Review: "Fingers of Death" (The Shadow)
John Olsen
The Shadow Magazine. What are the "fingers of death?" Who controls them?
Are they seeking new victims? And how are they made to bring doom to the
innocent? The Shadow is the only entity who can thwart the sinister
being behind the fingers of death.
This is a pretty darn good story from the early years of The Shadow. In
many ways, this story is typical of the early Shadow who stayed in the
background and only only appeared when important events were happening.
There's no Lamont Cranston, here; the only appearances of The Shadow are
as his black-garbed master of the night. Most of the time, the story
focuses upon the other characters, most notably the proxy hero who the
readers come to identify with.
This is an old dark house type of mystery. You can just feel the
atmosphere permeating the entire story. There's action; there's
suspense; there's thrills. Weird conspiracies tantalize the reader. Men
are dying left and right. And of course, there's a treasure to be found.
It all makes for a rousing Shadow mystery that's hard to put down.
Or story opens in the city of Holmsford, located a couple hundred miles
from New York. In a dismal old house, old Josiah Bartram lies in his
bed, fearing the approach of death. Surrounding him are his niece, young
Grace Bartram, his faithful Hindu servant Mahinda, his family physician
Doctor Felton Shores, and the family attorney Hurley Adams.
Knowing that the end is near, old Josiah, successful building contractor
regarded as one of the wealthiest men in Holmsford, has given special
instructions to his lawyer and niece. There is to be no ceremony, and he
is to be buried in his own mausoleum beside the old house. Young Grace
will inherit all, if she will continue to live in the old house and
retain the services of the faithful Mahinda.
Old Josiah suddenly sits upright and screams out, "At my throat! Fingers
of Death!" Then with a convulsive shudder, he falls back upon his
pillows, dead. Those surrounding the death bed are in shock. They can't
believe what they've seen. Those words hold mystic significance to at
least one person present. What can they mean? Who will be next? And
what's the mysterious secret that lies behind the fingers of death?
The proxy hero of this story is Willard Saybrook, fiance to young Grace
Bartram, niece of the dearly departed Josiah Bartram. He endeavors to
discover what is going on, and in doing so eventually is visited by The
Shadow. He assists The Shadow, along with his new friend Harry Vincent,
one of The Shadow's most trusted agents.
There are very few familiar characters in this story, and most of those
who do appear have small roles. Contact man Burbank gets one brief
scene, and speaks only two words. If you've wondered about where his
hidden switchboard is located, this story tells us that "Burbank changed
his location frequently. Always, however, he was within immediate reach."
Rutledge Mann, who collects information for The Shadow, also appears in
this story. He gets a couple good scenes, including a trip to that old
office building of Twenty-third Street when the deserted "B. Jonas"
office is located on the second floor. There, he delivers newspaper
clippings that The Shadow has ordered.
In this story, Rutledge Mann gathers information and acts as contact man
for The Shadow. Although the story states that "for a long while, now,
he had been in the employ of this mysterious being," it was actually
less than a year, in published time. His predecessor, Claude Fellows,
had been killed off previously in the story entitled "GANGDOM'S DOOM."
Mann had been introduced in the June 1932 story, "DOUBLE Z," only nine
months before this story was published.
The agent of The Shadow who gets the most action in this story is Harry
Vincent. He and Willard Saybrook work together in most of this story,
which means that Harry gets to see a lot of action. But Harry is spared
the knocking about that normally goes with his job in these stories.
This time it's Willard Saybrook who gets shot at and buried alive. But
even with that, there is plenty of work for Harry to do.
The Shadow only appears in his black cloak and slouch hat. There is no
sign of his famous disguises. No Lamont Cranston; no Phineas Twambley;
no Henry Arnaud. Only briefly does The Shadow get to don disguises. He
appears at an old man outside a lawyer's office. He quickly
metamorphizes into a stern-faced mustached man who follows one of the
lawyer's clients to a restaurant. And that's all that the master of
disguise gets to do in this story.
There are some points of interest in this story. The Shadow scales the
outside wall of one of the suspects' homes, making his way to the third
floor with no assistance from his infamous rubber discs. They had made
three previous appearances, the most recent only two months earlier.
Apparently, there was no need for them, here. There were projecting
stones and bits of masonry. And twisted vines of ivy aided in his progress.
In one scene, Harry receives a written message from The Shadow.
Impressed upon the white paper is a grayish blotch forming a silhouette
of a man's profile. A profile that includes a projecting hat brim and an
upturned cloak collar. The sign of The Shadow! Being made from The
Shadow's special ink, the design soon vanishes without a trace. In the
1994 Shadow movies, it was shown that this silhouette was created by a
rubber stamp. Although that never was explained in the pulp magazines,
it's certainly a logical explanation of how it was accomplished.
Readers also get to see the method of passing hidden messages by
emphasizing certain words in an otherwise innocuous message. Often that
was a message heard over the radio. This time, however, it was a sales
message delivered over the telephone. But the result was the same. Harry
Vincent received the call. He heard certain words slightly stressed and
understood the secret message.
The covers of The Shadow pulp magazines often showed The Shadow in black
cloak with a crimson lining. It made for a striking visual cover, with
the contrast of black and red, but it was not often actually mentioned
in the stories themselves. This is one of those rare stories that
describes the colorful lining.
The Shadow had a special way of signaling to his agents. He used a
flashlight with red and green colored lenses. He prearranged with his
aides what the colors would mean. It changed from story to story. In
this one, red means "follow the red light," and green means "leave."
This story is probably the first appearance of those colored lights that
had special meaning. They were routinely used in the stories from the
1940s. This early Shadow tale was the first one that I can recall that
used them, however.
This is a wonderfully creepy Shadow mystery from the early years of the
magazine's run. It was the 25th Shadow pulp mystery published, and gets
my hearty recommendation. I know you'll enjoy it as much as I did.
John
--
"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"
The wonderful old pulp mystery stories are all reviewed at: