covers and rear cover also sport advertisements. They wasted zero space listing any of their other available titles.
I was not prepared to find that this story may be based on historical fact. The story quite literally deals with Wild Bill Hickok riding into Abilene and immediately becoming their sheriff in an effort to clean up the gun violence. And deal with the crooked dealings of saloon- and land-owner Phil Coe. This latter person is also real. Along for the ride are Doc Holliday, Texas gunslinger and cattle-prodder Hardin, as well as Missouri Jones, who is depicted here as an absolute sadist. All real people. I note that because the concluding page has the usual disclaimer:
All the characters in this story are entirely fictitious and have no relation to any living person.
Like hell !!!
A love interest is loosely woven into the plot, with a female dancer working for Phil Coe by the name of Frankie Russell. If she is a real woman working the dance circuit in Abilene, I’m not aware of her. Here she is tied to Abilene newspaper owner Steve Jameson, another person I’ve not been able to confirm. I suspect both are entirely fictitious, but, the novel doesn’t hurt one bit from this.
Realizing that this was a novel based around historical fact, I boned up on Hickok’s days in Abilene, and looked for various occurrences to be noted in the novel. Found myself largely disappointed that Nolan veered away from Coe’s real cause of death, but the fictionalized account made for better reading.
Because this title isn’t entirely rare, I actually do not wish to delve into revealing any of the plot. The basic meat is all there. So, I’ll keep it concise.
Hickok rides in, is appointed sheriff, Coe is pissed, attempts to bribe Hickok, that fails, so he attempts to assassinate him, Missouri Jones fails, Hardin sees red because Coe owns the water rights outside the town and denies access until he pays up or starves the beeves into losing weight and then Coe buys the steers when the cowmen are desperate. Hickok initiates gun-law. No guns to be worn in Abilene. Many are arrested. One of two cattle buyers in town are assassinated by Missouri Jones. Hickok pursues him into the night. Catches him the next morning holding up a stage bringing the surviving cattle buyer’s money. Locks him up. Missouri Jones is freed by a Coe employee. Missouri Jones and Hickok shoot it out in the street. Missouri Jones goes down after two six-guns are pumped into him, shocked that Hickok wasn’t hit. Turns out Missouri Jones’ guns were loaded by Coe with blanks. Dying breath from him coughs up all of Coe’s schemes. Hardin and his cattle-riders hook up with Hickok, Jameson, and Doc Holliday to take on Coe and his men at the saloon. They are barricaded, the saloon catches fire, the latter trio scale the building, sneak in from above, and shoot it out inside. Coe goes down in a hail of Hickok’s bullets. Jameson catches lead, survives. Holliday tends him. Frankie Russell and Jameson end up together.
If you are interested in the Wild West and its rich but short-lived history, and don’t mind a fictionalized plot with some basis of fact interwoven, it’s an interesting read that I do recommend for fun.
I had never heard of Oscar Opsahl before, and after reading one of his pulp fiction stories, I wanted to know who this varmint was. He had at least two pulp stories published, one in 1933 and the second in 1934. He then vanishes from the pulps just as quickly as he arrived. What happened?
Online research finds that he posted advertisements within the Author & Journalist and in Writer’s Digest from 1932-1933, stating that he was a typesetter-for-hire, at 40 cents per thousand words. Oscar M. Opsahl’s address is given as 830 Simpson Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Thank goodness for the middle initial, as that clue immediately narrowed down my man. Oscar went on to write non-fiction articles for a variety of magazines from 1936-1939, and then he vanishes. Why?
He died.
Oscar Melvin Opsahl was born 9 February 1895 and passed away 29 September 1939. His gravestone states he was a Sergeant Major for the 42nd Field Artillery, 14th Division, and is buried at Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The unit was formed July 1918; he officially enlisted 23 July 1918, with service concluding 7 February 1919.
During the 1930s he was employed by one of Harris, Upham & Co.’s railway lines, as a telegraph operator for the Chicago and North Western Railroad company.
Per his 1939 obituary, survivors include his wife, Jean (listed as Jane or Jennie online) who he married at age 23 around 1918 or 1919. Oscar also had four sisters and two brothers that outlived him. Sadly, the obituary fails to note the cause of death. Jean remarried, to Oren Atlas Wick, and then herself passed away in 1972.
They had one child: Phyllis Jean Opsahl. She married Charles Edward Shortley in 1938, a year before her father’s passing. The married couple honeymooned in Florida the last week of October into the first week of November. Sadly, the marriage announcement did not state precisely where in Florida, but no doubt a welcome break from the Minneapolis weather.
Mr. Shortley was born 1 November 1913 and passed away 30 April 1999 from a stroke at age 85, in San Diego, California. They had 3 children: George M., Paul B., and daughter Karen A. (Mullen). Phyllis, born 14 March 1920, passed away 5 December 2000. Surviving are several grandchildren, and no doubt by now, great-grandchildren.
Perhaps one day one of Oscar Opsahl’s descendants will see this post and be flabbergasted to learn he wrote for the pulps. Or wonder what a “pulp” is!
E. C. Tubb’s Scourge of the South first appeared under the M. L. Powers byline and was published by John Spencer as number 9 in their Lariat Western Series of paperbacks in May 1956.
John Spencer reprinted the novel 4 years later, June 1960, as Blazing Western No. 34, retitling it The Marauders. That cover art features two men on horseback dressed for winter weather and on mountainous terrain with snow; it has nothing at all to do with the novel, though.
The novel opens with Big Jim Ratford, wagon train leader, worrying over seeing smoke for the past three days. They’re riding through Sioux territory, openly hostile towards any white man invading their territory. Big Jim notes that the fifth wagon is dragging, hindering those behind it from keeping closer. He can’t afford this, so forces the woman driver, a widower, losing her husband prior to departing Fort Henry, to have her son ride the wagon instead. His name is Sam, 12-years-old. Later, Sam requests to ride scout with Big Jim who wishes to investigate news of nearby Sioux. It’s foolish, but Big Jim accepts the request. Sure enough, Big Jim spots Sioux warriors; the pair carefully turn their horses, casually, then ride hard. Arrows thud all about them as they slap their horses hard to escape the onslaught of raining death and whooping and hollering madmen on their heels.
Sam is captured and brought back to the Sioux camp as the only wagon train survivor. He’s adopted by his captor whose wife can’t bring children. Sam’s Sioux name becomes Stone Face.
Five years pass. He’s now 17. The Civil War (1861-1865) has already come to pass; after the war, Americans are pushing steadily and more heavily West to build new lives. The conflict between the White man and the Red man intensifies. Sam desires to fulfil his training and become a man in the eyes of the Sioux and adopting their ways, must endure three challenges. He passes. He’s then invited to raid an Apache camp, led by Cochise, known to one and all as The Scourge of the South. Merging with a band of Cheyenne, the Sioux raid the camp only to discover they’ve been trapped by Cochise and his warriors. Cochise does not desire to kill the invading tribes and instead offers to merge to fight a common enemy, the Whites and the “long knives” (the U.S. cavalry). Sam readily jumps at the prospect and agrees to terms, speaking for his adopted people.
Time passes again; 4 to 5 more years have gone by, and Big Jim Ratford did in fact survive that Sioux raid from a decade ago. Nobody else did. He is contracted by an Eastern outfit to assist in the hunting of buffalo in Sioux territory strictly for the hides to be shipped back East. Some 20 men follow his lead. They find the buffalo, and he instructs them on how to kill them. While skinning the carcasses, they are attacked by a band of Sioux. Everyone is murdered save for Big Jim and the head of the outfit, Wade, who had lied to Big Jim by misrepresenting himself but in fact he’s a tenderfoot and a fool.
Sam steps forward from the Sioux, approaches the pair, and in English, speaks with Big Jim, confirming his old memory of the white man before him. Big Jim is flabbergasted to learn the Sioux warrior is none other than the boy Sam. Big Jim and Wade are tied and driven back to camp to await tribunal. A heated argument breaks out between Sam’s blood brother and the shaman and wise men present. The blood brother wishes to kill the whites and ride against them all, but they wisely refuse, noting that they wouldn’t stand a chance against the overwhelming odds.
What ensues is Sam and the enraged Sioux fight to the death. Sam comes out victorious and a loser. He’s beaten his blood brother but left him alive, unconscious, to lose face before the tribe. The wise elder informs Sam to depart quickly with Big Jim (Wade died from a thrown knife) and return to Fort Henry and convince them that the Sioux wish to sign a contract for peace.
The pair escape, return to Fort Henry, only for Sam to learn the true meaning of being placed on a reservation, Indian agents, starvation, lies, etc. He’s crushed and angry at the deceit but when Big Jim discovers among Sam’s lucky-pouch a gold nugget, he negotiates that the pair go in as partners, register the claim legally, and put aside half the proceeds towards a foundation to help fund and feed the Sioux.
There are some historical context errors throughout the novel, but pushing my complaints aside, it was a fun fiction novel, and I look forward to perusing another western novel by E. C. Tubb in the near future. The romanticized conclusion mars the reality of the treatment the Indians endured, but conquest and war has never been pretty.
Tubb’s literary agent, Philip Harbottle, has done an excellent and faithful job keeping his works readily available to the reading public. Publisher Robert Hale issued the novel in 2000 as part of their Black Horse Western series.
In 2010 it reappeared via Linford Western Library paperback series under the George Holt byline.
In 2023 it became digitally available courtesy Lume Books and can be found on Amazon.
If you lack the original edition or the early second printing, you will have to be quite patient, as they do not often surface. It took me over 20 years to locate mine.
Mystery Novels and Short Stories for September 1939 is the first issue of a short-lived pulp. Edited by A. Sundell, it was published by Double-Action Magazines Inc., at 10¢ a copy and sported 116 pages of weird-menace / blood-and-thunder horror within its pages. The cover art is by William F. Soare, and if you are lucky, you might make out his blurry signature down at the bottom right.
Most of the internal illustrations are by Creig Flessel, a noteworthy comic book artist who also created the ashcan cover art for Action Comics # 1, covers for several Detective Comics (during the pre-Batman era), etc. He continued working on comics clear into his 90s! There is little doubt that the Soare cover art and Flessel illustrations greatly command the interest and value to collectors.
Despite being the first issue, the table of contents page states it as Volume 1 Number 4. Online sources seem unclear as to what preceded it, but I think it very likely the first 3 were Undercover Detective, which expired with the April 1939 issue. Having leftover stock, they rebooted the pulp as Mystery Novels and Short Stories.
Spoiler alert !!!
Normally I don’t bother with warnings, but this rare magazine was reprinted by John Gunnison via his Adventure House imprint in 2007 and is very cheaply available as a facsimile on Amazon.com. If you wish to read this magazine, don’t read any further!
The lead novelette is Mistress of the Murder Madmen by Vernon James. It’s illustrated by Creig Flessel.
Lee Patten is assigned by his newspaper editor, Simeon Kane, to investigate why the wealthy elite are boarding up their homes and silently selling out. Lee accepts the assignment, with mixed emotions. It’s a crap job, but, this gal, Gail, lives there and he’s got a crush on her. Driving into the Back Bay community, Patten spots a strange sight, and jumping out of his Chevrolet, comes upon a grisly scene. A man hunched over with a knife has just carved out a young girl’s heart! It’s not long before he learns that several similarly identical incidences have occurred. And yet, those proud rich elitists are keeping the whole thing on the qt to avoid public humiliation, even though their own are being systematically murdered! Patten suspects Cleopatra Fari, an Egyptian beauty of intoxicating beauty and allure. The men of all ages seem drawn to her and even Patten has to fight off her entrancing spells. But when he’s witness to two murder slayings, is captured, and awakens to find himself immobilized and mute, it’s with double horror to watch another ritual slaying occur, with himself the next target. And the person assigned to stab him to death is Gail herself. More death follows including a well-described decapitation. Naturally, our protagonist survives, he gets the girl, and the sinister plot revealed.
Bride of the Ape by Harold Ward is the pulp magazine’s cover story; the internal illustration is not credited. Nor does the front cover accurately depict the content. There is no aged crone. And the ape is never behind bars. The hypo is semi-truthful, though in fact the story deals with a transfusion. ‘Nuff of the contradictory complaints, bub!
Newlyweds are lost and their car breaks down. Left on foot, with the weather worsening and the temperature dangerously dropping, they are pursued by some Thing. Nearing a distant house with a large, towering 20-foot perimeter fence, our male hero trips over an object. It’s the remnants of a mauled woman, gory and ripped to shreds. His wife screams into the night as a bestial figure swoops in and nabs his wife. He beats at it with a club and manages to free his wife but is bludgeoned for his efforts. They escape and knock repeatedly at the door. An older white man opens up and admits them. Inside, they are given shelter from the elements while the man, Bixby, listens in shock to their harrowing tale. He then sends outside Jarbo, an Algerian massive black man that speaks little English, to attend to the gorilla. While feeding his visitors food and spiked wine, the pair slip into a slumber. Waking, our hero finds himself bound to a bed. Hearing his wife’s terrified screams, distantly, he wrenches free and escapes his bounds to find his wife bound. Bixby is planning a blood transfusion. Jarbo desires the luscious white woman, but Bixby tries to dissuade the man. Jarbo kills Bixby to keep the white woman for his own but infuriates the gorilla who has taken a liking in her, too. The two battle it out but the gorilla strangles Jarbo to near death. Our hero grabs up the doctor’s revolver and blows the gorilla’s brains out.
Disciples of Black Desire by Dugal MacDougal is a novelette illustrated by Creig Flessel. That playfully alliterative alias is nauseating to me. Weirdly enough, that name might just be real, as I found a close variation, being Dugald MacDougall in England during the late 1800s. Honestly though, I think it’s a house name, too.
Broke and starving, Phyllis obtains a job via an unscrupulous agency operated by an ugly, evil woman. She’s sent by train to a remote home to be “company” for an invalid woman. Arriving at night, she enters the home, the door opened by a strangely scary man named Manuel. He refers to the man-of-the-house as Master. Phyllis is terrified to death, and finds the Master seems to have hypnotic capabilities. The door suddenly opens and two weirdos enter dragging a third man, a bum who claims he was looking in the barn for a place to sleep. The Master instead offers him a room for the night. Then the knocker sounds, and the Master calls for another person, Emilia, an aged woman, to open the door. In walks a young man, normal man, name of Dean. Claims to desire a place to rest. He clearly makes no sense so must have ulterior motives. The Master knows his name without being asked, surprising Dean. The three are escorted to their rooms. During the night, Phyllis wakes from a nightmare to find her door slowly inching open to reveal Emilia, hunched over like a feline. The woman leaps forward, snatches up a mouse and drops it down her maw and crunch and munches it gorily before Phyllis’ eyes. Mortified, she screams. Dean and the bum come a-running and Emilia pulls a vanishing act. She explains what she saw, and the trio decide to go downstairs to talk to the Master, after discovering escape via the windows impossible. Wolves are outside circling the property! Going down, they encounter another bizarre scene. Manuel and Emilia hunched on all fours like animals, one a cat, one a rat!
The story is fast-paced insanity and pure horror as Phyllis and her new acquaintances are assaulted at night by humans changed into animals. Dean attempts to shoot advancing pair but a wolf-man hurls into their midst, knocks out the light, and pure madness in the dark ensues. Phyllis manages to get the light on to find the bum (Jerry) on his back, with Dean over him, chewing through is neck! Dean has changed into a wolf-man creature! Mortified, Phyllis tries to escape but faints.
When she comes to, it’s to find Jerry rushing into her room. She points out that he was dead, the fang marks on his neck, knowing he’s been converted to the animalistic side of deviltry. In runs Dean, and Jerry whips out Dean’s own gun and shoots him dead. Pouncing upon Dean’s corpse, Jerry gloats only to discover Dean far from dead, and the pair fight until Dean literally this time murders Jerry. Dean turns to Phyllis but is lured out of the room by Emilia. A brief moment of lucidity, and Dean leaves to kill the old woman. Manuel enters via a secret passage, momentarily sane, and convinces Phyllis to join him and escape. The passage seals. Dean returns and in nonplussed she has vanished.
But Manuel has actually drawn Phyllis into the Master’s secret laboratory chambers, where he has caged animals. The man dons a red cloak and cowl, cracks an unnaturally razor-sharp whip, practices the dark arts, sold his soul to the devil, and utilizes the Black Mass to exact precision, transferring the blood of animals into humans and creating his own slaves. Now, capturing the girl again, he intends to draw out her lifeblood and transfer her being into the invalid-imbecile woman and make her whole again, his daughter!
The Pain Worshiper by Mat Rand is another novelette, likewise illustrated by Creig Flessel. Mat Rand was a house name, and the author of this particular story has not as yet attributed to one author.
The central plot takes place in the desert where a Hollywood company is working on filming a script that is written daily to avoid plot leaks. Various persons attached to the film are killed or maimed until the plot unravels to reveal that the scriptwriter had brought across the ocean a man that enjoyed inflicting pain and torture upon himself, making him visually into a very disturbing, emaciated, nearly bloodless being. His cohort is obviously someone else attached to the film, since the man responsible for his being obtained is the second person murdered. Who among their crew can be trusted when everyone present has egos and something to gain, or something to lose?
Ship of the Golden Ghoul by Lazar Levi is a novelette illustrated by someone signing simply as H. L., and dated 1938, indicating the story and illustration had been held over by the publisher for quite a while. Like Rand, Lazar Levi appears to be another house name, and quite alliterative. Too, there is a very strong chance that the person who authored this story also wrote the Vernon James tale, as they shared similar word choices, descriptions, etc.
Bruce and Julia, an unmarried but dating couple, are vacationing on a schooner and intent on checking out a remote island when they are attacked by a dark sailing vessel piloted by a dead man, a literal corpse handling the wheel. Bruce tries his best to avoid the veering boat, but it smashes into their schooner and rapidly sinks them. The ghost ship sails away, apparently unscathed, and Bruce sees a golden-haired siren aboard laughing eerily. Bruce and Julia are tossed into the vicious sea and fight for their lives to make it to shore. Bruce is concussed upon the rocks after being battered against a reef. Coming to, he searches and finds Julia, safe ashore. They are best upon by two dark-skinned savages, but Bruce manages to fight them off. They melt away into the jungle wilderness.
Bizarrely, the pair find a home in the jungle manned by two rich men and two other men present as guards or guides. But when a series murders take place, Bruce places his trust in Jerry, a man who claims to be an undercover Federal agent, disclosing the other men are a jewel robber and a fence for stolen goods. But those men and their help soon are slain and ripped gorishly apart by the dark-skinned men wielding each a Malay. Julia goes missing and Bruce suddenly recalls the ghost ship that sank them. He’s certain the mystery lies aboard that vessel. Stripping down to his shorts, Bruce dives into the waters, rips past the reef and pummeling waves, and tiringly finally makes the anchored vessel. Climbing the chains, he finds one man aboard hung to death and is rapidly concussed again for his endeavors. Revived, he’s found bound to a chair a white, blonde seductress in charge of the two Malay-wielding villains. Julia is brought in to be sliced and diced but left alive to torture Bruce as he turns down the blonde’s affections, Jerry suddenly bursts into the scene with his gun, having overheard the conversation she had with Bruce, offering to be his lover and spilt the stolen jewels. But he prefers Julia and hence her desire to mar the competition. Jerry turns out to be a confederate and NOT a Fed at all. She orders the two men to kill Jerry, and a battle takes place that ends with a bullet in the girl’s chest. Her last efforts yield in giving Bruce the key to release his shackles so that she may be avenged.
It’s a wild and wooly adventure story with some crazy blood-and-thunder action and gore with the stereotypical guy-gets-the-girl conclusion but made for a good bubblegum read.
Daughters for Death’s Revelry by Arthur J. Burks is a short story illustrated by Creig Flessel.
Treat Prentiss is heading to essentially a campsite resort to receive word from the gorgeous young lady he’s been courting for a couple years her answer to marriage. Treat’s chauffeur gets drunk and remains behind, refusing to drive his boss, because of rumors of creepy happenings in that area. So, Treat, unaccustomed to driving, takes the wheels but the car breaks down. He hoofs the remaining distance and arrives at night. He’s not a coward but is scared of the dark and woods. Strangely, he hears no human noises. He finally locates his girl’s cabin and walks in only to fall upon the corpse of a dead man. He witnesses a strange girl go by the cabin and pursues only to watch her walk into a raging river and die. Returning to the cabin, the corpse is missing. He finds the body in another cabin in bed with a slain woman. Strange music and noises deeper in the woods call him but first he gathers up a weapon, a mere kitchen knife, to ward off evil.
He finds a dozen women shackled together and their mouths taped shut. Around the area are masked men. Of his girl, he sees her not. Treat helps one girl to escape by flinging the knife into a man’s face, who whips her about the face; she extracts the knife and finishes him off, then runs accidentally towards Treat. Thinking he is one of her attackers, she cuts him, in passing. He turns to escape but instead jumps up a tree and remains silent, realizing the creepy party would deduce where the knife was hurled from. One of the men approaches with his gun and realizes Treat must be in the tree. Thankfully, the girl returns and rescues him, realizing Treat must have saved her life. She slits the man’s neck, and the pair briefly escape to collect their thoughts and shockingly, start making out. Treat breaks free and apologizes and the girl, Carla, realizes he must be Treat Prentiss, the man who the prank was to be played upon. Prank?!?!?!? Yes, it was intended to prank Prentiss and see if he would man up and rescue his girl, at which time she’d marry him, but the whole plan went awry when all these husky men showed up, masked, and took control of the situation, killing their opposition, etc. Returning to the collective, the pair watch and see his girl with none other than his own supposedly drunk chauffeur! Angered, he approaches, only to be bonked on the head. Reviving, he’s informed she never loved him, preferring the chauffeur. Carla rescues him and the pair mete out death and destruction to the other men who can’t seem to decide whether to fight him or themselves for the honor of her seductive body.
An absolutely bonkers and ludicrous way to conclude the story.
Been a hot minute since I last read Western Story Magazine. Herewith the 14 April 1928 edition, published by the Street & Smith Corporation. The cover art is by Sidney Riesenberg. The cover illustration is ripped right from the pages of the pulp’s opening novella.
It boasts 144 pages but is packed with two serials that, just as last time, I plan on skipping. They are by Thunder Brakes by Cherry Wilson and The Path to Plunder by Max Brand.
The opening novella is North of Jump-Off by Robert Ormond Case, a very frigid dire straits Frozen North drama in which a learned man and teacher at a university decides to leave the cool comforts of life and travel to the far reaches of non-civilization to die. Unfortunately, he comes across an overturned sleigh with a tarpaulin overtop. Inside the shelter is a seemingly mummified man in a parka sitting, immobile. To our nameless protagonist’s surprise, the person is alive. He invites our lead inside because patrolling the perimeter is a starving wolf pack. Neither person has much ammo. During the next some dozens of pages the pair talk in riddles and psychologically evaluate their predicament, which can only conclude in freezing to death or being mauled to death. Intriguingly, the story takes a crazy turn of events, when the frozen chap decides to make a break, and convinces his companion to haul him back south to Jump-Off, the nearest “settlement” in the frozen wasteland.
Robert Ormond Case must have been fairly good friends with Frank Richardson Pierce. According to the Pierce archives, they hold over 120 letters! Likewise, Case’s collection is held at the University of Oregon, but they do not have a detailed inventory noted online, but we do know that his archive does has a file for Pierce. The pair appeared in the same magazines, often simultaneously.
All Black by Hugh F. Grinstead involves a trader who tries to scalp Indians of their valuables, believing one and all to be gullible. That’s until one pretending to be dumb, but he has back East and trained plenty good in English, reading and writing, etc., and comes to pull a fast one on the trader.
Peg Leg Saves the Doctor’s Fee by Frederick Robert Buckley as F. R. Buckley, features Sheriff Bill Garfield, aka Peg Leg. Bill is in his 70s and by all accounts seems to have seen war. (The Civil War? Could be since his friend, Doc Brewer, mentions mending Jack Davis (Jefferson Davis?). The math on their ages vs the Civil War sounds a wee bit iffy, given this story is published in 1928. You do the math!) The story is first-person narrated cheekily by the sheriff and makes for a swell read throughout. The sheriff learns from one of Betty’s would-be suitors (Pious Parsons), who she doesn’t like, that Doc Brewer and the Governor had a chat and that it seems Brewer threw the sheriff under the proverbial bus, inferring he’s too old for the job. So, he sets out with Two-Gun, a young man that favors Betty’s interests, she in return for his, but the sheriff dislikes the young lad’s interest. So, disgusted by Brewer’s inference that he’s too old to handle these modern-day 1920s cattle rustlers, he takes to the trail and Two-Gun tags along. Bill informs him that they must “take” the crooks without totally injuring them. See, the State pays the doc a $2 fee for every man “brought in” by the law that needs mending before trial…assuming of course, that they are alive. Bill intends to rob his erstwhile friend of those fees! And does but ends up bloodied in the line of duty. Refusing to have Brewer mend his wounds, he goes home to sleep only to be awakened by another sheriff stating their bank’s safe was blown and the robber is headed into Bill’s county. Bill drags his battered body out to “safely” capture the thief. Only, when he does, it turns out to be Pious Parsons, who told him at the onset that Doc Brewer had talked negatively of him to the governor! Turns out he is a bandit, preying on rich lady heirs while robbing banks and then moving on. Bringing this galoot “in,” he’s met by an irate Doc Brewer for his $8 total fees being lost, a wounded sheriff on his hands, and a captured thief who tries to escape. Tries. In anger, Bill grabs a fire poker and bangs it over his head, then points at the dead-to-the-world man and tells the Doc he’s got a $2 fee after all.
Who Poached on the Poachers? by Ray Humphreys features Deputy Shorty McKay who must solve the overabundance of birds being murdered beyond the permitted hunting season. A $250 reward is posted for capture of the party or parties involved. McKay wants that reward so he can buy a new saddle. Time passes but neither he nor the sheriff recover any clues. Then one day, they get a call. Someone’s been shot. He’s at the hospital, bleeding out from a wound in the thigh. Arriving, it’s one of the group that posted the reward. McKay wonders if he was shot by the person(s) responsible for the bird killings. The sheriff catches McKay sneaking a yack with the purty blonde nurse and chastises him for not being in the med room with the wounded victim. McKay has other plans: find the shooter. He lays a trap: a cooked pheasant is sent to the wounded party in the hospital with a note stating he got what he deserved and that he’s made a full confession to McKay. The wounded gent gets mad and blurts out that he and another had a gambling bet on who could shoot the most birds during the hunting season but it got out of control; neither would stop adding kills to the tally. ‘Nuff said.
While They Waited for Help by Harley P. Lathrop features a young man, bred in Texas, whose father is pure old-fashioned Southern gentleman through and through. So when he invites old friends from Tennessee, he’s infuriated that his son does not attend. Instead, he’s at another ranch. The father had plans to introduce him to his friend’s daughter and arrange a marriage. The son isn’t interested in his father’s ways nor in women. His father, disgusted, throws him off the ranch, to never return. The young man takes his horse and rides West. Over time, a nameless gent in Texas attains the name of Brazos, packs two six-guns and calmly kills anyone that gets in his way. Oh, he’s never looking for trouble. Trouble always finds him, often not, people looking to make a name killing him. It gets to the point that he’s connivingly tricked into hiring onto a spread that is rustling and branding another’s cows and he overhears at night, while in his bunk, that they plan to use him to kill the other guy! Realizing he’s been played and that they know his identity, next day, he requests his pay. The owner agrees to pay him out at the end of the week, when they ride into town. Brazos agrees and unwittingly is steered into a belligerent confrontation with the antagonist, who doesn’t realize Brazos is a man-killer. Brazos takes all the insults and slurs and rides away, seething. His boss is more furious that Brazos cowardly failed to kill the man so he could take over the spread and foolishly draws his gun to kill Brazos. Hence, Brazos, now a cartridge short for shooting down his employer, rides further West and enters a new phase of his life. His horse is plumb tuckered out as he enters a stage depot. He surrenders his horse as downpayment for a ride on the stage. Inside is a young lady and she’s mortified upon hearing the stage driver and another discuss a gang planning to raid the stage for the money and that they think Brazos might be a member. But the driver recognizes Brazos and vouches for him. The damage is already done, far as the girl is concerned. Brazos is a killer and he’s riding with her, inside the stage, seated directly across from her! Unbeknownst to her, the man who detests women is impressed by her beauty. When her teeth set to chattering, he thinks it’s because she’s cold and forcefully puts his blanket roll about her. She’s actually terrified to death of him. Then the stage throws a wheel and delayed a day, they pull out again, only for the driver to tell Brazos that a gang planning on robbing and killing them is in pursuit. Cutting one of the four horses free, Brazos sends the driver riding to the nearest town for reinforcements. He then updates the gal on the situation, and that she is to hide in the rocks and he’ll stay below to stave the killers off, etc. To his surprise, she refuses, stating that’d be twice he has ruined his life over her. Turns out during the ride she recognizes in his hardened, youthful features the family resemblance to his old man! She’s the gal he was to meet and potentially marry.
Dad Simms Takes a Short Cut by Frank Richardson Pierce features Dad Simms, a 70s-something years old gold prospector. The year is 1928 for all concerned and Prohibition is in full swing. But when Reggie, another of Dad’s old prospecting mates arrives, he imparts a secret message to Dad Simms, who quickly obtains a coupla strong, hearty dogs and mushes to the glacier. There’s a pass that can be cut through once in a while as a short cut, and this season it is accessible. Everyone in town suspects Simms has struck out for gold and follow him, but he mushes hard and keeps going, despite a blizzard, to escape his posse. Simms then strikes out for a steamer, hits Seattle, and catches a train into the Midwest! Everyone has given up chasing him, but Flapjack in Seattle picks up the pursuit and catches a train East, too. Destination: Simmsville. Say what? Flapjack disembarks at Simmsville station to find a parade in progress. Watching, he’s gobsmacked to see Dad Simms in a Civil War uniform. Dad Simms was a Corporal! (How could Dad Simms in his 70s have been a Corporal during the Civil War? At the earliest, 1861 to 1928 gives us 67 years. If we assume Dad Simms at his oldest was 79, he’d have to be aged 12 as a Corporal?!?!?! The math and his rank do not jive!Granted, it is remotely feasible, since John Clem attained a rank of Sergeant at age 12.)
Unloaded for Bear by Roland Krebs is narrated by a nameless former NYC vaudeville person who moved to Montana and joined the R Bar R ranch for his health. He welcomes one of his New York mates and the locals decide to prank him because he desires to go hunting and they are certain the city boy isn’t for real. The story is absurd for having a chap who owns a bear from a circus, a very tame lovable bear, and brought it to the ranch for a visit. They plan to use the tame bear to scare the dickens out the city boy, but the prank goes awry when a real monstrosity makes its appearance.
That Biggest Fish by Seth Ranger is the alias of Frank Richardson Pierce. Sparky Morgan is 18. He’s won the local steelhead trout competition twice. But his rival, Fogler, a wealthy businessman, has scooped him twice. Fogler likes attention. Sparky wants to win because he makes a side job livelihood locating ideal spots for fishermen. Lose the competition means loss of clients. Fogler gets his mug photographed and a camera crew covers the event. So when Sparky discovers Fogler has been illegally dropping nets upstream that permit smaller trout through but not larger ones, he throws the net in the man’s face. Fogler is willing to pay Sparky any amount by check for him to save face, but Sparky is honest. He wants a fair fishing competition and demands Fogler attend and compete! Fogler can’t comprehend but decides to continue his cheating ways. In his rich four wheels, his driver follows Sparky, who is on foot following the winding river. Realizing where Sparky intends to fish, they speed ahead so Fogler can get there first. Fogler takes the best river pool and Sparky is forced to cross the river across from Fogler.
Naturally, Sparky wins, but it’s a fight to the finish, as he must endure an immense struggle with a powerfully strong, heavy steelhead trout for endless minutes. Meanwhile, Fogler hefts in a 21-pounder, and speeds away, certain of instant victory. But when Fogler’s driver spots Sparky with his spiked boots riding a log down the river, they speed up trying in vain to get to town first. Fogler does, but his vanity slows him down as he surveys the crowd and plays to them. When he discovers Sparky rushed in the backway and weighed his trout ahead of him, Fogler learns he’s been beat by 1 pound and 100% of his own vanity.
Creasey Mystery Magazine (v1 n5, January 1957) was published by Dalrow Publishing and sports an illustrated cover by their only contracted artist, Ronald W. Smethurst signing as R.W.S.
And this review has been a long time coming, if you note when the prior one was released. So I dug out the draft and noticed it was the January issue. No brains required. Here we are, entering the New Year. I even considered sitting on it until 2027, but that would be really lazy “planned” procrastination. Okay, enough of my silliness. Let’s dig in; shall we?
The lead novelette is Night Without Hope by John Creasey. Alec Cameron, an American oil representative, is in South Africa investigating an oil strike. Having finished his assignment, he’s speeding along a back road when he smashes up against rocks. Investigating the Pontiac, he discovers he ruptured the gas tank. Forced to walk, he grabs his stores of water, some personal belongings, and a gun. The luggage remains behind. Walking, he happens upon a home. Approaching, he’s met by a well-dressed man who gives his name as Holden. There are other men and tribesmen present, and it’s not long before he realizes something is dreadfully wrong. First, they lie to him when he asks after a woman. He knows he saw a woman briefly outside, when he had approached. Then, when given a bedroom, he finds a guard outside in the hall and one outside his window walking the grounds. The window can be opened but a mesh covers any further attempts to escape. Too, his gun is missing. Cameron hears the girl loudly singing, then a cry, then silence. Who are these people? Who is the girl that does not exist? Turns out Holden pulled off a jewel heist in Italy. Now he is trapped in this house. The world is hunting him. The men with him are after the jewels but only he knows where they are. And the girl? The whole story is rather convoluted. She was a mannequin in the jewelry shop and knew of the heist, etc. Somehow she managed to locate the man who calls himself Holden but she was captured. When Cameron arrived, they believed he was an agent of the police or someone else. The pair are only saved when the local police conduct a raid and a shootout ensues.
It’s really not Creasey at his best. The magazine notes that this is the First Publication. Given the plot takes place in South Africa, I’d be surprised if Creasey didn’t make a sale there, too, as he reportedly did place stories down there.
The Augean Stables by Agatha Christie features her famous Hercule Poirot character called in to help some political members save their “party” from a yellow rag that seeks to expose monetary fraud. I was quite disappointed with this tale, since Poirot himself uses deceit to wash away the political group’s sins from the tabloid and thereby freeing them from further public scrutiny. This tale first appeared in The Strand (March 1940).
Mr. Paisley’s Murder is by Elizabeth Newling. Mr. Paisley has long dreamt of murdering his wife, Maud. She’s large and overbearing and they simply are not compatible. While at the local pub, drinking, Mr. Paisley is gobsmacked when a complete stranger puts on gloves and before his very eyes, witnesses a pike in a glass case simply disappear! Moving to exit, Mr. Paisley intercepts the man (Henry) and asks him to have a drink. Henry does, and they discuss his supernatural power, the use of the gloves. Henry can’t really explain how his abilities work, nor how they work in conjunction with the gloves, but if he focuses hard enough, he can make things…gone. Almost in what he terms an atomic sense. Mr. Paisley explains he wants his wife gone and Henry agrees to terms. He’s invited over to dine many times over the days and weeks and so forth. During this time period, Henry continues to practice on vanishing larger and larger items. He’s never done a person before. Tried a cat once. Didn’t quite take. One day, Henry winks at Mr. Paisley; he excuses himself out into the yard, thinking Henry’s about to pull off his deed. Henry goes inside, then later joins Mr. Paisley. Only, Mr. Paisley sees the man’s eyes and gloves and realizes the truth. His wife and Henry have flipped the script. Henry returns inside while Maud prepares supper. For two. And Henry discards the gloves.
A simple story but surprising to find this to be a supernatural crime story. It would seem more at home with the publisher’s sister magazine, Phantom. I’ve nary a clue who Elizabeth Newling is or was, as the name is too common. Nor do I know if the story originally was published prior, buried in a magazine or newspaper. Courtesy Richard Simms’ exhaustive research and indexing of the (London) Evening News, we know that Elizabeth Newling had at least one more published work, The Blind, in the 17 October 1953 issue.
The Emperor’s Dice is a classic from the vaults of Ellery Queen, oft reprinted. This tale debuted 31 March 1940 over the radio waves before appearing in print nearly a decade later, in the April 1951 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. The tale opens with a brief history into Caligula, his interest in gambling, murdering his future heir, etc. The scene switches to Inspector Queen, son Ellery, and Nikki Porter being driven by one of their hosts to a home shared by his brother and Malvina. The drive is reckless during a dark and stormy night, setting the mood, as the driver (Mark) tells an eerie tale of murder from a decade ago. Ellery is naturally drawn in and learns the murdered man is Mark’s father. A slew of clues and timelines are laid out, including two cleaned firearms and a pair of ancient dice reportedly having belonged to Caligula. They are gold with rubies. Remaining awake all night to solve the murder mystery, Ellery plays with the dice and finally solves the mystery. It’s all a ruse and plays out admirably. A cheeky bit of writing from the Queen writing duet but holds up quite well, so I won’t ruin the plot for anyone.
Victor Canning’s The Coral Tree is first-person narrated, from the viewpoint of a private eye. He’s watching Shaw, accused of hanky-panky with another Hollywood man’s wife. Tails him to his house. Sketches a coral tree in the yard, because he’s an amateur artist, too. The man who hired him arrives, goes inside. Comes out again, red in the face. The PI takes a gander about. Strange. His car is still there. But no Shaw. Calls it a night. Returns next day. Tree service about to remove the coral tree, only, they are called off the job. Investigates closer. Finds Shaw dead, knife in chest. Drives away. Mr. Big didn’t wipe him out. Wife boning some other chap. Hits the newspaper morgue. Learns Shaw’s pad was owned by an eccentric. Goes back to the mansion. Electric meter still clicking. Who is using the electricity? Notes a section of a bronze statue is shiny. Shouldn’t be. Should be dull, like the rest of it. Unless someone touches that part repeatedly. He does; it swings open. Prior mansion owner lives secretly under the ground! He sold it to Shaw and secreted himself below all that time. He had murdered his wife and planted the coral tree over her. So when he learned Shaw wanted it removed, he removed Shaw.
The Coral Tree was later in 1957 translated to comic strip format as Super Detective Library no. 106 (All in Pictures series) as The Riddle of the Coral Tree. I imagine this story originally appeared in an English newspaper.
The next is a seafaring tale. Not being nautically minded, these sea stories often leave me befuddled. A Question of Fouling features Josephine Bell‘s recurring detective Dr. David Wintringham. He’s with his friend, Hugh, aboard the latter’s boat, at port, and loosely investigate a murder. Tides, rope burn about the corpse’s neck, and a boat one day sitting low, the next quite high, lead Wintringham to solve a mysterious death quite quickly.
FictionMags Index site shows only a total of 5 short stories featuring Wintringham. Searching various online digitized websites, I’ve found that Death in a Crystal (in The Saint Mystery Magazine, August 1960) was syndicated in Australia’s The Daily Telegraph on 3 Feb 1954. Also via Australia, further tales surfaced: The Surgeon’s Towel (23 April 1954), The Thief Who was Timid, (8 May 1954), The Mute and the Missing Key (17 May 1954), and The Money Box Murder (18 May 1954) each in The Sydney Morning Herald. Undoubtedly there are more syndicated works, and countless more originating in English newspapers. Anyway, if you are a fan of Bell and her detective, you may wish to take a dip into those stories. Love them or hate them, leave me a note if you click and read any of them, please.
Francis Quarles is brought in by an English minister to not solve a mystery, but to retrieve by any means possible a government document. In The Case of W.C.2, Quarles is instructed to approach the known international thief and obtain the papers. He does so, setting up an appointment. Arriving, Zelblec sits with him. Quarles offers an insanely high price. Zelblec is interested. Quarles asks to see the document. Rationalizing that Zelblec can’t show him a document he does not have, Quarles departs when the thief draws his gun. Returning to the minister and the lackey who had the document stolen from him, Quarles relays his experience. And the identity of the person who actually has the document. He’s dead, but that doesn’t change matters.
I’ve no clue where this story first appeared, but the FictionMags Index site states it was originally published as The Case of SW2 in the [London] Evening Standard, 2 August 1950. As I don’t have access to that paper, I can’t compare the text. If identical, I do wonder why my magazine chose to alter the title, given it was printed all other times as The Case of SW2. Or, they are all wrong, and the story I read has nothing to do with the other.
The final tale is The Case of the Somnambulist’s Secret by Ernest Dudley, featuring his recurring criminologist-detective, Doctor Morelle. The tale is excerpted from the hardback book Meet Dr. Morelle (London: Long, 1943). Morelle originally was created as a radio play series, airing on Monday Night at Eight in 1942. Ernest Dudley contributed short stories to Odham’s Illustrated, a weekly, and Thomson’s Weekly News, according to an article by Brian Doyle published in Collector’s Digest, January 1998. Most issues have yet to be indexed (online) so I’m not sure just how many appeared during the early 1940s. Dubbed “the man you love to hate” in one newspaper, fans of Dudley’s remorselessly sarcastic, condescending, and seemingly brutally mean “jerk” towards his “frail” secretary, Miss Frayle, made the series increasingly popular with his unique characters.
In this story, Frayle phones for a cab who arrives unknowingly with a corpse in the back seat. Dudley utilizes the cab driver as the comic relief throughout the tale. Morelle and the cabbie carry the body inside, where Morelle analyzes the corpse. Sodden all over save for his shoes. No rainwater nor mud present. He clearly was carried and dumped in the car. Why was the letter opener left in his body? Foolish amateur mistake? The cabbie recognizes the dead bloke and recalls the residence from where he’s been seen to exit. The trio hop in the cab and race off to investigate. (Seriously? No police involvement?) Arriving at the establishment, Miss Frayle rings the doorbell. Nobody answers. Morelle sarcastically tells her to do so again, to which she doubles that request. Nobody answers. Since Morelle had spotted a face at a window, he pulls a blade and in cliché fashion pops the window. They illegally enter and watch as a lovely young woman walks about in her sleep. Bizarrely, despite the focus of the story’s title, we never meet the woman. She sleepwalks and eventually departs the scene. They enter a room and discover another corpse. A quick examination and Morelle deduces the man committed suicide. Thus enters the dead man’s business assistant / associate (Dale) and a butler. Morelle rapidly learns the dead man before him, Mason, killed himself because his wife, the sleepwalker, is in love with the first dead man from the cab. So, who killed loverboy? Mason did, as Morelle notes envelopes on the desk but a missing letter opener. In a fit of jealous rage, Mason killed the lover, and had the assistant (Dale) ditch the corpse outside, into one of the cabs outside a pub across the street. Feeling remorse, he killed himself. The police arrive 15 minutes after the pair broke in and Morelle explains the whole case to the police. Dale is arrested after attempting to flee and booked as an accessory to murder.
I look forward to reading further Morelle/Frayle stories. Luckily for me, I have 3 more of his stories in upcoming issues of the Creasey Mystery Magazine.
At a local used bookshop, I picked up a reading copy of Clarence E. Mulford’s classic western novel, simply titled Tex. I’d never read anything by Mulford; and knowing full well that he is famous for his Hopalong Cassidy character and enduring series which made its way onto the silver screen and into comic books, I figured I ought to take a dip.
So, I took a gamble, paid $5 flat, and perused this abridged edition printed by the Graphic Publishing Co. of New York. They issued the book at least four times, with the following printing dates of September 1949, January 1951, June 1952, and October 1954, for which mine is the latter.
The first bound edition appeared via A. C. McClurg late in 1922 with the true first publication I suspect (but can’t prove) might be in the pulp fiction magazine Short Stories. There, it was a 2-part serial, appearing in the 25 January and 10 February 1922 editions under the title of Tex Ewalt. It certainly seems plausible, but I’ve not seen a copy to compare text against.
Clarence Mulford is most famously recollected among western reading afficionados for the creation of Hopalong Cassidy and the Bar 20 men. I’m certain to have seen some of the movies spawned from this and read only that Clarence disliked the way Hollywood changed his characters. Tex Ewalt is the lead protagonist in the novel Tex and his character comes from the Bar 20. I’ve no knowledge of how he is portrayed in any earlier works, so I won’t guess.
While rummaging through a used bookshop, I picked up a handful of vintage reads. Having never read Clarence’s works, I eagerly popped Tex into the stack, already aware that it’s a classic. And, having read the book, it is nice to see a scene accurately depicted on the front cover, whereas the one featured on a Harlequin book is entirely wrong in that a woman handling a rifle is certainly never present in the book, especially any woman fighting alongside a man.
Settling down for a night’s read, I was bowled over that our protagonist quotes religious verses from a wide variety of sources, literary quotes, etc., and shows off the author’s range of intelligence while systematically making the reader feel stupid for his lack of education. And while I certainly get the gist of much of the nonsense, it is overly done to the point of being annoying, and Tex can’t help but namedrop famous other Clarence characters such as his most famous, Hopalong Cassidy, etc., as if the need was there to bolster the credibility of the novel I’m reading, or that Tex couldn’t stand on his own without their backing, literarily speaking.
In short, the intellectual padding becomes boring and over-the-top pretentious. Too, this being the Wild West, naturally most people are NOT educated, and would hardly comprehend the flapping gums of Tex Ewalt, who is there under the name of Tex Jones, which is hardly a disguise in names.
He seems to be there as a man of vengeance, returning to the scene of a crime harkening back many years ago, meting out retribution against rich townsman Gus Williams. And yet, I’m never given the inside track to precisely why Tex has taken an interest in this town. Perhaps being an abridged paperback edition, something of importance was cut out, but I doubt it. It’s more likely we are simply to understand that Tex has an old ache in his heart from years or decades ago to pursue and Williams is his target. In any case, Tex alludes to the fact nobody recognizes him and is careful to avoid clues to rekindle their memories.
All the while, Tex manipulates like a sage snake every person he meets, even the innocents. In short, he’s an unsavory character in my book and if he is a true literary hero, I can only hope that by the conclusion that he will die a gruesome death.
Alas, he does not, and somehow, he even gets the girl, which by the conclusion runs quite contrary to how the entire plot had been playing out. It’s jarringly unnecessary to provide Tex any romantic interest as even he himself berates himself as unworthy and nearly twice the woman’s age.
Try as I might, while I have made plenty of complaints, I did enjoy the action scenes and Tex’s abilities to manipulate everyone to suit his requirements, but it was all so pathetically easy with zero resistance. Bizarrely, I can’t fathom why Hollywood never chased after this novel. It has all the right earmarks and could readily be adjusted to suit their needs. I shockingly find myself thinking that keeping our Tex a facetious intellectual among the Kansas folks would work out quite well, given the right party to play the part, but he’d need to be a rugged individual, not a pretty-boy.
I’d love to discuss the entirety of the novel’s plot, but the book is so darned commonplace to locate in any number of different vintage and modern editions, so, why bother? And damnably cheap, too, so one would be a fool to buy a modern edition! Go forth and acquire a vintage copy; hell, even an abridged copy will do.
Several years ago, I acquired a collection of original artwork, all from 1941-1944. Many of the pieces are wartime political comic humorous pieces. Some art comic artists. One is a paperback and hardback jacket artist.
Upon receiving them, I immediately identified two-thirds of the artists. Over the subsequent years, others fell into line, courtesy of comparing them with others previously identified and the sources they were printed within.
This particular piece frustrated me. Unlike some that had illegible signatures, this charming work is clearly, boldly, and flowerily signed PALMER. It immediately made me think the artist could be female.
As it turns out, I was correct. More on that in a minute.
The topic of this original commission artwork features two WW2-attired ladies in the foreground frankly gossiping about an overweight woman in the background, with the taller, bustier gal stating:
“Supposing all of us went about looking like beauty queens?”
I had originally drawn no clues as to the identity of this artist. However, I did have some leads.
A “Palmer” was in The Pick of Punch (1946 Annual edition) covering July 1945 through June 1946.
“Palmer” also appeared in I Couldn’t Help Laughing! An Anthology of War-Time Humour edited by D. B. Wyndham Lewis, London: Lindsay Drummond, 1941 (reprinted through 1944). Sadly, the art there is only signed as Palmer, too. The first edition only had 2 pieces by Palmer. Later editions had 3 pieces by Palmer (pages 33, 91, 131).
I saved an example from Page 33 as it mirrors my own piece; as you can see, it features more war-ladies.
Palmer also contributed to Men Only, a digest sized magazine, appearing in issues from 1939-1945. Two pieces in the Nov 1939 issues feature the same lovely signature. I’ve attached that work, showing an officer saluting the girls.
The following link below is for the A Primer of Cartoon Cliches blog site, in which Chris Mullen showcases a handful of Palmer works from within various issues of Men Only. I’m greatly indebted to Chris for his hard work and dedication building up such a wonderful blog, as it back then gave me further access to viewing Palmer’s works, but still brought me no closer to solving the mystery.
I had (in the past) put forth my request openly on the Internet to various researchers and colleagues in the field, with no results.
So, color me mystified (December 2025) to find a well-researched blog providing all the answers!
The following site clearly details who artist Doris Mary Palmer (nee Lambert) was and provides at the bottom an addendum page, too, and noting she was married to publisher Cecil Palmer. If you scroll down that page to the WW2 section of artwork, you’ll see that the pieces are identically signed, etc.
I’m thrilled after all these long years to finally be able to identify the creator of this cherished work of art. Thank you, Bob Forrest, for your extensively detailed research and to Palmer’s family, for their contributions, as well. I’d love to email Bob to thank him directly, however, I could not locate on his site any way of doing so, short of sending him snail-mail.
Early 2025 I managed to acquire a couple dozen 1920s-1930s detective pulps. The earliest was the 14th issue of Flynn’s, which I’ve already blogged. The next earliest is from 1926, now titled Flynn’s Weekly. It later would become Detective Fiction Weekly, for which there are several copies in this haul, too. I’ll be reading and blogging each at a future date. So, stayed tuned!
The 30 October 1926 edition of Flynn’s Weekly cover is illustrated by Lejaren Hiller, featuring a girl in a tree. This scene is described in the lead story, except that she is crying.
The Silver Urn by Foxhall Daingerfield (Part 1 of 2) Normally I stay away from serials, but this time I decided to tackle the half presented. It reads like those found in the illustrated story papers of the early part of the 20th century. Written from a female’s point of view, it is dignified and proper, and quite stale. Rich older women, in control of finances, younger male heirs ill-equipped to handle funds, or so the women believe. Hence their iron fist control of money. We have negro butlers, maids, liverymen, chauffeurs, etc. They are not ill-treated. In fact, they are kept in their “place” but also at times treated as “family” members in other instances. And yes, for you readers that can’t handle the shame of the N-word, it is used quite often within the text of this story.
Samuel L. Jackson perhaps sums up your queasy bowels succinctly when Leonardo DiCaprio was ill-at-ease with using the N-word in Django Unchained. Sources state he pulled Leonardo aside and said: “Motherfucker, this is just another Tuesday for us. Let’s go.” In this case, get over it. This story was published in 1926. You have no reason to be ashamed or appalled. Times were different. I try to read stories from the backseat looking into the world of the past.
The narrator (Elen) notes her maid has been with her a long time, so that when her brother died, leaving behind a daughter (Bertha), she became the child’s guardian until she came of age to acquire her family’s fortunes. Oh, to have been born into money, wealth, obscene mansions with stupid names attached to them. The story deals with the young lady finding love with Prince Holly. He lives with a rich older woman (Sylvia) in her 70s. In that same household the old woman has two brothers. They own a racehorse, and according to her father’s last wish, Sylvia was to keep money from them lest they ruin the family. Bizarrely, they seem to be doing just fine with the horse (named Vanish) which goes on to win a race. Our narrator, Elen, has her chauffeur drive her to the Holly residence, to discuss the engagement of Prince Holly to the girl. Old Sylvia is angry that Prince never confided in her. Then she goes on an exposition regarding the family fortune and trust, and the silver urn to which she places rose petals inside. This is the last time the old lady is seen alive by Elen, who is more focused on a dance she is setting up. Too, she disagrees with the batty woman, herself loving horse races.
The dance comes off with great success and oddly, Elen has a habit of memorizing when everyone arrives. In fact, she records the times in a diary. This fact is dictated to the reader, no doubt as clues to the upcoming crime, the old lady’s death. Meanwhile, as noted, the Holly racehorse did win, and Holly came away with $10,000 (over $180,000 converted to 2025) of the trio’s winnings. With this fortune, the niece notes gleefully that she and Prince Holly may now be married. A silly remark, given that she is rich in her own right, but no doubt Prince having money of his own enables him to establish himself, too.
Excitement picks up quickly when the old woman and one of her brothers are found murdered by a negro servant. Fleeing in mortal terror, he runs the entire way to where the dance party is being held. Out of breath, he pantingly tells his night of horror. Elen and Prince drive to the estate ahead of everyone else, and find Sylvia’s corpse sitting up in bed, her head split open. They then investigate one of her brother’s rooms, to find him dead, but far more mutilated. Later the body of the big negro (known as Big Livery) that keeps company with Vanish is found dead, his cheek swollen, and an unfinished piece of apple in his teeth. Time passes, and the horse also dies, after consuming an apple. While there to recover the apples as evidence, on the suspicion they are poisoned, somebody fires a shot at them. Prince draws his pistol and returns fire, but the assailant disappears. The pair depart with the apples and bring them to the coroner, who expects them, noting that Big Livery died of potassium cyanide. He suggests that if they find whoever injected the apples, they’ll probably find the killers of Sylvia, her brother, and Big Livery. After all, while Prince has his $10k, the rest of the horse winnings is missing. (Or is all of it missing?) I don’t know for certain, as that was not clarified and I won’t perhaps ever know unless I read Part 2 in the 1st weekly issue for November 1926. The Silver Urn was bound as a mystery novel in 1927 by D. Appleton & Co., but while no copies are available online for sale (at the time I typed up this blog) I did find the whole novel digitized and freely accessible!
At the Crossroads by Agatha Christie leads off with a wealthy older gentleman murdered. While en route to the murdered man’s estate, Satterthwaite and another occupant crash into a vehicle at the crossroads. Satterthwaite discovers they collided with none other than Harley Quin, who has directly or indirectly or not at all (according to Harley Quin) aided in the solving of other recent crimes. (Online, it is suggested that Harley Quin may be a supernatural being). And, coincidentally, seems to show up at the right moment. Quin is apparently a romantic and Satterthwaite thinks his appearance necessary. The murdered man was married to a much younger, very beautiful woman. It is speculated that she had been having an affair with a darker-skinned young man of proper standing. (Not that an affair on either part is proper, mind you!) Having contrived to invite Quin along with them, they arrive, inspect the scene. The bloke had his brains bashed in with a bronze figure. All manner of objects in disarray. A heavy clock is on its side, the time stopped. The police determine that that was the time of the murder. The staff are interviewed, then the Lady herself makes a dramatic appearance, stating that she murdered her husband, shot him dead with a gun. They send her to her rooms, telling her maid to watch her. The maid worries they’ll arrest the butler for the crime; she is in love with him. The Lady’s lover enters and proclaims that he murdered the man with a knife. Sigh. Now two people claim the murder by vying methods not utilized. He’s informed that a knife nor a gun were used, ruling the pair of lovers out. The butler is arrested after each time aligns and the motive laid out. Later, while the trio are dining together, Quin coyly alludes that the entire crime has been solved in error, masterfully manipulated. Satterthwaite is gobsmacked that Quin, a saver of lovers, should thus throw the young couple into the fire and destroy their relationship. Quin assures that he is saving love, between the two staff members. The widow and her lover murdered the older man and arranged the scene to appear otherwise. I won’t divulge the entire plot nor devices, nor Christie’s cuteness in playing with and exposing literary tropes, which she adroitly flips.
The story would mark Harley Quin’s 5th appearance, but first American publication beating out the first UK appearance in the December 1926 issue of The Story-Teller. My guess is the UK magazine sat on the story too long, as they corrected this after the American’s got 3 more Quin stories out first. Bizarrely, this story was NOT collected in the first Harley Quin novel, The Mysterious Mr. Quin (UK: Collins, 1930). It wouldn’t be collected until Three Blind Mice and Other Stories (USA: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1950) appearing as The Love Detectives. This means that about a quarter of a century had passed and the overwhelming majority of Agatha Christie fans would have never known the story even existed, let alone had the opportunity to read it! By the time The Mysterious Mr. Quin was published in 1930, Christie had written 12 pulp stories for her beloved character. Why was At the Crossroads excluded? Instead, the book contained an extra story that reportedly had not appeared prior (or has yet to be traced). Bizarrely, the story wouldn’t be collected by the British in book form until Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories (UK: Harper Collins, 1991), some 65 years later!!! Whether Harley Quin is truly a supernatural being or not, the publishing history of this story is uncanny.
The next entry is Smugglers’ Nemesis by Alexander Stewart, an article dealing with Michael and Moses Leinkram and their diamond smuggling charges.
The Swamp Angel by Edward Parrish Ware is a novelette illustrated by F. M. Follett (Foster Morse Follett). It features his popular, recurring character Ranger Jack Calhoun. [Spoiler alert notification: Steeger Books reprinted this story in 2024, so if you want to read the Calhoun series, skip this entry!]
Ranger Jack Calhoun is contracted by the United States Post Office to confirm whether two railway cars truly were lost when a ferry boat crossing the Mississippi River reportedly vanished, presumably sinking under mysterious circumstances. The scene takes place in 1890. There aren’t many bridges yet that cross the mighty river. So, ferry boats are still used to channel railway cars across. This one happens to carry over $100,000 of registered mail, etc. Investigating the matter, Calhoun looks into the matter, interviewing first the railway engineer, then assorted other persons, and concludes the ferry didn’t sink. It was a heist. Based on the time of night, he knows that the boat could only have been transported to a variety of locations before daylight. It then would have been robbed, and sank, likely with the innocent victims murdered and left on board. Into the story comes tales of the Swamp Angel, something of a Robin Hood. All manner of ingenious crimes in the area are attributed to him. With the aid of Ranger Murdock, a skeptic who believes the newspaper reports that the ship sank after a body surfaces and parts of the ferry are found floating, the pair and others employed by the government under Calhoun’s command take swift action.
The story is full of wonderful scenes, plenty of action when necessary, and moves along swiftly. I won’t ruin the plot points beyond the opening scenario, for there are plenty of events that transpire and are interwoven. I absolutely loved this gem of a story. I personally don’t buy facsimile editions, but for those of you that do, this series might well be up your alley. Calhoun turns up in over 60 adventures, so you can bet Steeger Books, if they can sustain interest in the series, will have plenty to publish, as the series spanned 1926 through 1938. Sadly, this is the only Calhoun story in my meager collection, so I won’t be enjoying any further adventures anytime soon.
The Old Clam by Henry Leverage is illustrated by F. M. Follett (Foster Morse Follett). The story features the second appearance of criminal / hobo “Big Scar” Guffman. I suspect the first story was intended to be a one-off, but proved so popular that a year later, Leverage suddenly cranked out tons of “Big Scar” tales. The last was in 1931, an outlier, given the prior last story was in 1929. So, excluding the first story and last, the series ran 4 solid years.
“Big Scar” learns of an easy bank heist job and drags a loser along for the job. They pull the job but “Big Scar” is gobsmacked to learn the banker with keys has been cooking the books! The bank is bust. It only has about $400. Well, he takes it and gives the lackey peanuts for his effort. They then leave the banker behind to face the fire.
Oh, To Be Arrested! is a series of non-fiction crime articles by Richard R. Blythe.
The Joker by Edgar Wallace is a serial novel, being part 2 of 4. It was originally published in England via Hodder & Stoughton in 1926. I’m lacking too much of this serial to bother with, so, let’s move along!
A Swindler Confesses is an uncredited minor crime piece.
Slave to the Pirate Chief by Joseph Gollomb is an article concerning François l’Olonnais, the French pirate. It is illustrated by F. M. Follett (Foster Morse Follett).
The Pettingill Process by Jack Bechdolt is a short novelette. The illustration is not signed; at least, not to my naked eye. The story opens with the detective lamenting to his secretary that he wishes he were the agency’s cat, who finds a sucker to care for it and does nothing all day. For his part, the detective complains that they need a good case to pay the monthly bills. His secretary is certain that he’ll strike rich one day, since he hasn’t yet, so he’s bound to eventually. What a gal! With that logic, I guess we will all be rich one day.
So, into the Henry Rood detective agency (The Argus Agency) walks an older man with his daughter. He claims to have created a special canning process and that a group of people are trying to swindle him. Henry is certain the man is a nutjob but takes the case when he realizes the fellow made a mistake in going to the wrong skyscraper. This turns out to be the case, however, upon going to the pair’s hotel to inform them of their mistake, he finds the place swarming with cops. The man had been bludgeoned about the head and left for dead. The girl had been out, taking in the city. All the rest of his canned items are missing. Henry realizes the man was wrong about the location but sort of correct regarding the swindle. Only, it’s not a swindle. It’s a clever heist.
Online states that Henry Rood, was formerly a farm-hick turned amateur detective who stumbles through cases by accident and appeared in only 3 stories. Well, I’m here to inform the world that they failed to include this one. The other three were: Henry Rood, Successor (ss) Flynn’s, September 12, 1925 For Twenty Grand (nv) Flynn’s, October 10, 1925 A Too Modest Benefactor (ss) Flynn’s, December 26, 1925 This would mean my story, assuming that there now were only 4 stories in the series, was the 4th, coming out 10 months later! I suspect that Henry Rood and The Argus Agency may have also appeared in The Plague of Cats for September 18, 1926, given that this story begins with Henry complaining about the cat he and the secretary took in.
Lee Foo Keeps the Peace by Don H. Thompson is illustrated by F. M. Follett (Foster Morse Follett) and features his recurring Oriental character Lee Foo, who appears in at least 3 known stories, all in 1926.
Lee Foo, in his 3rd of 4 known appearances, authored by Don H. Thompson, whose works were restricted to the 1920s and vanished thereafter. This story is superficially filled with cliche fancy Oriental words found often in many Oriental stories of the 1910s-1920s period. The plot is incredibly simple, which probably explains why it is the concluding tale, with zero meat to it. Two Tongs go to war in California when over $50 of merchandise. The goods were delivered, but not the quality. So, the offended leader orders the leader of the other to be assassinated. Nothing new here. Lee Foo obtains (somehow) the original $50 sheet that was signed for and is to deliver it to the family members for safekeeping. The vying Tong’s lead gunman, Wong Foo, is to steal that sheet and deliver it to his leader(s) to avoid losing face, I suppose. Lee Foo boards a train for Sacramento with a young gunman who has the sheet on his body. The narrator, a white man, seen in the illustration, is a journalist, invited for the ride. He often gets scoops from Lee Foo to write in his newspaper. Wong Foo is on the train and when the lights go out, beats up the gunnie and steals the paper. The young man feels that he has lost face with his Tong but Lee Foo states that the day is not over yet. The paper must still be delivered according to the appointed time. Later, we learn that Wong Foo stole a forgery and delivered it to his bosses. When Lee Foo alerts Wong Foo of this fact, and that he was as thus paid a vast reward for fake goods, Wong Foo realizes he has signed his own death warrant. With him eradicated, shot down by three men with revolvers, the Tongs finally come to piece. Our narrator turns in the true story of the current Tong war but his editor thinks Lee Foo sold him a bunch of b.s., that nobody would go to war over a $50 sale.
The August 1957 issue of Phantom features the first real format change. Prior issues were filled with numerous short stories and vignettes, over a dozen each issue. Here we have five short stories and one novella. Two of the tales are American pulp reprints.
Ronald W. Smethurst returns with his fifth cover for Phantom, signing as R.W.S. It features a ghostly specter beating against the wall while a man looks back in horror and the woman looks anything but horrified.
Freda M. Starbuck leads off with They Say. Hired from the local bureau, the female protagonist walks to the strange residence that has hired her to type up a manuscript. She’s given to understand the old lady is dead. A coffin was brought in. But arriving she finds the old lady very much alive. Then a young girl asks if she will take time out to type up her poetry. She does but thinks to herself the poems are beautiful but feel incomplete. Come the end of the story, we discover the odd couple did not purchase a coffin, seemingly eliminating anything weird until the old lady mentions her dead daughter and asks the bureau woman if she has read any of her works! So, she knows her dead daughter’s ghost haunts the home!
Freda Starbuck contributed (something) to the 14 December 1957 issue of Woman’s World but I don’t have access to that magazine. In all likelihood, she is the Freda Mary Starbuck born 1905, never married, was a nurse, and had an extensive photograph collection donated.
Mary Nyhan asks Whose Ghost? Bunch of people are each experiencing paranormal activity and when the female narrator is asked to pray for murderers, she ends up praying for someone else. So, when a ghost is spotted, everyone is certain it is one particular female that died. Only thing is, the person that actually saw the ghost swore for a moment that it was the narrator herself. Which tells her that the ghost that appeared was actually that of her own mother.
Merle Constiner’s The Skull ofBarnaby Shattuck originally was published in the 25 May 1945 issue the American pulp magazine Short Stories. The tale was reprinted in Weird Tales, July 1951 and also the UK edition of Weird Tales that same year! Being a novella, the plot has more room to be complex. The era is the 1850s. Claybourne, a hat maker from Philadelphia, is making his way west to Nashville, Tennessee, to set up shop. Claybourne finds himself in the role of a detective as he must solve various mysteries and crimes and murders. I found the tale entirely engrossing despite the fact it should NOT be in Phantom! It’s not a weird tale; it’s a pre-Civil War murder-mystery.
A. J. Branston’s article Vampires—Fact or Fiction? simply touches broadly upon the historical lore of vampires.
The Inheritance by Peter Baillie follows in the footsteps established by Constiner’s story; it’s simply not a weird story. This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it. I did. I wish the plot developed to a greater length, but what the author accomplished within the bounds of the short story was sufficient. The last surviving family heir is found in faraway Canada and brought back to England to inherit the estate. Mysteriously, the only “weird” thing about the estate, is that every heir has simply disappeared off the face of the planet. Handed the sealed letter by the lawyer, our current inheritor (and last) rips open the envelope and reads the contents. He learns that somewhere on the estate is a hidden treasure. Naturally, he later sneaks out to investigate, uncovers the first marker, and clambers down a hole. He nearly passes out from the gasses underground. Later he purchases fans and long electric cords. Runs the cords from the house and blows all the deadly gas out from the cavern below. Dropping in again, he lowers himself down an ancient rope and to his horror discovers many corpses, frozen in time. Turns out the cavern is dripping lime and preserved the gassed heirs one by one underground. He’s outwitted the deadly cavern and found the treasure as well. He’s further enriched by the fact he’s fallen in love with the servant lady who readily accepts his proposal. It’s a sweet love story with adventure and a slight chill of death, but drifts heavily away from the ghost story origins that Phantom asserted they’d be running with at the start!
Peter Baillie wrote some stories for the [Vargo Statten] British Science Fiction Magazine from 1954-1955, then supplied stories to publishers Dalrow for their Phantom and Combat magazines in 1957. He appears to have entirely vanished from placing fiction stories with any other magazine. Not indexed are a pair of short stories in Tarzan Adventures [20 December 1958] being Mulman Pays His Debt and [27 December 1958] with One Spook Too Many.
He also authored some war novels:
Jungle Nemesis (Edwin Self, 1950s)
Broken Trails (1957) (his first novel)
Alamein Story (1957) (his second novel)
Chindwin Mission (Brown Watson, 1958)
The Crossed Road (Brown Watson, 1958)
The Wire has Two Sides (Brown Watson, 1958)
Dropping Zone (Brown Watson, 1958)
Assault Patrol (Brown Watson, 1959)
Fatal Hour (Brown Watson, 1959)
FictionMags Index site states he was born 1921 and died 1988. He was for certain employed at the Smith & Wellstood ironworks in Bonnybridge, Scotland in 1957 as a Foundry Trade Journal that year notes his first two novels.
Moving along; The Cottage is by Robert Moss and the tale feels rather dated, and more at home in the American magazine The Smart Set. A man aging in years begins receiving over the course of three years recurring Christmas cards from a mysterious person, signing only as “P.H.” On the flipside is an amateurishly painted cottage. Each year, the cottage changes seasons. The last depicts Wintertime and snow. The tale ends with he taking a drive but getting lost in the snow and arriving at the cottage. Like The Hotel California, he can’t checkout. Every time he tries to run from the cottage back to his car, he gets no closer and eventually the car is simply gone. Approaching the cottage, he finds it slightly ajar and a girl opens it. It’s the girl he had a romance with nearly forty years earlier. He remarks he’d heard she was dead. She states she is no more dead than he is. I’d say they are both dead by this point, but the author leaves it up to the reader to decide just what is transpiring.
The final tale is the cover story, A Knocking in the Wall by August Derleth; this was originally published in America via the July 1951 issue of Weird Tales. This tale is illustrated by Cliff Lawton. A well-off man buys a home and comes to hear a knocking. Frustrated that he can’t catch the varmint at the front or rear door, he eventually discovers the faint knocking is coming from inside the wall. Later, while making notes, he tires and his hand becomes possessed. It writes a note stating who the ghost-knocker is, that her husband poisoned and walled her up alive. He then sold the house and moved to Canada. Our new home-owner’s secretary solves the mystery, knocks the wall open and frees the dead woman’s spirit. She eventually finds her evil husband and strangles him to death.
Condemnation is a poem that appears on the back cover. It possibly appeared in the American pulps and might have been part of a pulp story. Either would not surprise me. As yet, it has not been traced. I’ll post it below and if anyone recognizes the poem, please do let me know the source. Maybe it comes from a sword-and-sorcery weird tale. I can imagine the Devil himself speaking these lines to Robert E. Howard’s Conan.
“Condemnation” The Devil-man whispered in my ear, He spoke of the evils I’d done. He told me to come to him any old time, For a place in his kingdom I’d won.
“Oh, Murderer, Thief, Oh King of the Dark, Tell me, why it must be, That I should set on your right-hand side Whilst you’re on the throne ‘stead of me.”
“Sinner, Beware,” he whispered again. “Or instead of the good times ahead, You’ll walk the earth in your present shape –Walk the walk of the Dead.”
THE SPECTRE LIBRARY PRESENTS: The Pulp and Paperback Fiction Reader 