Pulp Adventures #19: The Daughter of Huang Chow

By Bold Venture Press

Pulp Adventures continues its quarterly journey across the landscape of pulp fiction. This issue travels from the South Seas to London back alleys, and stops in smoky firehouses in the Windy City! The highlight of this issue is “The Daughter of Huang Chow” by Sax Rohmer, a classic thriller by the creator of Fu Manchu! When Inspector Kerry investigates murder and opium smuggling, he stumbles across a woman whose feminine charms render him powerless—but he doesn’t seem to mind! Also in this issue: A show business detective finds himself working for an actor who loses track of his women in “Road Show” by Roger Torrey; “A Pinch of Powder” by Karl Detzer chronicles the plight of heroic firefighters who need rescuing from the new firehouse cook!; Richard A. Lupoff continues the exploits of Splash Shanahan, in “Tangaroa’s Eye,” as he transports a lovely passenger to a secret paradise; In a Railroad Stories’ short by Dave Martin, “Boxcar Mary” is a tomboy who rides the rails to trouble; And a German spy master meets his equal in Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson’s “Treason For Glory.” In the nonfiction category, Pulp Adventures #19 features “Searching for a Hero: Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson” by Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson. The pulp author turned comic book publisher, who paved the way to success for Superman, also lived the adventures he wrote. “Liner notes” on authors Karl Detzer (by Detzer, himself) and Sax Rohmer (by William Patrick Maynard) accompany their stories. This issue sports a slam-bang action cover by Norman A. Saunders, courtesy of the illustrator’s estate, and a dramatic “Daughter of Huang-Chow” back-cover by John A. Coughlin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bold Venture Press
• Release date: Oct 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310151088

Bold Venture Press

Bold Venture Press publishes quality reprints of classic pulp fiction, and exciting new fiction in the realms of mystery, science fiction and horror. Our flagship title is Pulp Adventures, a quarterly magazine showcasing classic reprints and new stories, spanning the diverse world of pulp fiction.Bold Venture releases three new titles each month. We are proud to present author C.J. Henderson's hard-boiled Jack Hagee, Private Eye series -- and to feature the never-before-published fourth novel in the series. Bold Venture Press released "Zorro: The Complete Pulp Adventures" by Johnston McCulley, under license from Zorro Productions.Bold Venture Press is open to submissions from new authors, or people interesting in compiling anthologies of stories from the classic pulp magazines.

Book preview

Pulp Adventures #19

Issue #19 • Fall 2015

CONTENTS

Fiction

A Pinch of Powder by Karl Detzer

The heroic firefighters will save the day! But, who will save them from the new firehouse cook?

Road Show by Roger Torrey

A show business detective finds himself working for an actor whose lost track of his women!

Tangaroa’s Eye by Richard Lupoff

Splash Shanahan transports a lovely passenger to a secret paradise.

The Daughter of Huang Chow by Sax Rohmer

Her feminine charms could be just as deadly as poison.

Boxcar Mary by Dave Martin

A tomboy rides the rails to trouble.

Treason For Glory by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson

A German spy master meets his equal!

Features

Searching for a Hero by Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson

Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson lived the adventures he wrote.

Departments

Editorial

Pulp Notes: Karl Detzer by Karl Detzer

Pulp Notes: Sax Rohmer by William Patrick Maynard

Pulp Notes: Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson by Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson

Credits and copyrights

Connect

Cover art: Norman Saunders

www.boldventurepress.com

Credits & Copyrights

Rich Harvey, Publisher

Audrey Parente, Editor

Front Cover Painting art by Norman Saunders, 10-Story Detective, October 1948

Back Cover Painting art by John A. Coughlin, Detective Story Magazine, December. 31, 1921

Thanks to

David Saunders,

William Patrick Maynard,

Rick Hall, John Locke,

Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson

Pulp Adventures #19

Fall 2015 Issue

Print edition 144 pages, $12.95

ISBN-13: 978-1517758004

Next issue on sale February 1, 2016

www.boldventurepress.com

[e-mail]

Boxcar Mary by Dave Martin, Railroad Stories Magazine, November 1936, © 1936 The Frank A. Munsey Company. Copyright renewed © 1964 and assigned to White River Productions, All Rights Reserved.

Tangaroa’s Eye © 2015 Richard A. Lupoff, All Rights Reserved.

Pulp Adventures TM & © 2015 Bold Venture Press, All Rights Reserved. Issue #19, published quarterly. Cover artwork by Norman Saunders and © 2015 David Saunders. All rights reserved, used with permission. The stories in this publication are works of fiction. Any similarities to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any similarities to persons living or dead, is coincidental.

Editorial

Blue Collar Read

WHAT do professions associated with the railway system and firefighting have in common?

Not much, really, on the surface. One of Karl Detzer’s (1891-1987) specialties was the firefighter story. By his own admission (reprinted from Short Stories, page 9), Detzer rode with the fire departments (and friends with the State Police) whenever fiction writing bored him. Several of these stories appeared in Adventure, Short Stories and Complete Stories (now collected in a new anthology, Firefighters! by Karl Detzer, from Bold Venture Press).

Railroad Stories Magazine (also the subject of a Bold Venture anthology series) featured stories of men and women employed by railroad companies. E.S. Dellinger, a former railroad employee, was the star author in that monthly.

Since the pulps offered thrills and excitement for a dime, arson cases and rail disasters plague the lead characters. But these characters also worry about their careers and working conditions. A popular theme in both genre is the green kid who proves himself to skeptical seasoned pros, or the ignorant bureaucrat who commands low-ranking employees with more knowledge than he.

In that respect, the firefighter yarns and the railroad stories share common themes with the western genre, emphasizing hard work, honesty and integrity. Read A Pinch of Powder by Karl Detzer and Boxcar Mary by Dave Martin and see for yourself. — Rich Harvey

A Pinch of Powder

By Karl Detzer

Engine Company No. 25 was run on system; method was its captain’s hobby. So when the brass polish got distinctly out of place, the riot and the fire gong’s call mixed things considerably!

Originally published in Short Stories, June 10, 1923

FATE IS a bungling handmaiden. Witness insurance statistics, the municipal elections and the divorce courts. She meddles, too, in affairs which would prosper without her connivance. Under her clumsy fingers men are born before their time, or after it. Tailors lead armies, dreamers sell soap, bachelors marry, or poets drag hose in the fire department.

Mr. Joseph Darsey belonged rightfully to the First Crusade. His eager spirit had hovered over the fleeing Moslems, and jealously wished that it might be born in 1095. But Fate smiled foolishly, till it was eight centuries too late, and then dropped Mr. Darsey down on a fat and humdrum Earth.

Joe Darsey’s parents, being honest folk, prepared him for a career; for the bar or the pulpit or the silk counter, according to his inclination. But the spirit of the First Crusade burned within him, and Mr. Darsey joined the fire department.

For three years he labored as an assistant fire engineer. He wiped bearings, burnished brass, filled oil-cups, and accepted all the blame for clumsy fingers of Fate when the engine acted badly. Then he was appointed a probationary engineer and was directed to report to Engine Company 25.

On the morning when he arrived at the quarters of that company, his heart gave way to anticipatory thumpings. He stepped through the narrow side door into the apparatus room and halted for sheer joy as the great steel pumper loomed before him. This was his white charger; his oily jerkin was a coat of mail. He had dreamed exultantly of this day. He had practiced on nickel-plated Ahrens-Fox engines; he had experimented with the centrifugal mechanisms of Seagraves motors; he had tampered with Macks and Whites in preparation for his hour of triumph. Now it was upon him.

He dropped his oily handbag so suddenly that his new set of wrenches jangled in the bottom of it. The fireman on watch by the oak alarm stand glanced up at him, lifted his feet higher on the wall, moved his pipe mechanically to the other corner of his mouth, and returned his attention to the sporting page.

The long, gleaming engine sat in the exact center of the floor, self-conscious in its array of gilt scroll and polished brass hand rails. Joe Darsey knew that when man invented the fire engine he upset the moth-eaten conception that beauty does not toil. For a motor pumper is the utmost end of artistic adornment. It sparkles like a gambler’s shoe tips. Its embellishments outdazzle a motion picture lobby. Its simplest ornaments drive a circus band wagon down the alley in disgrace. Yet under the butterfly wings, under the brass and red paint, live the motor and the pump, true blue and tested, utility in its glad rags.

But the engine of Company 25 was not merely a motor pumper. Any member of its crew would tell you that. It was the largest, strongest, most trustworthy engine in town; and by two feet the longest.

Joe Darsey’s eyes sparkled as he stood there, staring at his new charge. His engine! It was a good world. Perhaps Fate—but no, never judge a woman hastily.

Captain Joshua Malone, commanding officer of Engine 25, strode into the apparatus room from a door at the far rear. He wore the conventional collarless white shirt which long usage has prescribed as the proper attire for a company commander on duty. But the fire department is an informal institution. So Captain Malone’s coat hung over the hose nozzle on the engine, and he wore his vest nonchalantly, unbuttoned.

Joe Darsey reported for duty. Captain Malone nodded, and called for one Murphy, in a voice which testified to long training on high walls and in deep cellars. Murphy appeared, a heavy giant with a threaded needle in his teeth and a half-patched rubber coat under his arm.

Darsey, Captain Malone clung to the conventions, shake hands with Murphy. Murphy, this here will take your place. Learn him the job.

Murphy removed the needle from his teeth, and the pair shook hands solemnly.

Show him around, directed the Captain. Have him shake hands with the boys, and tell him his dooties.

Murphy led the new engineer through the quarters of Company 25 and presented him to the other gentlemen of the staff—Brady, Clancy, Zyboski and Burns. Darsey whistled as he hung his coat in his new steel locker. He hummed a gay air, clinging rather desperately to the tune on the high notes. If he wished, he might even be hilarious. This was his day.

Why you leavin’? he asked Murphy suddenly.

Me? I’m goin’ in the plumbin’ business. I got no boss there, except the union, and I can sleep nights. I’ll stick around today, to learn you some things. They’s rules in most every engine house, but in this one here, they’s rules about the rules. Captain Malone, he’s got a idee or two that wants to be followed.

I know. I’ve seen a few captains.

Which proves that you don’t know nothin’, Murphy answered. You never seen one like him, because they ain’t one like him, and never was. He’s the first and last, which you’ll be learnin’ before evening.

I’m his man, if he don’t ask the impossible.

It ain’t the impossible, he’s askin’ of you. It’s the improbable, which is worse. And he’s got a system. Of all the contrary ways of doin’ the fire business! System this, and system that. As soon as you got everythin’ goin’ orderly and the engine oiled just right, along comes the system and knocks it higher’n taxes.

Joe Darsey shook his head uneasily. He knew the systematic type. He envisioned an existence bound round by convention, entangled in red tape, ensnared in orders.

From the time you get up in the mornin’, Murphy went on, "till you get in bed from the right hand side at night, it’s system, system and more system.

"First it’s settin’ up exercises, like the rule book says, which everybody else in the department’s forgot. And which consists mostly of standin’ on your hands and feet and annoyin’ your stomach. Then there’s the cleanin’ up, and then the memory test on alarm box locations.

And after that, while the rest of ’em is studyin’ the lesson about ‘How to put out a fire in a china store,’ or ‘How many lengths of hose is there in four hundred feet,’ you get out of that, bein’ engineer.

Get out how?

Why, that’s eleven o’clock, and eleven’s when you start cookin’ dinner.

What you mean, cook dinner?

Well, now, maybe I’m referrin’ to prize fightin’ or farmin’. That’s what I said. Cook dinner.

Why, I can’t cook! Darsey laughed foolishly. You don’t mean it, he protested.

You mean you couldn’t cook, Murphy interrupted. "You can cook now. The capt’n’s system says you can. There’s another good reason for the plumbin’ business. Firemen got to eat, don’t they? And in this company, it’s the engineers as does the cookin’.

All engineers can cook, that’s the capt’n’s idee. And if you can’t, never let on. Just do it.

The retiring engineer steered his successor to one corner of the back room, where a disreputable range slouched on three rusted, rheumatic legs. Above on the wall hung pots and kettles; at one side a cupboard without doors housed the foodstuffs.

Here’s your vine covered cottage, Murphy announced. This is where you can play bride. Accordin’ to the system, this bein’ Thursday, it’s potatoes and beef and onions, and you might be startin’. I’m goin’ to pack up.

Joe Darsey’s honor took off its coat of mail. He, a son of adventurous spirits, fingering pots and pans in a stuffy kitchen, cooking beef and potatoes and onions because it was Thursday! He sat down on the edge of the table. He looked despairingly at the oil stains on his hands. Perhaps Fate—but there we are again.

Captain Joshua Malone walked heavily from the apparatus room. He hesitated in the door.

What you doing? asked Captain Malone.

Just setting—setting and thinking, replied Joe Darsey brilliantly.

That’s the trouble with the fire department now-a-days, the captain commented. There’s too many young firemen, he stressed the classification, as sets down to think. Now when I was a beginner, same as you, if I tried real hard, sometimes I could think walking ’round.

I was thinking about cooking, Darsey pleaded miserably.

Well, that’s nice. I always says that when a man’s so interested in his work that he takes his own time to think about it, that’s a good sign.

But I ain’t interested. Capt’n, I just nacherly can’t cook.

Who says you can’t?

Why my mother! She always says I can’t even pour water, ’thout spilling it.

Captain Malone became severe.

We don’t spill water around this engine house, young man, he warned. Sometime the pressure’ll be low when you have a big job on your hands, and you’ll wish you hadn’t wasted it. And as for saying you can’t cook! Well, I got a book here about a man’s limitations, as I’ll let you read some evening on watch. It’ll teach you a lot about yourself. You just think you can’t cook. It’s because you never tried.

I don’t know how to start, Darsey objected.

Captain Malone waved a fat hand in the direction of the stove.

Simplest thing in the world, he explained. There’s the heat. There’s the potatoes, and there’s the onions. Finest stew in the world. All you need do is fix ’em up together like. Season ’em good, and that’s all. You don’t need to cook the apple pie. It’s boughten.

Joe Darsey once more was alone. Only the chipped lids on the unpolished stove grinned back at him, and the battered alarm clock tied to a nail in the wall ticked a warning of the approaching dinner hour. The moments of his sacrifice were at hand.

There are some men who have a knack at cookery, but Joe Darsey was of the class who walk six blocks to a lunch room rather than compile a sandwich.

With heavy hands he lifted the potatoes to the table. From the shelf he brought the beef and onions. Here lay his duty—a Darsey never quit the field of battle. A Darsey relished odds; he voted straight and won or lost with his party; he shot straight and won or lost with his army; he threw straight, and dodged when his wife complied to his whim. Joe was a Darsey; doggedly he went to work.

Through the open door into the apparatus room, he heard excerpts from the recitations in progress. Clancy had just failed the captain’s questions as to the advisability of inside standpipes, and Brady was pretending to answer it. At least the cook was missing that.

His own fire was out. With paper and shavings, with many matches and with combustible mutterings, he strove to rekindle it. He never had heard of the Vestal Virgins; otherwise his soft heart would have mourned that he had not been on the spot to pity them. The flame spurted, and lured by more paper, blazed a moment; the stove began to heat. Joe Darsey washed the potatoes solemnly, and prodded the beef with his finger.

Onions, he told himself, ought to be just washed and cooked.

At this moment, Commander Malone sighed disgustedly. No one in his company could tell in the words of the manual just what happens when you stack wet hose in the wagon. He dismissed the class. Four exultant scholars flocked to the kitchen.

And here’s the happy deb’yar’tante, playing among her pots and pans, Clancy taunted as he burst into the room.

He sat upon the bench. Brady and Burns followed him, and Zyboski looked critically from the doorway.

Goes at it like he was born in a kitchen, commented Brady.

Joe Darsey had suffered the first jibe in silence, but this affront demanded reparation.

Maybe I was, he agreed, facing about from the work table, but I never spent much time settin’ around in one. Go study your lesson, Mr. Brady, so’s you’ll know how to spell hose in the morning.

He enjoys his work, Brady continued, being unprepared to answer Darsey’s retaliation. His heart’s in it.

The new cook deafened his ears. The potatoes, now pared, he dropped into the boiling water, one by one. The beef splashed after them.

He ain’t goin’ to season it, Brady remarked confidentially.

’Course he is, Clancy’s voice irritated Darsey. He’s jest nervous. He’ll season it. Give him time.

Joe Darsey reached for the salt sack, and thrusting his hand and wrist into its raveled neck, he withdrew a chunky fistful. The chorus from the bench sounded two seconds late. The stew was salted. And before even the triple-tongued Clancy could protest, half the powder in the pepper box was floating in islands on the surface of the broth.

Stop it! Zyboski leaped from the doorway and leaned threateningly over Darsey’s shoulder. Stop this foolishness. We pay for that stuff, you pay back if you spoil it.

There was a thud in the apparatus room. In the kitchen Company 25 became silent. When heavy captains slide down the brass pole hurriedly, they do not land with cat’s paws, and Company 25 had come to know the step of its commander. The Captain appeared, waving the carbon paper with which he had rushed from his desk when the howl summoned him.

What’s the trouble? he demanded.

They’re all trying to tell me how to cook! Darsey answered.

We ain’t, Clancy denied. But he thinks we’re a flock of Mexicans, and he’s seasonin’ our food accordin’.

Captain Malone looked inquiringly at the apronless Darsey.

Which was telling you how to cook? he asked.

They all was. They was jumpin’ up and down and actin’ very uncouth, I calls it.

Captain Malone turned to his company.

Lookie here, he asked, is there anything wrong with his cooking?

I’ll tell you— Clancy interrupted. But Captain Malone did not heed him.

’Cause if they is anything wrong with it, the one as points out the mistakes, he’s cook. Now what was you starting to say, Mr. Clancy?

Clancy reconsidered.

Why, I say—I tell you I don’t know nothing about cooking. It couldn’t have been me he was referrin’ to.

The others looked with misgiving from Clancy to the captain. Darsey coughed into his hand.

He’s got pepper in his throat, remarked Burns.

Darsey lifted a bottle marked Vanilla Ext. from the shelf, removed the cork, smelled it suspiciously, and stood it open on the top of the warming oven. Turning his back to