[The Shadow 313] • Room 1313

ROOM 1313 was originally published in the April-May 1947 issue of The Shadow Magazine. How to track down a brutal killer who kills not for revenge or money, but for the sheer, inhuman joy of it? And how to clear an English Earl of the murder charges, issued when he innocently was lured into room 1313? You want to read a good Shadow pulp mystery? Well, look elsewhere. This ain't it. Once upon a time, a long time ago in a faraway place known only as "Pulpland" a man with two first names was hired to replace Walter Gibson as author of The Shadow magazine stories. And so it was that Bruce Elliott wrote fifteen Shadow novels over a two year period — an age that became known as the Dark Times. It was a time of great despair, because The Shadow changed so radically that readers could barely recognize him. The pulp novel reviewed here, "Room 1313" is one of those stories. For those of you who don't know the background, here's a brief synopsis. Walter Gibson who created The Shadow in 1931 and wrote the vast majority of the magazine stories left the series in a contract dispute with publishers Street Smith in early 1946. As a replacement, the editors selected Bruce Elliott. Elliott was an established writer of mystery and science fiction novels, short stories and radio scripts. (He wrote for the CBS radio series The Whistler.) He was also a magician, as was creator Walter Gibson. Although it seemed he would make a capable replacement for Gibson, it was a disastrous decision. Under his charge, the Shadow stories took a nosedive. They were so unlike the stories written by Walter Gibson, and alternate author Theodore Tinsley, that readership dropped precipitously. In early 1948, Street Smith begged Walter Gibson to return. He did so with the wonderful story "Jade Dragon." But the damage Bruce Elliott had inflicted upon the series had been done. The magazine limped along for five more issues, then ceased publication with the summer 1949 issue. This is one of the infamous "Bruce Elliott" Shadow stories. This was a low-point in the magazine's history. The stories weren't what we have come to expect from The Shadow. Well, let's look at it and see... In this story, The Shadow appears but once. The rest of the time it's just Lamont Cranston, acting as a detective. Oh well, it could have been worse. In some of the Bruce Elliott stories, The Shadow never appeared at all! The Shadow's single appearance in this story, is vintage Shadow, however. He flits invisibly through the foggy night, and battles against seemingly insurmountable odds. The Shadow's nemesis, in that scene, is Count Germain, a fiend who claims to be over 200 years old. The count has just finished a murder, and is in the process of slowing flaying the skin from the corpse. (ick!) The Shadow engages The Count and his henchmen in a battle that harkens back to the glory days of The Shadow. So we'll give Elliott credit for that one scene, at least. The story takes place in England. Lamont Cranston has just arrived in foggy London to look into the case of accused murderer, the Earl of Bostick. The Earl claims to have been framed, but his story is too fantastic to be believed. Only Lamont Cranston can clear his name and reveal the true murderer. And so he does, in this very short story of less than twenty-five thousand words. The length of this story is just one of its problems. Since it is much shorter than the usual Shadow novel, it needed by necessity to have a streamlined cast of characters. And that makes it easy to identify the hidden mastermind. There are so few characters that it could only be one or two people to start with. And knowing mystery authors as we do, it is undoubtedly the one least expected. And, sure enough, it was. The first one-third of the entire novel is taken up with the Earl of Bostick's story. He tells -- and really drags it out -- how he was lured to a strange room on the thirteenth floor of a hotel. There he found some hundred people involved in a bizarre wild party. He passed out and awoke somewhere down in Limehouse. A bloody knife was in his hand, a corpse lay nearby, and the Earl's pockets were filled with jewels. He came to just as the police were entering the room. And when the Earl tries to convince the police of his story, they find there is no such hotel, no such room and the jewels belonged to the dead man. If it weren't for the fact that he was a member of the landed gentry, he would have been thrown in jail right there. As it is, he's free from jail, but can't leave the city. Two things occurred to me as I read this story. Two things that I never saw in a Walter Gibson authored Shadow novel. There is a medieval scene featuring bare-bosomed women. That would never have appeared in a Gibson novel. Even Theodore Tinsley with his penchant for a bit more sexual titillation would have hesitated, there. But it was 1947 and maybe times were achanging, along with the guy who wrote the story. Also, in this story, The Shadow actually sleeps at night. He goes to bed and sleeps! In the classic Shadow stories, The Shadow was master of the night. That was when he did his best work. He never slept! But, obviously, this is not a Gibson novel. It's an Elliott one, and so we must get used to these incongruities. Lamont Cranston doesn't just show up in England on his own. He was summoned there, hired by Jackie (that's how the Earl of York wants to be called). So in Bruce Elliott's version of The Shadow, apparently Lamont Cranston is a world-renowned detective who people call upon to get them out of trouble. "I've read a lot of the doings of the estimable Lamont Cranston," as the Earl's finance puts it. Quite a far cry from a world-traveler and millionaire — the Lamont Cranston as created by Walter Gibson. But then, that was typical of the Bruce Elliott Shadow novels. Cranston seemed to have forsaken his roots, and lost his fortune. All of Elliott's stories featured Lamont Cranston -- detective! This story features a Scotland Yard man by the name of Inspector Lalage. He's a fairly competent lawman, a step above the Inspector Lestrade type, as described in the Sherlock Holmes stories. If Walter Gibson had been writing this story, he undoubtedly would have re-introduced Inspector Delka, who had appeared in five previous Shadow adventures. But Bruce Elliott, with his lack of history with the stories, rang in a new character. These stories by Elliott lacked continuity... among other things. The character of the Count Germain was an interesting one. He was a maniac with a lust for killing. In one place we are told he had poisoned sticks of gum, carefully rewrapped them in their gaudy paper coverings, and placed them in vending machines. Apparently machines at that time vended sticks of gum, not gumballs. The Count enjoyed the idea that random people would die -- people with whom he had no apparent contact. Another point of the story which caught my interest was one of the Cockney fighters in the only scene featuring The Shadow. Our black-cloaked hero sneaks into a house and discovers Count Germain gleefully removing the skin from the body of his latest victim. The Shadow is attacked by the Count's henchmen. One in particular used a most unusual weapon: "Under the man's grubby fingernails, narrow crescents of razor blades were adhesive taped. The five fingers were in effect claws." Certainly effective -- a sort-of Freddy Krueger of the Forties -- but I bet it sure made tying his shoelaces tricky. The story, while not even close to classic Walter Gibson, is a fairly good detective story if taken upon its own merits. It's the story of a serial killer who kills those he doesn't even know, just for the pleasure of it. But if you wanted to read just any detective story, you would have picked up a different pulp magazine. Maybe "Dime Detective" or some such. But, no, you picked up a Shadow pulp with the intent of reading a Shadow mystery. And unfortunately, you found only a pale imitation of what you sought. While it may be an acceptable generic detective novel, it is a truly abominable Shadow pulp mystery. The characterization is way off. Bruce Elliott just didn't get it. If Street Smith found it necessary to replace Walter Gibson, they could have done much better with Theodore Tinsley or some writer of his ilk. But instead, readers suffered along with Bruce Elliott stories for two full years. Luckily, you don't need to suffer as the pulp readers of 1947 did. You can select a different Shadow mystery... a better one from those available. You can, and you should. And avoid this one, unless you are overwhelmed with curiosity, and just a bit of a masochist. You've been warned.