The New Adventures of Semi-Dual

By I.A. Watson, Kevin Noel Olson and James Palmer

Prepare to be amazed and astonished as the first occult detective of Pulp Fiction walks once more from the halls of the Urania Building and joins the fight against evil! Pulp Obscura, an imprint of Pro Se Productions, in conjunction with Altus Press proudly presents 'The New Adventures of Semi Dual'!
Created by J. U. Giesy and J. B. Smith, Semi Dual was considered Pulp's first occult detective. Semi Dual, also known as Prince Abdul Omar of Persia, was an astrologer, a mystic, a telepath, and a psychologist. Semi Dual's name was based, in part, on his methods of investigation: "by dual solutions-- one material for material minds-- the other occult, for those who cared to sense a deeper something back of the philosophic lessons interwoven in the narrative."
Assisted by his allies at Glace and Bryce, Private Investigators, Semi Dual peels away the layers of mystery to shine light on the darkness!
From out of the past comes new tales of The Master Mystic! The New Adventures of Semi Dual by I. A. Watson, Kevin Noel Olson, and James Palmer! Available from Pulp Obscura and Pro Se Productions!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pro Se Press
• Release date: Apr 1, 2015

Book preview

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SEMI-DUAL

Published by Pro Se Press

Part of the PULP OBSCURA imprint

This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters in this publication are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. No part or whole of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing of the publisher.

Copyright © 2015 Pro Se Productions

Stories are © 2015 their respective authors

Table of Contents

THE CURSE OF URANIA

by I.A. Watson

SHAMEN OF MU

by Kevin Noel Olson

THE RED LOTUS

by James Palmer

About the Authors

THE CURSE OF URANIA

By I.A. Watson

Chapter I

The Fall of Hiram Marsden

I was an hour late to Buchanan Plaza. By the time I got there the coroner’s wagon was already driving off with the body and the cops were hosing down the sidewalk where he’d dropped. The crowd was dispersing.

Smithson wouldn’t be happy. My Editor in Chief has a hair-trigger temper, and he likes to know where his news room reporters are even in their off-hours. I’d not been able to get a table at the little place I’d wanted to take Connie for our anniversary so we’d found a table at a place down the street. When Smithson had Jeffrys call me in he’d not been able to find me.

Not like you to be slow, Glace, noted Jimmy Dean of the Dispatch. He lit a cigarette from the end of his own and passed it to me.

I was on a date. Be a pal and fill me in.

Sure. Be a pal and tell me if Connie Bryce has any sisters at home.

Sorry, bud. She’s one of a kind. I gestured to the sidewalk. So who fell?

Dean’s eyebrows rose. You really are out of the loop on this one, ain’t you? The guy they’ve just scraped up off of half the street was Hiram Marsden.

Now it was my turn to open my eyes wide. Marsden the tycoon? Of Marsden & Langfirth Holdings? Owns half of uptown?

Marsden the bankrupt is what they’re saying. You know there’s been rumors that the Marsden empire was tumbling. Creditors getting antsy. Gossip about loans coming due that the guy couldn’t pay back. Dean jabbed a thumb at the sidewalk. Looks like Marsden decided to cash out before his checks bounced.

I stared up at the twenty-two storey skyscraper that dominated the Plaza. There was a balcony on the top level where Marsden kept a penthouse. Anyone jumping from there was a definite goner. So the guy took a tumble?

Dean checked his notebook. Ten-fourteen p.m. Three witnesses saw him fall. The cops took ‘em away to get statements.

Anyone see him actually jump?

Not that I hear of, but like I say the bulls whisked the bystanders off as soon as we got here.

I winced again. Everyone else was going to file this story long before I did.

Dean nodded. Yeah. I gotta go too. Good luck with Smithson.

Hold on, Jimmy. Throw me a couple more details. Something I can cobble together enough to keep Smithson from my throat.

I fell in pace with the Dispatch reporter. You’ll owe me for this, Glace, he warned. Okay, word is that Marsden was alone in his penthouse before he took his tumble. His only live-in servant’s an old guy named Cardew who served Marsden’s father before him, and Cardew was traveling back from some late errand when his boss tried to fly.

So the conclusion’s suicide?

There’s more. You know it took Marsden years to get over his wife’s death, right? Some guys at the Exchange claim he’s never been the same since. But then there was those gossip stories about dazzling socialite Alice Eaton, and their engagement two months back? I’ve heard a whisper that she broke off that arrangement about a week ago.

Poor guy. Business troubles and girl problems.

Yeah. And if you’re going to try and file something to cover you with Smithson you’d better know that Marsden’s cousin showed up here while the cops were swarming about.

I worked the city beat. I knew about Marsden’s cousin. Dr Jack Kembell? As in ‘Jack Kembell for Mayor?’ Jack Kembell? That’s the pic that’s gonna be on every front page tomorrow morning then.

Yep. And you can bet that the cops are gonna jump to investigate this one if Straight Jack Kembell’s leaning on ‘em to find out what happened. Dean hailed a cab. That’s the basics, junior. All the rest is Dispatch column inches. Catch ya later.

*****

I headed into the local-room at the Record with a tight gut. Late as it was, Smithson was still there, bawling out some cub over some rookie mistake. I knew I was likely to be next. Sure, I’d brought the paper a few scoops in my time, but in this business a reporter’s only as good as his last story.

A copy boy whizzed over to me as I waited for my pasting. Telegram come for ya, he called, crumpling a Bell cable into my fist before rushing off on his next errand.

I unscrewed the thin carbon slip and read the message.

Glace! yelled Smithson, beckoning me over to his glass-walled office. "Get yourself in here. I’m eager to know why every paper in town’s got a Marsden story on the presses right now except for the Record. Real eager!"

I slipped into Smithson’s domain still clutching the telegram.

Well? my editor demanded.

I looked him in the eye. I’m gonna need more time, chief, I told him.

Oh, you are, are ya? Maybe I’ll just call the print room and tell ‘em they can take the evening off from the presses ‘cause Mister Gordon Glace wants to polish his prose a bit more before he’s ready to make his literary debut.

I need more time because the other papers got the story wrong, I insisted.

Smithson paused. Wrong? What d’you mean, wrong?

I mean they’re all printing that Smithson jumped to his death, that it was suicide because of his business collapsing, or because Miss Eaton broke their engagement.

So?

So I have information that Marsden didn’t jump. He was pushed. It was murder.

Smithson caught his breath. That… would be a story, he admitted.

It would. So give me some time to follow up. I’ll turn the notes I’ve already got over to one of the copywriters. Let me chase up this lead and see if we can’t outdo every paper in the city and get to the bottom of who killed Hiram Marsden.

My editor prodded me in the chest. You’ve gone out on a limb before and I’ve not regretted it. Don’t disappoint me now, Glace.

I won’t.

You got a good source? He knew better than to ask what it was.

The best.

I left to follow up on the info in the telegram in my pocket. It was a short simple wire from my mysterious ally Semi Dual. It merely said: MARSDEN WAS MURDERED +STOP+ COME.

*****

I’m always baffled when it comes to describing the man known as Semi Dual. He called himself a psychological physician. I called him six feet of brown-haired, grey-eyed enigma, a soft-spoken well-read reclusive spiritual savant who dwelled on the topmost floors of the fashionable Urania Building like a swami turned sultan. Every time we’d met he had confused me, impressed me – and solved some impossible crime as simply as a child stacks play blocks.

The elevator rattled to a stop on the Urania’s twentieth floor. The boy opened the gates and let me out into that musky plant-filled lobby, more glasshouse than corridor, which led to the strange man’s penthouse. He knows you’re coming, the young Negro starter grinned. He always does.

I walked the length of that verdant hallway and came to the marble stairs beyond. Thirty-nine steps up the arabesque treads took me past that huge wall-mounted lion-skin and the bronze newel-statues, life-sized nymphs holding aloft globes of soft light.

And there, at the entrance to the tropical roof garden that surrounded Semi Dual’s sanctum, the graven metal inscription with glazed enamel insets, surely the strangest greeting or warning ever to be laid out for a visitor’s gaze: ‘Pause and consider, oh, stranger. For he who cometh against me with evil intent, shall live to rue it, until the uttermost part of his debt shall have been paid; yet he who cometh in peace, and with a pure heart, shall surely find that which he shall seek.’

As always, my footfall upon the plate caused the chiming of a bell. The teakwood portal to the tower’s interior swung open, and Semi Dual’s manservant awaited my arrival as if he’d been standing ready to receive me since he had closed the doors on me after my last visit.

The master awaits you in his consulting room, the butler said. He smoothly helped me off with my overcoat, supplied me with one of the invariably-refreshing fruit-based cocktails that my host prepared, and led me along the familiar route to the wood-paneled business space where I had first met Semi Dual those long months before.

The psychological physician stood with his back to me. He stared out of the full-length window onto the glass-covered garden and the whole cityscape. The Urania tower afforded a fine view over the central district, down past the market area and the bay wharves beyond.

Thank you for coming, Glace, Semi Dual said to me without looking away from the skyline. I appreciate your promptness.

Then he turned. Those ancient-seeming grey eyes looked right at me – into me – and I remembered again how different this man was from any other I had ever met.