[The Shadow 118] • Fox Hound

FOXHOUND was originally published in the January 15, 1937 issue of The Shadow Magazine. Our master criminal, the megavillain in this piece, is named Foxhound. His name is also used as a password; the first guy says "Fox" and the second guy responds with "Hound." Devilishly clever, these fiendish crooks of the nineteen thirties! But even more clever is the nemesis of the underworld, The Shadow. And it will take all the skill and cunning of The Shadow to defeat the hidden mastermind known only as Foxhound. One scene in this pulp mystery features a hypodermic needle being stabbed into the base of a victim's skull. Another scene showcases a beautiful blue-eyed blonde who loves to torture and kill. When a victim dies, it's with plenty of spurting blood. And the criminal mastermind himself rules from a huge underground complex. What does all this point to? That the story was written by Theodore Tinsley, of course! Yes, this was Ted Tinsley's second Shadow novel, his first being "Partners of Peril" two months earlier. And it has many of the trademarks that have come to be associated with Tinsley. Tinsley's women could be, and were, bad girls. Very bad girls. Unlike Gibson's stories, in which women were innocent and never died, Tinsley wasn't afraid to have an evil woman... and a woman could die. Not only that, he added an "edginess" to his writing. His stories were a little "pulpier" than Gibson's. There was a touch more sex and violence. Spurting blood and silky thighs. Villains were often sadists who enjoyed a little torture. He also liked to put caves, tunnels and underground hide-outs in his stories. And he was fond of trains, although trains were just about the only thing not in this story. Our story opens in a court of law. A trial is in session. Shades of Perry Mason! But the defense attorney is no champion of justice. He's Alonzo Kelsea, the highest-priced and shrewdest criminal lawyer in the city. And he's about to get habitual criminal Jimmy Dawson declared innocent on the charge of murder. It seems that Jimmy Dawson had sneaked aboard the oceanliner Loire, killed Herbert Baker, and ransacked his cabin looking for something. Upon exiting the ship, he was stopped by police detective Pat Malone. He pumped bullets into detective Malone, not realizing a longshoreman was an eyewitness to the brutal murder. The law couldn't prove the murder of Herbert Baker aboard the ship, but they had a open-and-shut case in the murder of Pat Malone. Or so they thought. In the back of the courtroom, Police Commissioner Ralph Weston and millionaire Lamont Cranston watch the proceedings. They watch as the eyewitness is discredited. They watch as beloved philanthropist Leland Payne gives weasely Jimmy Dawson an ironclad alibi. No one can question his word, when he states that Dawson had been with him at the time of the murder. And Cranston and Weston watch as Jimmy Dawson is released, found innocent. How did this strange turnabout of affairs come to be? How could Jimmy Dawson, who had neither friends, influence or money, afford to hire attorney Alonzo Kelsea? Kelsea's minimum retainer was fifty thousand dollars. And how did Dawson manage to obtain an alibi from New York's most trusted philanthropist? That's what The Shadow wants to know. He also wants to know why Dawson killed Herbert Baker. Dawson wasn't indicted for the crime, but The Shadow knows he was responsible. What was Dawson looking for in the stateroom? And who is behind the strange scheme? The answer to all those questions can be summed up in a single word: Foxhound! It is the tall, muscular figure in cloaked silver-gray known as Foxhound who has made off with twenty-million dollars. It is Foxhound who must obtain something that was secreted aboard the ship Loire in Herbert Baker's cabin. It is Foxhound who controls a vast empire of crooks from his underground lair. Yes, the name of all this evil is Foxhound. Assisting The Shadow in this titanic battle of good vs. evil are his agents Burbank, Clyde Burke, Harry Vincent and Moe Shrevnitz. Also assisting the forces of good, from police headquarters, are Commissioner Weston and acting inspector Joe Cardona. The Shadow gets to use his long-time disguise of Lamont Cranston, while the real Cranston is conveniently out of the country. He also appears as an unnamed dignified business man. And, although another of his disguises is never identified as Phineas Twambley, the description certainly fits: a tall, white-haired old man who speaks in a gentle, rather high-pitched voice. We don't really have a proxy hero, in this story. Probably because we aren't sure who the good guys are. Just about everyone acts suspiciously, so we don't know who to root for. There is a bit of a love interest between philanthropist Leland Payne's young niece, Madge, and Doctor Bruce Hanson. Hanson is a young research specialist in the field of cancer treatment. Both young Hanson and Madge act a bit suspicious at times, but since they are in love, it seems a fairly safe bet to assume they are actually innocent. So, in a sense, these two become our proxy hero and heroine. We don't actually get to see all that much of them, so the "proxy" title is more honorary than anything else. Author Theodore Tinsley offers many interesting and curious incidences. But often, he never really explains them by story's end. He's probably figuring we've forgotten by then, being carried away by the story's action. But I still want to know... the man murdered on shipboard, Herbert Baker. Why were his fingerprints hopelessly disfigured by acid? Why did Leland Payne accuse his niece of treachery with his dying words? And why does Foxhound speak in a harsh metallic voice that sounds like a poorly recorded photograph record? None of this is ever explained. Tinsley does offer some unique thrills that are a nice chance of pace. One scene has two thugs using, instead of a normal gun, a special short-barreled pistol that shoots a stream of ammonia into the eyes of their adversaries. And their adversary is The Shadow. He gets a stream of ammonia gushing straight into his eyes, which certainly puts him at a disadvantage. The Shadow really gets bashed around in this story. That's another tell-tale sign of a Tinsley authored Shadow novel. His characterization of The Shadow was a bit different from Walter Gibson's. His Shadow was a bit powerful, but he also was wounded more frequently. In this story, he gets that squirt of ammonia in the eyes. He's hit on the head numerous times, so many that this poor guy must have had multiple concussions. And he's shot pretty severely near the end. He takes a bullet to the right side of the chest. Yes, Tinsley really liked to put The Shadow through his paces, and make him earn his victories the hard way. And The Shadow isn't the only one. Poor Harry Vincent gets a knife thrown at him. It pierces the palm of his hand, pinning him to the wall. Ouch! That's really gotta hurt. And when Clyde Burke gets a murderous slug pumped into his body by a treacherous killer, the blood spurts from his neck. The Shadow's agents really get a shellacking in this story. Tinsley wrote a pretty good Shadow yard, for only his second try. He doesn't quite get everything right, but the oversights are minor. For example, he has Moe Shrevnitz talking in a raspy voice. That was never his signature in Gibson's writings. When Clyde Burke is shot, he is taken to a private hospital that is maintained and operated by the wealth of The Shadow for just such an emergency. This is a public "accident ward" that Tinsley has The Shadow using. Now if Gibson had written this, Burke would have been taken to Dr. Rupert Sayre's private clinic. So, there's a few minor things like these that Tinsley didn't get quite right. But things would get better as he continued writing for The Shadow magazine. Some interesting tidbits from this story. The dirigible Hindenburg is mentioned in this story. A valuable painting is reported to have just arrived on the lighter-than-air ship. Ironically, it would be less than four months later when the dirigible would crash in flames, resulting in one of the biggest news stories in U.S. history. In another scene, Tinsley has The Shadow using the sharp cutting edge of his girasol ring to cut a section out of a pane of glass. We all know that a diamond can cut glass, but I wasn't sure about a girasol. So I did a little research. Glass has a hardness of about 5.5 and a girasol's hardness ranges between 6 and 7 (a diamond is 10). So it looks like Tinsley did his own research, too. He wasn't just making this up, as I first assumed. In one scene lawyer Alonzo Kelsea is described as wearing body armor under his clothing. I know they had bullet-proof vests back in the 1930's, but I wasn't aware of any other body armor. Tinsley doesn't elaborate any further, which is unfortunate. I'm curious to know what types of body armor were available to a lawyer back then. Notice how scrupulously I'm avoiding lawyer jokes, here. The climax of the story takes place in an old abandoned iron mine. A small opening in the side of a cliff leads to an ancient tunnel. The Shadow follows it until it leads to a huge cavernous opening in the bowels of the earth, a chamber so big that it easily contains a large underground lake. Here, The Shadow confronts Foxhound in a setting that would be right at home in a James Bond novel. And then, in the last few paragraphs as the story ends, we are given a quick preview of the story in the upcoming issue of The Shadow Magazine. It's "The Loot of Death." There was a short period of time when The Shadow Magazine promoted the next issue's story, but it didn't last long. Doc Savage Magazine, another Street Smith pulp, consistently promoted the next story on it's last page, for the entire run. But it was unusual for The Shadow. The story is a good one. The writing is slightly more "intense" than the usual Walter Gibson fare. But a dash more violence and a slightly less infallible hero don't hurt The Shadow at all. It makes for a fun and pulpy read that I can recommend.