The Shadow 157 The Golden Dog Murders

THE GOLDEN DOG MURDERS was published in the September 1, 1938 issue of The Shadow Magazine. The golden dog of the title actually refers to a statue. A sacred statue carved from a single block of solid gold. A golden statue with the head of a dog and the body of a nude woman. A statue that sits in a white marble temple in the Indian province of Rajkumana. A statue that comes to life to rain down death and destruction in New York City. And only the power of The Shadow can defeat the curse of this sinister power. Let's begin with the back story, here. Every decade, in Rajkumana, at the feast of the Ten-year Vigil, a virgin in white robes rides in on an elephant, wearing the Necklace of Purity. The Necklace of Purity is made of twenty-one very unusual one-of-a-kind sapphires. Each is of vivid blue, and deep in the center of each stone is a hint of red ruby. There are no other sapphires like them in the entire world. The necklace is placed about the throat of the golden Dog goddess. But not this time. The necklace has been stolen. Someone has stolen the sapphire necklace and has split up the rare stones. They've been sold to collectors in New York. And now a curse has been placed upon the new owners of the stones. The Dog goddess will wreak her revenge. Horrible death will befall those who possess the stolen gems. As our story opens we meet Sam Baron, a trigger-man for a powerful underworld mob that specializes in stolen jewelry. He's breaking into the home of young chemist Rodney Mason. He's after synthetic jewels that young Rodney has been experimenting with. Rodney Mason has been trying to create synthetic sapphires, using a process of chemistry and heat. But the process has not yet been perfected. So far, Rodney has only succeeded in creating artificial sapphires that are flawed. Although they are a deep vivid blue, deep in the heart of each stone is the reddish trace of a ruby. And that makes them valueless. Or so he thinks. By a strange coincidence that could only happen in a pulp magazine, the synthetic stones Rodney Mason thinks are worthless are actually a perfect match for the priceless sapphires that make up the stolen Necklace of Purity. Some hidden mastermind has discovered this fact, and has sent Sam Baron to acquire the synthetic jewels. What, exactly, does this secret foe want with the fake gems? He's going to use them as bait to flush out the new owners of the stolen sapphires. Then he can return the intact necklace to Ali Singh, the Maharajah of Rajkumana, and claim the two-million dollar reward. The "logical" question might be, why is this faceless villain going to all the trouble of tracking down the stolen gems and murdering their owners, when he could simply hand the fake gems over to the maharajah? No one can tell the difference, or so we're told, so the deception would go undetected. He'd get the same two-million dollar pricetag without all the work. I think the "logical" answer would be that the bad guy never thinks of this because the resulting pulp novel would then be too short. And the pulp reader would have been cheated out of a flurry of bloody deaths and a lot of running around. So, instead of a short "steal the gems and trade them for the reward" story, we're off on a trail of thrilling action and gory death. And that, of course, catches the attention of... The Shadow! And helping out The Shadow are several of his agents. Cliff Marsland is working undercover in Sam Baron's mob. Not only that, but Cliff gets to go into disguise in this story. Since Cliff has quite a reputation as an underworld hoodlum, he usually doesn't need a disguise to infiltrate a mob. He just joins as himself. But in this story, he gets fixed up as "Pete," a thug who joins with Sam Baron, but secretly reports back to The Shadow. Harry Vincent is another agent who gets to see action here. He helps out by following the mysterious Senor Ramon Ortega, a wealthy Spanish rubber planter on vacation in New York. He also guards the beautiful young Isabel Pyne, niece of Fifth Avenue's most famous jeweler. Yes, Harry gets it pretty easy, this time around. Oft times he'd get bashed around a lot, sometimes captured and tortured. But in this story, a gun fray is about the worst he encounters. Contact man Burbank is also mentioned a few times, but other than that, there are no other agents present for this story. Acting Inspector Joe Cardona is here, representing the forces of the law. But no sign of Commissioner Weston. All in all, it's a slimmed-down cast. This story was written by Theodore Tinsley, who filled in for Walter Gibson as "Maxwell Grant" twenty seven times between 1936 and 1943. Tinsley's writing style was a little edgier than Gibson's, which explains the pumped-up blood and gore. Tinsley always inserted quirky, pulpy little scenarios into his Shadow novels. They didn't always make sense, but they really kept the readers' attention. A good example is the dog in the safe. Peter Randolph is the first of the sapphire owners to die. He keeps his single stolen gem inside a large safe, along with... a dog. Yes, that's right, a living canine. After Sam Baron strangles Peter Randolph, he heads to the large safe in the corner. Within ten minutes, he's cracked the combination and is ready to open the heavy metal door. He notices a series of six holes drilled in the top of the safe. The holes must have been drilled a long time ago. Their edges are dusty and discolored. The holes are too small to peer through. There is no sign of wires or any kind of electrical connection. So he opens the safe; out jumps an enormous bulldog who attacks him silently. He survives the attack and kills the beast, but is then inspired. He'll rip out the throat of Peter Randolph, his strangulation victim, to make it seem like the Dog goddess curse is real, and hide the dead animal's body. At this point things start to get a tad more gory than the usual Shadow story. But to return to the dog in the safe. The bulldog has had its vocal cords severed, so it can't make a sound. And the dog's owner keeps it in a safe? From the description, it seems the safe is the dog's regular abode. But to me, that just doesn't make sense. Why would anyone keep a vicious beast, with vocal cords cut, locked inside a safe? It certainly seems bizarre to me. And a bit unsanitary, too. I sure hope that dog was house trained... er... safe trained. What about feeding, walking, etc? Yes, this is a good example of the quirky things Tinsley could toss into a pulp novel. Doesn't make sense, if you think about it. But I guess you weren't supposed to think about it. It was pulp. The biggest leap of logic was at story's end, when the identity of the nameless master villain is revealed. Naturally, he's one of the innocent-seeming characters we've known throughout the story. But his previous actions don't make sense, once you know who he is. I'll explain in more detail, but be forewarned... spoilers are coming up! SPOILER The secret mastermind behind all the mayhem is... young chemist Rodney Mason. That's right, the same Rodney Mason that originally created the synthetic sapphires that coincidentally were exact duplicates for the stones in the Necklace of Purity. Well, that answers one question, anyway. I was wondering how Sam Baron knew about the existence of the artificial gems, since Rodney Mason had told no one. Now it makes sense: Rodney Mason was the only person who knew, and Rodney Mason told Sam Baron. But then that brings up an even more obvious question. Why did Mason hire Sam Baron to steal the jewels from himself? It serves no purpose, especially since no one knew about them. It couldn't even have been used a create a fake alibi. I just don't get it. It did make for an exciting opening to the novel - the theft of the jewels, the murder of the butler and the secret disposal of his body. But all for no purpose. Mason already had the jewels. There was no need to steal them from himself. END OF SPOILER Here's a loose end. About a quarter of the way into the story, we are told that a newspaper cable reports the golden statue of the vengeful Dog goddess was missing from the altar of her temple! Not only has the necklace been stolen, but now the statue as well. But that part of the story is never resolved. We never find out who stole the statue, or why. Or how it was stolen, or if it was recovered. It's one of those loose ends that needed tying up. And there are things in the story that are just not very smart. One of the bad guys is a swarthy foreigner who drives around in a sedan with a very unique radiator cap. It's the Dog goddess! Yes, right there on the front of his car for all to see is the figure of a golden girl with a dog's head. What was this guy thinking?!! Isn't that a bit like painting "criminal" in big yellow letters on the side of the car, then driving through downtown Manhattan? Boy, this guy wasn't the brightest bulb in the box. There are occasionally a few things that don't seem factually correct. In one scene, beautiful young Isabel Pyne is captured and drugged with a powerful narcotic distilled from Indian hemp. "The pupils of her eyes were like tiny pin points." Wait a minute... I thought her eyes would be dilated wide, not tiny pin points. Maybe I need to brush up on my signs of substance abuse. I got a laugh out of the dialogue when poor Isabel was put under the influence of the hashish: "You will not utter a sound. Do you understand?" "I understand." "You will obey whatever orders I give you." "I will obey." OK, either she wasn't really under the influence of the drug, or she wasn't grasping the concept of uttering a sound. She just keeps talking, even though instructed not to. Inadvertent humor there, I'm sure. But humor, nonetheless. Usually, Theodore Tinsley wrote a tight story without loose ends or gaps in logic. But this story was the exception. That doesn't mean the story was no good. Actually it was quite good. It was thrilling and carried me along on a roller-coaster ride. It was hard to put the magazine down. It was only after the story was ended, that I started thinking about it and the flaws began to emerge. I guess you aren't really suppose to think about pulp mysteries after they're over. The things I like about Theodore Tinsley's writing style is that it is fast paced, borders on the wondrous and fantastic, doesn't shy from blood and gore, and presents us with a Shadow that isn't infallible. He can, and does, get injured. During a fight, a knife blade slashes across The Shadow's fingers, leaving a bloody furrow. Later, a bullet slices across the surface of his throat, burning like a red-hot wire. Tinsley's thugs enjoy a little torture. Not because it's efficient, but because it's fun. They all seem to have a masochistic bent. As one hoodlum puts it: "A tough guy, eh? You won't talk? That's swell! I like tough guys. They're fun to work on!" And then there's the fantastic. Like the sapphire death - a puff of strange bright-blue vapor that kills. And a walled New Jersey estate surrounding the winter quarters for a circus. Beneath the cement floor of the monkey house is a strange cellar and maze of underground passages. The Dog goddess comes to life and stalks the animal cages. And let's not forget a pit of tangled, writhing snakes - poisonous brown adders. And then there's the more vivid descriptions: "His face was almost unrecognizable under the deluge of blood from his torn throat." Yes, a deluge. Where Gibson's victims might seep blood, Tinsley's victims wallowed in a deluge of it. It all makes for a great story, written by the "second-in-command" Theodore Tinsley. You've got sliding panels, trap doors, and underground passages! You've got action, death and destruction. It all makes for a slightly more "intense" story than the usual Walter Gibson fare. But it's still The Shadow, and it's still an exciting story that you won't want to miss.