Son of Gun in Cheek Page 6

  What Wun Wey and his crowd are after are a pair of ancient Chinese manuals containing directions for “a certain process” written in ideographs on watered silk, which Seth Bryson bribed a minor priest to sell him when he was in China. Realizing torture won’t help him, primarily because Jigger doesn’t know where the manuals are, Wun Wey decides to go a different way after all: he orders Masters to find the manuals and bring them to him: “Let us know you have them by wearing a yellow tie and walking around the block on which this house is located.” Otherwise, he says evilly, Miss Ingalls will suffer the Death of a Thousand Slices. And Jigger wouldn’t want that, would he?

  No, Jigger would not. By this time he’s fallen in love with Lois and stands willing and ready to do anything necessary to “save the white, satiny breast of Miss Ingalls from the caress of those delicate, beautiful knives with the sharp lips.”

  So Masters is released, via a “secret elevator”—and the first thing he does is to mobilize all the police agencies on Long Island into a hunt for the missing manuals, and also into a minute search of the Brick Wart to determine the whereabouts of the hidden lair where Lois Ingalls is (or was) being held captive. They are momentarily thwarted in both searches, even though the Wart “astonished them continually during this investigation, revealing itself as a thoroughly modern castle in which every contrivance of spy holes, secret passages and the like to be found in any old German schloss was added to and improved by the most up-to-date electrical signals, locks and chain-gearing.” But what they do find in the basement of the Wart is a giant hogshead, which turns out to be full of the saffron death; and what they also find, in the garage next door, is an escape tunnel that apparently leads to and from Bryson’s laboratory inside the Wart.

  The tunnel is booby-trapped, however, as Jigger and Tom Gildersleeve and Marshall Vandervoort discover when they try to enter it: another instantaneous fuse ignites and races toward a charge of dynamite. There’s no time to run; they’re trapped, seemingly doomed. . . . But no! Jigger to the rescue again! Whipping out his jackknife, he drops to his knees, cuts part of the fuse—no time to cut all of it—and then “bends his head to the spot he had cut, chewing, soaking the tough fuse with saliva,” and thereby quenching the fire just in the nick of time.

  Whew!

  From this point, The Stuffed Men races to its climax on, if you will, an instantaneous fuse of even more frantic excitement. During another intense search of the Wart, Jigger finally finds the two missing manuals hidden inside Bryson’s big, expensive camera. He arranges with the Tong to trade these for Lois Ingalls; but when the trade takes place, Masters is double-crossed and held at gunpoint by one of the noseless monsters. That’s not the worst of it, though. Another noseless monster, brandishing “what looked like a miniature bellows,” squirts a thick cloud of dust into Jigger’s face, dust that contains the “zoospores of the yellow fungus, the eggs of the deadly vegetable that swims in human bloodstreams!” And subsequent examination of Lois Ingalls’s unconscious body (Masters managed to wrench her from the clutches of the noseless Celestials as he was being sprayed) reveals that she, too, has inhaled the ciliated demons of the saffron horror!

  Lois is rushed to the hospital; Jigger valiantly hangs on to lead a savage assault on the Wart and the ensuing gun battle between police officers and the hell-spawned minions of the Illustrious Society of Executioners. And what a battle it is: dozens die before it ends, including Wun Wey by his own hand. But not before the vicelord has destroyed the watered silk manuals, not to mention taken time out to smoke one last pipeful of Chinese tobacco.

  Masters is by then in a state of near-collapse. He is hustled off to the hospital, where he and Lois undergo an experimental treatment frantically developed by Dr. Cortelyou and involving “paroxysms of high fever.” The fever, induced by means of “an oscillator,” kill the parasitic zoospores, and Jigger and his lady love are saved.

  Explanations follow this tension-relieving deliverance. It seems that the Tao Tong enslaved a number of fictile artisans way back when and forced them to devote their talents to the manufacture of fake Ming antiques, using the secret process outlined on the now-destroyed manuals. That process was the “lost art of crackle-glazing” (whatever that is), which has never been duplicated and which makes the fake porcelains impossible to tell from the genuine. But then Seth Bryson bought the manuals from the minor priest and started to turn out Ming porcelain of his own, which caused the Tong to have “a spasm of rage” and to set out to smash every piece made and sold by Bryson. That was why Marriott and the Japanese collector were knocked off and their collections destroyed.

  As for the fungus . . . well, it was an integral part of the process for making the phony Mings (remember the vat in the basement of the Wart?). And why did the dastardly Chinese use it to kill off everybody? Two reasons: “A sort of bitter humor peculiar to Chinamen”; and “it was probably a much less expensive means [than using] one of their yellow silk strangling ropes.”

  The noseless monsters? Oh, well, they weren’t really noseless, or monsters, and they didn’t really have iguana claws for hands. See, the Society’s members had to wear gas masks in order to keep from breathing the sinister fungus-laden gas, and they had to wear gloves in order to keep from leaving fingerprints—“yellow gloves finished with scales and claws to look like talons of a fabled dragon.”

  Anthony M. Rud did not publish another mystery novel after The Stuffed Men. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, did he write any more stories about Jigger Masters, whom he married off to Lois Ingalls at the end of this Yellow Peril classic. And that is as it should be. Once a person achieves perfection in a particular art form, there’s just no incentive in struggling to duplicate it.

  After all, did Michelangelo paint any more ceilings after he finished the Sistine Chapel?

  3

  Gold Is Where You Find It

  “If we knew the Captain’s claim upon my father, we could take counter-measures,” said Ann, sagely. “I know the very thing. You must screw the secret out of the Captain.”

  “I?” I stammered, for the suggestion was so novel.

  —A. Salusbury MacNalty,

  The Mystery of Captain Burnaby, 1934

  “Gold is where you find it” is an old prospector’s phrase, used by old prospectors in the old days when folks asked them where to go looking for paydirt. Meaning it might be anywhere; you just have to keep looking, keep prospecting in likely areas. The same is true of alternative fictional gold. There’s plenty of it just waiting to be unearthed from the mountains of crime fiction published here and in England. Look long enough and hard enough, and there it is—right where you’ve found it.

  Sometimes—all too infrequently—what you’ll stumble on is a rich vein, an alternative bonanza such as those assayed in the previous chapters. More often you’ll find a nugget or two buried in otherwise perfectly ordinary surroundings. These nuggets may be large, which is to say paragraphs or whole passages of description or dialogue. Or they may be small—one or two sentences that glitter and shine with alternative radiance.

  One or two or even a handful of nuggets, large or small, do not a bonanza make. You can’t get rich mining them; it takes a hell of a lot of nuggets to make a book like this one. On the other hand, you can—if you persevere—mine enough of them to make a chapter in a book like this one (short chapter though it may be). I have persevered, and that is what this chapter contains: nuggets large and small, painstakingly gathered here and there, round and about, hither and yon.

  Gold is where you find it.

  Alternative nuggets come in different types as well as different sizes. For starters we have the category of Fractured Similes and Metaphors:

  His words spluttered like a hose nozzle being adjusted, the stream of his conversation turned into a flood of apology. (Lois Eby and John C. Fleming, Death Begs the Question)

  Her voice had a unique deep resonance, like a cannon fired in a cathedral. (Tedd Thomey, I Want Out)

&nbs
p; Words came out of Pedersen’s mouth like clay pigeons shot from a blind. (Arthur M. Chase, Peril at the Spy Nest)

  I felt as gay as a bedbug in a flophouse as I meandered down the rows of figures and marked the plump, pettable totals at the bottom. (Joseph Shallit, Lady, Don’t Die on My Doorstep)

  Long years of experience had taught him to sniff at coincidence like an Englishman in a foreign restaurant. (Van Wyck Mason, The Rio Casino Intrigue)

  Maitland colored like a schoolboy, blurted, “I’m sure glad you admire her, Major. You see—I—I . . . well, I expect to marry her very soon.”

  Marry! Had the floor opened and permitted Hugh North to drop five floors, he could not have been more taken aback. (Van Wyck Mason, The Rio Casino Intrigue)

  The category of Anatomical Oddities:

  He nodded once, mostly with his eyes. (Richard Burke, Barbary Freight)

  My scalp tried to crawl away from my startled ears. (Jeremy Lane, Death to Drumbeat)

  I could feel my adrenal glands start to vibrate cheerfully. (Tedd Thomey, I Want Out)

  My brain was doing athletic flip-flops, which I hoped didn’t show. (Tedd Thomey, I Want Out)

  Freddie’s tongue shot out between his lips like the fangs of a poisonous snake. (J. C. Lenehan, The Tunnel Mystery)

  He looked up, his eyes snarling viciously. (Rufus Gill-more, The Ebony Bed Murder)

  Lloyd felt a little piece of his heart work its way loose. (James Ellroy, Blood on the Moon)

  A muscle in her jaw did a nervous do-se-do. (Milton K. Ozaki, Dressed To Kill)

  The blonde strolled to the cabin and unlocked the door. She went in, leaving the door invitingly open. I looked at it and my red corpuscles began to get redder. (Milton K. Ozaki, Dressed To Kill)

  Mr. Purdy . . . set forth for the nearest restaurant, cafeteria or drugstore with a lunch counter. He needed coffee at least. With a stomach as hollow as his the grit, the guts that he must rely on, would not function. (Arthur M. Chase, Peril at the Spy Nest)

  My head bumped the rough pavement and pain flared behind my eyes, sending echoes skyrocketing through my aching body. I sat up fast, biting back the groans, and worked myself to my feet. I leaned against a building, feeling dizzy and sick, and my stomach went up on its toes and began to jog into a danse macabre. (Robert O. Saber, Sucker Bait)

  Tonight she was lovely in white, which did something for her smooth honey-blonde head. And, where dinner dresses usually have a deep V in front, for allure and ventilation, Francine’s had a Y. (Jeremy Lane, Death to Drumbeat)

  The category of Magical Feats, Language Division:

  “Thank you.” The interrupting click of her instrument cut the last word in half. (James Benet, The Knife Behind You)

  The category of Sudden Revelations:

  I . . . finished the sake and put my arms around Harukoma. Now frankly, I’m strictly a bosom man, and believe me I was ready. The last thing I remember was reaching inside of Harukoma’s kimono. The fact that she was flatter than a flounder didn’t surprise me nearly as much as the realization that I had been drugged. (Earl Norman, Kill Me in Tokyo)

  As he bent down he let his hands wander slowly down her body. He made two discoveries at almost the exact same moment. She wasn’t a girl and something heavy had hit him in the back of the head. (G. P. Kennealy, Nobody Wins)

  The category of Brilliant Deductive Reasoning:

  I could hardly wait to begin the investigation. Somehow, I firmly believed that (at last!) we were following a course that would clearly reveal—something! (W. Shepard Pleas-ants, The Stingaree Murders)

  “Of course it is possible that one of them has got entangled with the real murderer, but highly improbable. The cook is a respectable widow and the maid has a sweetheart in Devon.” (George Goodchild, Jack O’Lantern)

  I acknowledged the brilliant timing of Mr. Roberts’ murder; the selection of an hour or two at midday on Saturday when the chance of a complete alibi for every moment is unlikely for anyone who chances to be alone. (Sarah Rider, The Misplaced Corpse)

  I . . . stared at the purse again. A thought was nibbling at my mind.

  Usually a girl and her purse are inseparable. Its contents are highly personal. Most girls hug them under their arms, hold them in their laps, clutch them by a strap, keep them handy to their hands, even carry them to the bathroom with them. It was possible that Betty Brandt had come in, changed her clothes, and decided that a switch of purses would make her outfit more harmonious—but obviously this wasn’t a purse which had been discarded. The wallet was an evidence of that; also, people simply don’t leave charge-plates lying around, not if they have any sense at all. The purse, then, strongly suggested that its owner was still in the immediate vicinity. Involuntarily, I stiffened and looked around. Perhaps she was still in the apartment. (Italics Saber’s) (Robert O. Saber, Too Young To Die)

  The category of Corpse-Frisking, Contents-of-Pockets Division:

  “Rod, what did you find in his pockets?”

  “The usual stuff,” answered Rod. “A couple of bucks, a red address book filled with hookers and bookies, a ringful of keys, a couple of bills and love-letters from a babe named Imogene.” (Milton M. Raison, The Gay Mortician)

  Opening the envelope, I dumped Felix Pia’s effects out onto the desk. It was the usual miscellany of a man’s pockets—sixty-five cents in change, a ring of keys, a pencil stub, a newspaper recipe for Lobster Cantonese. (Tedd Thomey, I Want Out)

  The category of Male Chauvinist Piggery:

  Like all women in a crisis, she said something foolish. (Henry C. Beck, Death by Clue)

  “Are women much use as detectives?” one of us asked.

  “Rather!” said Carrington; “for certain things, and within their limits, they are first-rate. . . . Women don’t generalize as well as men, but then very few men have the habit of observing small things as well developed as most women. Also, their boldness at jumping to conclusions often takes them straight to the bull’s-eye, where the more logical male would regard the connection of ideas as too fanciful to be treated seriously. On the other hand, they constantly jump to the wrong conclusions, where a bit of stern reasoning would have kept them straight.” (J. Storer Clouston, “The Haunted House,” in Carrington’s Cases)

  “He’d tried to rape me that night, and I’d completely forgotten about it.” (Charles Runyon, The Prettiest Girl I Ever Killed)

  The category of Purple Prose:

  Eager editors played Ellen’s trial to a fare-thee-well, while an equally avid public welcomed the concupiscent and caitiff affair as an antidote for estival doldrums. (James A. Brussell, Just Murder, Darling)

  The category of Geographical Oddities:

  But how was I to know the state of Michigan dwindled off into wilderness after the railroad said the equivalent of no soap? (Sue Mac Veigh, The Corpse and the Three Ex-Husbands)

  Almost the four corners of the U.S.A. are represented: Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Kansas, New Jersey. (Stanton Forbes, The Will and Last Testament of Constance Cobble)

  The category of Narrative Hooks, First-Sentence-of-a-Novel Division:

  When the gentleman who had been waiting for me walked into my office, it was evident by the look of fear in his eyes that he was frightened. (Thomas K. Makagon, All Killers Aren’t Ugly)

  The category of Startling Transformations of Nouns into Verbs:

  “What the hell is this all about?” Hara demanded. “Damnit, I thought I made it clear that you weren’t to do any private dicking!” (Milton K. Ozaki, Maid for Murder)

  The category of Odd Achilles’ Heels:

  [Private detective Napoleon B. Smith] has one passion in life, and one only; he will walk a mile on aching feet for ice cream, never less than three dishes, often a half-dozen, with the odd banana split sandwiched in for relief from the white expanses of frozen delight. No matter how his doctor rails against this practice, Napoleon B. continues to eat ice cream. He always says it’s insurance; the Devil will never be able to thaw him out
. I firmly believe that the nearest he came to letting a criminal slip through his fingers was when that clever Doctor Arnheim tried to bribe him with strawberry flavor. (Leslie Allen, Murder in the Rough)

  The category of Novel Murder Methods:

  “I believe Mrs. Leonard was murdered with a vacuum cleaner,” Stephen said. . . . “We know that death was caused by an extreme deflation of the lungs. There are no marks on the body to show other means of suffocation or strangulation. The nozzle of a cleaner, not the old-fashioned type vacuum, but the new compact kind, is the logical explanation for the absence of bruises and accounts for the arc-like scratch on the deceased’s nose. . . .

  “The way I re-enact the crime is this,” [he] went on excitedly. ‘The murderer managed to come here while Harriet was asleep. If there is no vacuum in the house, then probably he brought it with him. . . . He simply plugged in the cord, affixed this chromium tube to the front of the cleaner and pressed the nozzle against the sleeping woman’s nose and mouth. . . . He held it there until he had drawn every drop of air from her body.”

  “My God!” the constable murmured, aghast. “Robbed of the very air she breathed!” (Sidney A. Porcelain, The Crimson Cat Murders)

  The category of Life’s Most Embarrassing Moments, Tough Private Eye Division:

  I moved past her quickly, kicked open the door and stepped inside. Something brushed my forehead. I darted sideways, jamming down on a wall switch and on the .32’s trigger simultaneously. Powee! The room swelled with sound and light. . . . A pair of black lace panties went fluttering through the air from the impact of my bullet which had torn them off a wire hanger.