 | #002 "The Eyes of the Shadow"
Vol. 1, No. 2 Published: 07/01/31 Submitted: 02/20/31 as "The Hand of the Shadow" Author: Walter Gibson Review date: Dec 22, 2000 |
EYES OF THE SHADOW was originally published in the July/August 1931 issue of The Shadow Magazine. It's the second Shadow story ever published, and I read it in its original form. The paperback reprints of the late 1960's and early 1970's were edited. This particular story was heavily edited. Not cut; rather changed. Entire paragraphs were moved from one chapter to the next. And the last page of the story was entirely re-written. So I went back to the original pulp version so I could read it as it was first intended to be read.
It all starts as Bruce Duncan returns from Japan to live in his recently deceased uncle's old mansion. Uncle Harvey had died just days before Bruce's return. He died with a secret; a secret of great wealth that was to be split among six men. His task was to divide the Russian fortune when it was secretly delivered to him. But he died before he could complete his preparations. He left a sealed message for young Bruce, and now it's Bruce's job to finish the job that his Uncle had left undone.
He lies in bed in the front room of the lonely old house, when a strange apelike creature climbs through the window. Young Bruce lies strangly frozen in a drugged state while the stoop-shouldered apeman creeps to the fireplace and reveals a secret hiding place beneath a stone. He pulls out a package from the hole, and retreats through the window, while Bruce lies there helplessly drugged.
All this leaves Bruce without a clue as how to continue. But continue he must. He must find the six men, whose names were kept secret. Somehow he must find them and meet at the secret rendevous with the Russian messenger. But the date and place of the rendevous are also secret. And the identity of the messanger secret, too. All of this was stolen by the mysterious apeman. And that leaves young Bruce at a dead end.
But there's always that mysterious personage known as The Shadow. He becomes involved in the affair and with his assistance, young Bruce Duncan eventually solves the mystery. But not before murder, terror and madness strike. Whew! It's a terrific story.
A few notes about this story. The length of this novel is longer than normal, as is true of the other early Shadow stories. This one weighs in at 63,000 words while most Shadow novels were in the 40,000 - 45,000 range. Stories in the latter run of the magazine could be as small as 23,000 words. The chapters were shorter, and thus there were more of them; thirty-nine to be exact. The writing style is definitely Walter Gibson's, but he hasn't aquired the polish at this point that he will demonstrate in later Shadow stories. It reads much like a 1920's story; reminscent of the mysteries of Mary Roberts Reinhart.
The Shadow appears only occasionally in the story. The main character is Bruce Duncan, our proxy-hero, aided by The Shadow's secret agent Harry Vincent. The Shadow appears for the first time in his disguise as Lamont Cranston. Other agents of The Shadow appearing, include Claude Fellows, insurance broker and aide for The Shadow, and Burbank, The Shadow's ace communications man. Burbank makes his debut in this Shadow mystery novel. Fellows appeared in the first story, but would be killed off three stories later, and be replaced by Rutledge Mann.
Let's talk about gadgets. The Shadow stories aren't renowned for the scientific gadgets, as were those pulp stories of Doc Savage. But this one features an early television broadcasting apparatus. Unique for 1931, this apparatus sends a flickering picture from the mountains of Pennsylvania to Lamont Cranston's short-wave room in New Jersey. The television transmitter was used rarely, if ever, in forthcming Shadow stories. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)
And death traps! Ah, those wonderful death traps! Rooms filled with poisonous gas. Trap doors that drop a victim into a bottomless pit. Slowly moving walls, coming together to crush their victims. The curtain of steel that falls from the ceiling, killing all beneath it. And let's not forget being buried alive, six feed underground! All of these ideas were used in later Shadow novels as well. But in this, the second Shadow story ever written, the ideas were fresh and exciting.
This story is filled with the things for which The Shadow stories eventually became well-known. The blue ink that fades when exposed to the air. The Black Ship, tavern in the bad section of Manhattan which caters to the most ruthless thugs of the underworld. The Shadow's amazing ability at disguise. He overpowers the Mexican thug, Pedro. Then, within a minute, The Shadow has turned his face into an exact duplicate of the hulking brute, complete with livid scar on his cheek.
This is a key issue in the history of The Shadow. The second story ever written! And it's well worth your time.