The Shadow 019 The Romanoff Jewels

THE ROMANOFF JEWELS was originally published in the December 1, 1932 issue of The Shadow Magazine. The greatest array of wealth in the entire world - the vast hoarded jewels of the Romanoffs - is at stake when two violent factions square off in a bloody battle that even The Shadow will be challenged to restrain. This is one of the classic Shadow pulp novels, and with good reason. It spans the globe -- America, Moscow, Paris, the Atlantic and back to America. It's a key issue in that the origin of The Shadow's mysterious girasol ring is described for the first time. It features The Shadow at his most powerful and bloodthirsty, before times and editorial decree lessened the body count. Yes, for all these reasons, the story is a classic. But more important than any of those reasons is the overriding one: it's simply just a superb, rousing adventure with The Shadow. This is one of those Shadow stories that you owe it to yourself to read. Yes, this is the story you've heard about that reveals the origin of The Shadow's girasol ring. The mysterious fire-opal that changes color. It's one of the famed Romanoff jewels, given to The Shadow as a momento of friendship by the authentic owner. Of course, years later, author Walter Gibson gave this ring a differing, conflicting origin. The ring was sometimes said to have come from South America, a gift to Kent Allard from the Xinca indians. But this story came first, and for now we'll go with this origin story. As our story opens, we meet the first round of main players at the home of millionaire Tobias Waddell. First, there is Marcus Holtmann, who has just returned from Russia. He learned some pretty amazing secrets in Russia. And he actually saw the famed collection of jewels that had been seized from the Romanoff family -- yes, saw them with his own eyes. Then there is Parker Noyes, attorney, who has been introducing Holtmann around town. And Frederick Froman, wealthy young adventurer. And finally, David Tholbin, man with a mysterious past. All of these are about to be mixed up in the search for the Romanoff jewels. You see, there's a sinister plot underfoot. A plot to discover the hiding place of the famous Romanoff jewels. The greatest hoard of wealth in all the world! Those vast possessions which the Revolutionists had wrested from the last of the Czars! And once the plot has succeeded, and the evil plotters have discovered the secret vault where the jewels are stored, then what? Why, steal them, of course! After leaving the home of Tobias Waddell, Marcus Holtmann, the man with the secret, disappears. He has been captured and is being tortured to reveal the secret hiding place of the treasure. And in a hidden dungeon room far below ground, he finally cracks and confesses all to his evil torturers. And now the race to gather the treasure is on. Our story switches to Russia. This is post-revolutionary Russia. The Czar has been overthrown; the Bolsheviks are now in power. We meet Michael Senov, a royalist. A faithful Czarist, he was once a member of the secret police and joined the Bolshevist movement as a spy. Now that they are in power, he stays with the party, known as Comrade Senov a faithful Red. But secretly, he is still loyal to the Czarists. And there is also Ivan Motkin, the brutal representative of the new government, who has been given the duty of guarding the Romanoff jewels. When the evil powers in America send secret word to Senov where the jewels are hidden, he gathers his forces and attacks the highly guarded secret vault. With a great loss of life on both sides, Senov succeeds in capturing the entire collection. Ivan Motkin, faithful Red who was supposed to be guaranteeing their safety, is then set upon Senov's trail to track down and recover the stolen gems. Meanwhile, the powers in America are heading toward Europe the take possession of the jewels that they have conspired to acquire. Whew! It's quite a story. The action travels from America to Russia to France. Then back across the Atlantic to America. And a trail of dead bodies is left the entire way. And following that blood-soaked trail is The Shadow! The Shadow appears in this story as Lamont Cranston and Henry Arnaud. But mostly, he appears as his black-cloaked self. Author Walter Gibson also tried out a new disguise for The Shadow in this story. It was the "old man" disguise that became known as Phineas Twambley beginning with the very next story, "Kings of Crime." The Shadow appears only once in this story using the disguise, and is described as a tall, gray-haired, benign old man who is deaf and walks with a cane. Gibson decided to discard the deafness, but kept the rest of the disguise and used it in ten subsequent Shadow pulp novels, first calling him Phineas Twambley and later Isaac Twambley. Also appearing here are Stanley, the chauffeur, Burbank, Harry Vincent and Cliff Marsland. Cliff has a nice part in the story, traveling to Paris. As the story explains, Cliff is familiar with Paris. He was a veteren there during the World War and speaks fluent French. As a matter of fact, at the end of issue #9 "Mobsmen on the Spot," Cliff was heading back to France on his honeymoon. Cliff's wife was rarely mentioned in the pulps, and that includes this story. Here, it's as though she doesn't exist. This was Cliff's sixth appearance in the pulp magazine series. Three of those were very minor appearances, so reader's weren't too familiar with the character. His early depiction is a bit different that from what readers later saw. This is a younger and more headstrong Cliff Marsland than we are normally used to seeing. As we are told in the story, Cliff has an adventurous spirit who prefers action to craftiness. For this reason, he serves The Shadow only in special situations. In later stories, he settled down, and became of more general use to The Shadow. The Shadow's mastery of languages is on display, again. Russian; French; German; The Shadow reads them all. And when The Shadow speaks in Russian, his accent is perfect. As we've learned in other stories, he's a master of languages. There are some pretty amazing hideouts, dungeons and death traps in this story. It seems that just about every old house that The Shadow enters has some sort of underground chambers. Once he goes down to the cellar, he always seems to find a hidden entrance that leads even farther below. There are always multiple levels of underground lairs in these houses. Certainly a cool concept, but one that starts to strain credulity after a bit. One of the things author Walter Gibson is known for is his love of word-play, codes and anagrams. He worked one into this story, in the name of one of the major players. Frederick Froman is known as F.O. Froman. Rearrange the letters and you get "Romanoff." Yes, he's of the Russian nobility, and proud of it. One of the interesting things about this story -- and here's warning of a mild spoiler, so read skip to the next paragraph if you wish -- the unique thing is that there really are no good guys in this story. Just about everyone is a bad guy. There's no proxy hero to identify with. On one side, there's the Bolsheviks, commonly referred to as 'Reds', who are currently in power in Russia. They are portrayed in this tale as a cruel and bloodthirsty lot. On the other side there are the Royalists, or Czarists, who are loyal to the dethroned royal family. Here they appear to be a sneaky, brutal bunch. And the two sides are battling to gain possession of the Romanoff jewels. The reader really can't identify with either side, so the only group left to root for is The Shadow and his agents. There are a couple minor characters in the story that seem relatively benign, but most of them are dead by the end of the story. A young lady lives, but that's only because author Walter Gibson tried to avoid violence toward women. And she was such a minor character that she had only nine lines of dialog in the entire story. So, what happens to the tremendous collection of jewels in the end? The Shadow's operatives haul them away and... OK, here's another spoiler. Read on at your own risk, or skip to the next paragraph. The Shadow takes them to his sanctum, into the laboratory which we rarely get to visit, and dissolves them in a powerful acid. Yes, they are destroyed. But that's because they are worthless, sparkling glass. The real Romanoff jewels have been scattered across the globe long ago. The cause of so much death and destruction is now gone. And the only true Romanoff jewel lies upon the third finger of The Shadow's left hand -- the girasol ring! A final note of interest, at the climax of the whole story, The Shadow is assisted by two masked operatives. Why they are masked is never explained. There is no need to hide their identity. And it's the first time I can remember that The Shadow masked his aides. Hmmm... Just another mystery, I guess. One the solution to which only The Shadow knows... If you have already read this story, you know it's one of the all-time great Shadow pulp adventures. If you haven't enjoyed it, yet, you really should take the time to sit down and enjoy it. It's one of the early tales, and one of the important ones. You owe it to yourself... read it!