The Shadow 100 The Man From Shanghai

THE MAN FROM SHANGHAI was originally published in the April 15, 1936 issue of The Shadow Magazine. Major Philip Rowden - the man from Shanghai - was caught in a murderous web involving millions of dollars in jewels. It was an insidious web that only The Shadow could hope to untangle. Here we have a top-notch Shadow mystery that all pulp fans owe it to themselves to read. The Shadow's lightning-fast reflexes are at the top of their form. His keen mind is blazingly brilliant. His crime-fighting skills are honed to their finest. The plot involves a crafty evil, a crime master whose cunning is most amazing, and a barely-human assassin whose skill rivals that of The Shadow. There are death traps that defy escape. Secrets of the Orient. Visits to Chinatown and Yat Soon, its ancient arbiter. And there's The Shadow who defies all odds with .45 automatics a-blazing! This is The Shadow at his peak. This is the pulp tale you will want to read. In this story, there are actually TWO men from Shanghai. There is Major Philip Rowden, an Englishman who served once as a commander among the Chinese armies. He's in New York as a representative of the Chinese government to raise funds for the besieged government by selling the last relics of the former Manchu dynasty: diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires, once the property of the dowager Empress of China. The second man from Shanghai is the evil dwarf Ku-Nuan. To call him a man is to be generous. This barely-human assassin has bulging eyes, flat nose, tusklike teeth, long and spidery arms and an overlarge head. He has come from Shanghai to San Francisco. And from there to New York. He is in the employ of a criminal mastermind who seeks not only the treasure guarded by Major Rowden, but the millions in cash being readied to purchase it. This criminal mastermind is no hidden figure. There's no need to guess his secret identity. We're told on the first page of the story who he is. This is Kenneth Malfort, a man of reputed wealth and standing, who is in reality a master plotter out to take possession of the millions. But his social position puts him above suspicion. No one suspects, even The Shadow. First he kills mining promoter Jerome Blessingdale aboard the Southeastern Limited on his way to Manhattan. Blessingdale was on his way to purchase part of Major Rowden's gems with a half million dollars. But now Blessingdale's dead, and his half million belongs to Kenneth Malfort. Next to go is William Hessup poisoned at the Merrimac Club. It was supposed to look like suicide, but in reality it was Malfort's plot to acquire Hessup's half million dollars with which he was to share in the purchase of Major Rowden's gems. Add that half million to Malfort's coffers, now. One by one, with the assistance of Ku-Nuan, the assassin, the evil Kenneth Malfort is picking off the five would-be purchasers of Major Rowden's gems. When he has their two and half million dollars in cash, then he'll go after the gems themselves. That'll make a tidy five million dollars for the sinister master of death. But his foul plans cannot succeed for long, because into the picture has stepped The Shadow! And once The Shadow is involved, Malfort's plans start to go awry. But it won't be easy for The Shadow. He must determine why these men are being killed. And who's behind it. And why. Assisting The Shadow in this story are his agents Burbank, Moe Shrevnitz, Harry Vincent and Cliff Marsland. But all play very small roles. Most of this story is carried by The Shadow, both in his black raiment and in his various disguises. He appears disguised as one of the characters in the story, the wealthy George Furbish. And he also appears as Lamont Cranston and Henry Arnaud. It's explained that he prefers the Arnaud disguise, because it is not based upon a real person. When guised as Cranston, there's always the chance that The Shadow may meet someone who knows the real Cranston, and will have to bluff his way through the encounter. Since Arnaud doesn't exist, that identity carries no such risk. We are treated to a couple scenes showing The Shadow adjusting his disguise. Apparently he has one disguise layered upon another one, so he can transition from Henry Arnaud to Lamont Cranston. We are told that, "The Shadow dug finger tips deep into his disguised face. Puttylike make-up came away. The Shadow's visage took on a more hawkish aspect. Special touches were needed. The Shadow applied them in the darkness; for his fingers were accustomed to the task." And now Arnaud has been replace by Cranston. We also see the return of Yat Soon, the arbiter of Chinatown. Yes, again we get to see The Shadow pass through the secret door into a labyrinth of stone-walled passages beneath streets of Chinatown. It all ends in front of a huge brass door that leads to the hidden abode of Yat Soon. The great Yat Soon gives his friend "Ying Ko" assistance in tracking down the twisted Ku-Nuan. As is usual in such encounters, The Shadow speaks to Yat Soon in perfect Chinese, while Yat Soon responds back in flawless English. Ying Ko, by the way, was first used to describe The Shadow in "Fate Joss," less than a year previously. It was the Chinese name for him, just as the Spanish called him "El Ombre." Remember, The Shadow was an international crime fighter, known the world over. He had as many names as there were languages. There is no sign of Commissioner Weston or Detective Cardona in this story. Although there are several murders, and we do see the police responding to various gun frays, the police are surprisingly uninvolved in this adventure. The Shadow doesn't really need them. He solves the crimes all by himself. And at the very end, after mopping up the gang of cutthroats, he leaves the scene just as the police are arriving. It's interesting that we see The Shadow climb the outside of a twenty-story hotel building. He ascends from the fourteenth floor to the twentieth, like a giant beetle crawling up the side of the sheer surface. And it's all done without the aide of the rubber suction cups that he sometimes uses. Those unusual rubber disks had first appeared four years earlier and had assisted The Shadow over two dozen times before the publication of this particular story. But apparently author Walter Gibson didn't feel they were necessary, this time around. So The Shadow defies death to climb six stories up the side of the hotel, using his amazing ability to find minute cracks and indentures in the building wall, getting a toehold here and a fingerhold there. Pretty nervy! But then, that's The Shadow that we know and love. One of the interesting side notes about this story is a casual comment made by Major Philip Rowden to The Shadow. In describing his mission to America on behalf of the Chinese government, he adds, "I am one of several emissaries who have been sent to acquire suitable funds." The matter of other agents who also carry valuable treasures is never mentioned again. But it certainly does give one pause to wonder. Where there are men carrying riches from China, there are other men of evil anxious to obtain it. Men willing to steal or kill for that fabulous wealth. It sounds like the makings of another Shadow pulp adventure, to me! I wonder if Gibson ever considered following up on that dangling thread? I bet it would have made for some excellent reading. Another thing I noted in reading this story was the proper explanation of "black light." That stood out because three years later in the story "Death From Nowhere," Walter Gibson tried to tell readers that black light could be seen in daylight as "a thin black beam," which, of course, is just plain wrong. In the story being reviewed here, however, he does correctly explain that it "produces a beam that is invisible in darkness." And indeed, that is the trigger to one of the death traps that The Shadow must somehow survive. In many of The Shadow's adventures, we read about his special ink that fades away after short exposure to the air. In this story, we see a different ink. This one starts out invisible, and turns visible later under heat such as a match. It's used here by The Shadow to send a message to his agents right under the nose of others, without them seeing a trace of it. And the words were coded, as well, just in case. As seems inevitable in any Chinatown story, there are a few racial slurs flung about casually. It would seem this was almost expected by the reading audience of the day. Although it stands out as jarring today, it would seem that readers in 1936 took it for granted with barely a notice. How times change! This story has everything. Death traps. Exciting battles when tremendously outnumbered. Secret doors. Hidden passages. Trips to Chinatown. Sinister masterminds. Lamont Cranston. Henry Arnaud. Mile-a-minute action. I found this to be one of the most satisfying Shadow stories I've read in a long time. Definitely recommended!