Review: "The Silver Scourge" (The Shadow)
John Olsen
of The Shadow Magazine. Counterfeiters have discovered a new metal; one
which mimics silver yet costs only pennies on the dollar. And unless The
Shadow can stop them, they are prepared to unleash a silver scourge of
counterfeit coins upon America!
The premise is a bit shaky, but reading this early Shadow adventure
still makes for a rip roaring good time. Being an early Shadow story,
you can expect that The Shadow is at the peak of his powers. His
piercing intellect can unravel the most complex of schemes; his stamina
can outlast any man; his skill at hand-to-hand combat is unexcelled and
his marksmanship with his twin .45 caliber automatics is without peer.
Few have ever seen The Shadow, but his name brings shivers of terror to
the minions of evil who recognize his shivery laugh. Yes, this is The
Shadow as you want to remember him.
The story starts of modestly. Silk Elverton has gathered together a mob
to break into the convention rooms of the Gargantuan Hotel and steal the
display of gold and silver tableware that had originally been used in
the Winter Palace of the Russian Czar. It's a featured attraction at the
United Silverware Manufacturers' Association annual meeting. And,
naturally, The Shadow appears and thwarts the evil plans. But at the
same time, Silk Elverton is presented with a new opportunity.
At the convention, Silk Elverton meets Foulkrod Kendall, whose
silverware factory in New Avalon is one of the largest and most
substantial in the United States. It seems that Kendall is selling his
patented tableware, which he calls Kendallware, at a remarkably low
figure for Sterling silver - two thirds the price of his competitors.
His competition can't figure out how he's able to make a profit. But
Silk Elverton figures it out, and confronts Foulkrod Kendall.
Silk Elverton discovers that Foulkrod Kendall is not manufacturing his
trademark Kendallware from true Sterling silver. Kendall has discovered
a new metallic alloy that looks like silver; it has the ring of silver
and the weight of silver. But compared with Sterling silver, this new
alloy runs ten cents on the dollar. And that gives Silk Elverton an
idea: counterfeit silver coins!
Silk Elverton approaches Foulkrod Kendall, and quickly discovers that
Kendall is as crooked as they come. It's easy for Elverton to convince
Kendall to join forces with him. And luckily Elverton knows someone with
the machinery and dies for making counterfeit coins. Cyrus Barbier owns
an obscure brass shop in Brooklyn, and in the back room stamps out
counterfeit nickels from an inferior metal. Barbier and his aide Tony
Cumo are just the two men that Elverton needs. What Elverton doesn't
know is that the Feds are on the trail of the coin counterfeiters, and
are closing in on Cyrus Barbier and Tony Cumo.
Vic Marquette is heading up the US Secret Service task force searching
for the counterfeiters. But when Vic storms the small brass shop he
finds the place is empty. Silk Elverton has already enlisted the aid of
Cyrus Barbier and Tony Cumo in his new counterfeiting scheme. Without
realizing that a Secret Service raid was impending, the men moved their
equipment to the city of New Avalon, where Foulkrod Kendall has his
silverware factory. There, in a hidden back room of the factory, the
four men will begin counterfeiting new coins that are so similar to
silver that they can't be detected as fake.
Now this may not sound like a very exciting story, but it will surprise
you. It really is quite good. And it gets even better! There is an
execution scene at the state prison that is electrifying - both
figuratively and literally. Yes, Silk Elverton gets the electric chair
for killing a man in front of witnesses. And then, he's brought back to
life by Doctor Conrad Guyon, who turns out to be as evil as Silk
Elverton. There are a couple of really excellent scenes where the reader
learns how the execution is to take place, and exactly how it works.
Then we see Silk Elverton being strapped in and receiving the
death-dealing jolts of electricity. And the scene where the mad
scientist brings him back to life is pretty amazing! Yes, the story gets
a lot better as it goes along.
Can The Shadow defeat the walking dead? Can he unmask all the
participants in the astounding plan to blanket America with counterfeit
silver coins? Well of course he can! And it's a pretty terrific tale,
reading just how he goes about it. I think you'll enjoy this story,
especially because it features some interesting firsts.
This story contains the first appearance of Pietro, the pushcart vendor.
In this story, Pietro doesn't work for The Shadow, yet. He's just a
street vendor who has uncovered the existence of poor quality
counterfeit nickels, and who reports it to Vic Marquette. In Pietro's
next magazine appearance, the following year's "The Chinese Disks,"
Pietro joined The Shadow's service as an agent. Here, in his first
magazine appearance, he is a private citizen. But it is his first
appearance, and deserves special mention for that fact.
And how did Vic Marquette identify those nickels as counterfeit? Well,
they were all dated 1922. And Vic knew that there were no nickels minted
in 1922. That's not just the fiction of a pulp magazine story, by the
way. There actually were no nickels minted by the United States in 1922.
It was because of the mint placing a priority on silver dollar
production that year, so for one year they halted production on nickels.
But this fact does bring up the intelligence of the counterfeiters. Of
all the years to pick for their counterfeit dies, why did they have to
pick that year? Not too smart.
In this story we also see an early version of that strange purplish
liquid that The Shadow uses to restore vitality. In 1931's "Gangdom's
Doom" The Shadow revived Harry Vincent with a pungent liquid. It was not
purplish, but was the earliest mention of a similar concoction. In
1933's "Shadowed Millions" the purplish liquid made it's first official
appearance, but was only used as smelling salts; something to be
inhaled, not imbibed. In this story, Doctor Conrad Guyon uses a vial of
bluish liquid to bring the dead Silk Elverton back to life. He lets
three drops of the potent liquid fall into Elverton's mouth, and along
with other ministrations, succeeds in bringing him back to life. The
color of this fluid isn't quite purplish, but is close. I think it can
be safely assumed that the mystery fluid was closely related to that
which The Shadow would start using officially five months later in
"Treasures of Death."
Another point of interest for this story is that Cliff Marsland sits
quietly waiting in the Hotel Spartan. And he waits, his thoughts revert
to the first time that he had met his mysterious chief. That strange
event had taken place in this very hotel. It was here that Cliff had
been recruited by The Shadow, a story that was described in the 1932
story "Mobsmen on the Spot." And it's nice to see it mentioned, here. As
also mentioned in that story, Cliff had actually met The Shadow years
previously in France during World War I. But they both went under
different names at the time, so the meeting in "Mobsmen on the Spot" was
their first in their current guises.
In this story, we get to see The Shadow's strange clock that sits on his
table in the sanctum. It's only briefly described, but it receives such
rare mention in the pulps that it's worthwhile to list it here. This
clock was introduced in the story "The Red Blot" just a month and a half
earlier. And it is more fully described in that story, for those of you
who wish to read how the concentric circles on the clock can tell the time.
The Shadow's suction cups are used in this story. He uses them to climb
down the outside of the Gargantuan Hotel. Several floors down, in fact.
This was the sixth time they had appeared in any of the Shadow magazine
stories. They would go on to be featured in thirty-five more stories,
right up until 1948 and "Dead Man's Chest."
The Shadow's cloak is described in this story as having a crimson
lining. It was described that way early in the series, but was dropped
later. It seems that the crimson lining might flash in the darkness,
giving away the position of The Shadow in the black of night. The
crimson lining played an important part in the plot to the 1936 story
"The Voodoo Master," but was rarely mentioned after that... at least by
Walter Gibson. Author Theodore Tinsley picked up the idea, when he was
writing for The Shadow, and he often used it in his stories, including
those as late as 1941's "Master of Flame." Although the cloak's crimson
lining wasn't very practical, it was visually very striking and made the
pulp magazine covers really stand out. The hint of crimson appeared on
quite a few magazine covers, even if it didn't actually appear in the
story within. The crimson lining was first seen on the cover of
"Gangdom's Doom," the fifth issue of the long-running magazine, and
continued to be displayed until the very last issue, "The Whispering
Eyes" in 1949.
A message is delivered to Cliff Marsland in a unique manner, in this
story. The Shadow writes his message and encloses in a black envelope of
stiff paper. He then scales it through the air to Cliff, with great
accuracy and over quite a distance. This harkens to the famous magician
Alexander Herrmann who performed similar feats in the 1800's. Author
Walter Gibson, a skilled magician in his own right, was quite familiar
with historical figures in magic, and would incorporate some of their
tricks into his pulp tales. This was a good example of that.
Of The Shadow's agents, only Harry Vincent and Cliff Marsland appear,
here. Burbank, the erstwhile contact man, does get one brief scene. The
story is too early for cab driver Moe Shrevnitz, or spotter Hawkeye.
They hadn't been introduced to the series, yet. And Clyde Burke, who was
a current agent, wasn't needed, apparently. Also appearing is Detective
Joe Cardona. The Shadow appears only as himself, cloaked in his usual
black garb. He doesn't appear in any disguise, here. No sign of Lamont
Cranston, Henry Arnaud, Phineas Twambley or any of his other disguises.
The weakness in this story is the basic premise. We have to believe that
counterfeiters would be interesting in counterfeiting coins. Any savvy
counterfeiter wouldn't waste his time faking coins, as making fake paper
money is faster and cheaper... and has a far greater profit margin. Yet,
as our story opens, the counterfeiters are making very realistic
nickels. Can't be a lot of profit, there. They must have been REALLY
desperate. I can't imagine anyone counterfeiting coins, unless perhaps
they were rare collector coins that sold for far above face value. So
the guys in this story are doing a lot of work for only a modest profit.
And we have to believe it, if this story is to work. So readers must
suspend their disbelief in this case. We have to believe that
experienced criminals know what they are doing, even if it doesn't
really make sense.
I would recommend that you ignore the shaky premise, and read this story
anyway. Once you get past that weakness, you'll find a very enjoyable
story. After all, how often in a Shadow story do the dead come back to
life? That's gotta be worth the price of admission, alone!
John
--
"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"
The wonderful old pulp mystery stories are all reviewed at:
Joy Beeson
wrote:
> Although the cloak's crimson
> lining wasn't very practical,
I strongly avoid red clothing for bicycle clothes -- because red is
black after sunset. (International Orange turns khaki, white doesn't
show in mist or rain, green blends into the scenery -- the only
suitable color, if you aren't 100% sure the entire ride will be in
sunlight, is safety yellow.)
Red turns black in dim light for the same reason that a red flashlight
doesn't destroy your night vision: your dim-light detectors don't
work down there.
Tangent thought:
Once, on a long, long car trip it happened that there was a mile or
three of open country between the road and a patch of woods. A hunter
in a blaze-orange vest came out of the woods. Since he was so far
away, he stayed in sight for a long time; since there was nothing else
in sight that I hadn't seen hundreds of miles of, I watched him
closely. After a while, it struck me that there was something odd
about the way he moved, as if something to his right kept attracting
his attention. So I looked closely at the area to his right, and
gradually managed to resolve a hunter in a red vest.
Red ain't all that great at being visible in the daytime, either.
Joy Beeson
--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/ -- sewing
http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.
John Olsen
> because red is black after sunset.
> Red turns black in dim light for the same reason that a red flashlight
> doesn't destroy your night vision: your dim-light detectors don't
> work down there.
Good to know. And now that explains things about The Shadow which were
unclear. Thanks for the posting!
russell
For another great review. They keep the Shadow alive for me.
Russell