“The Living Shadow” (part seven)

The Living Shadow (part seven)


Time to continue "The Living Shadow." The Shadow pulled off his most Looney Toons-ish stunt so far, impersonating a guy's own cousin to his face and fooling him after having only a couple of days to observe said cousin. Harry Vincent is going undercover in the neighborhood of the theft-murder, with a nice apartment and car at his disposal courtesy of the Shadow and a set of instructions - also courtesy of the Shadow - that might sound clever if you're twelve years old.

Let's see how things go from here.

14. At Holmwood Arms
​

The hotel - more of an upscale apartment complex, really - that Harry is staying at here is less ritzy, but more to his liking. Most of the renters are longtimers, and the inn's salons and cafes have made it something of a community center. In other words, it's a neighborhood full of people expecting to continue interacting with each other for a long time, so there's much more of a social atmosphere.

Okay, this is probably the first time since chapter one that Harry Vincent has had any real characterization. And it's not even hamfisted or tell-don't-show. Harry's from a small midwestern town, and he immediately feels more comfortable when placed in a tight-knit, self-contained community. The text never spells out that connection, but it's a totally intuitive one, and I appreciate it for that. Too bad there haven't been more nice touches like this.

Anyway, Harry does a pretty good job of integrating himself into the local social group. He's supposed to be a reclusive author, but this bohemian-ish complex has a lot of eccentric artist types, so that persona doesn't get in the way of him making friends. Also, he has infinite money, and that always comes in handy when you're trying to make people appreciate you. That said, he tries not to go too crazy with the spending, and keeps an account of his bank withdrawals in case the Shadow ever wants to go over the books with him. Another nice bit of characterization connecting to his backstory; Harry came to a very competitive New York business environment, so it only makes sense that he'd pick up habits like this to impress prospective employers. Also, Harry's come to appreciate the Shadow on another level now that he's demonstrated a willingness to put his own neck on the line to protect his employees. Which, yeah, totally fair.

On the topic of the murder itself; the hotel is located halfway between the late Mr. Laidlaw's residence, and the nearest proper town, both being about half a mile away. Harry takes his car out fairly regularly, and finds excuses to pass by the Laidlaw house and its neighboring mansions so he can get the basic lay of the land. He identifies the window that the robber must have escaped through with the jewels before fleeing across the lawn, and estimates where Mr. Bingham's car must have been when he saw the culprit dash into the woods. Obviously, this is all information the Shadow will have gathered himself by now, but no reason for Harry to not make a thorough mental map for his own sake.

Speaking of Bingham, Harry eventually chances on the elderly lawyer while visiting the bank in town. Bingham is in line ahead of him, and the teller happens to address him by name. He drives after Bingham after they've both made their withdrawals, and notes that despite being both rich and elderly Bingham chooses to drive his own vehicle, and that he's a slow, cautious driver. No inconsistencies there; Bingham's witness testimony had him driving slowly enough as he passed the Laidlaw house to see the killer and come to a quick stop, and alone in his car without a more able-bodied person to run after the perp. As far as Harry can tell, the witness was being honest and probably not hiding or leaving anything out of the story. Nothing to investigate there, then, but at least it's a possibility eliminated.

He unfortunately doesn't run into the victim's family, or the secretary who the perp injured in his escape. He does see people moving around the Laidlaw house sometimes, but only from a distance, so he can't distinguish them. Apparently the Laidlaw widow and children are going to be going to Florida to deal with some part of the murder's fallout or another, and the secretary - now out of the hospital - will be going with them.

By the end of his first week on location, Harry decides that he's probably not going to learn anything about the murder at this degree of distance that the Shadow and/or cops haven't already on their own. He also reasons that there might be a reason the Shadow put him up in the Holmwood Arms hotel specifically. So, he decides to focus his attentions on the other Holmwood Arms residents and staff and see if anything jumps out at him as potentially related. After musing on what he should be looking for for some time, Harry decides to start by looking for other secret agents like himself. This case is clearly organized crime related, after all, and it's already been established that the triad uses patsies and deniable agents just like the Shadow does.

...

That's way too logical for this story.

So far, this chapter has been head-and-shoulders better than everything before it. Hopefully this is the writers actually improving as they go rather than just an outlier.

...

So, he looks for people who seem to have a lot of free time, who spend a lot of energy on monitoring the local goings-on, and whose occupations amount to "you'll just have to take my word for it" like his own nonexistent novel-writing. He goes through a number of such individuals before a middle aged man named Elbert Joyce gets his attention. Joyce is, like Harry himself, indiscriminately outgoing. Always trying to talk to everyone about anything, constantly shifting from topic to topic, usually in a way that lets him show off how smart he is but not always. Joyce also claims to be a traveling salesman currently between gigs, but he seems to have an awful lot of money to spend at will for an itinerant salesman in the Depression. He also, Harry notes, has an affinity for cryptography. More than once, he sees Joyce working on the cryptograms and ciphers that are sometimes included in the newspapers along with the crossword puzzles. This strikes Harry as exactly the sort of hobby that someone in his own line of work would adopt to keep their skills sharp.

It also occurs to him that he needs to be extra careful to make sure no one gets a look at his secret communications. A reasonably smart person with cryptography experience could probably crack the Shadow's code with just half an hour or so's work, if they knew what to look for. And, any secretive organization worth its salt will have plenty of reasonably smart people with cryptography experience on call. Once again, surprisingly clever and reasonable thought process from our hitherto unengaging protagonist.

Harry makes a point of befriending Elbert Joyce, and indulges his self-aggrandizing prattle as much as he has to. Wonder if Harry's aware of the possibility that Joyce is scoping him out in return? If so, the text doesn't mention it. Anyway, midway through his second week at the inn, Harry manages to get Joyce out for a drive to the nearby town. They chat about this and that, Joyce always having some roguish words of wisdom about every subject regardless of how much or little he actually knows about it. Then, when they pass the Laidlaw and Bingham residences, Harry asks him if he has any theories about the sensational murder that the press has been going on and on about. Joyce has nothing at all to say about it, and says he doesn't like to talk about crime. The rest of the drive is spent by him fastidiously talking about anything and everything besides that.

Heh. Well. Joyce might have some experience with whatever shady business he's doing, but he clearly hasn't been investigated before. Or particularly well trained to fool investigators. Rookie mistake here.

After returning to the inn, the two part ways. Later that day, Harry sees Joyce playing poker with some other residents in the cafeteria lounge. And, watching discreetly and paying close attention, he sees that Joyce is cheating, and doing a very good job hiding it from anyone sitting across the table from him. It's not a large-stakes game at all. The vibe Harry gets is that he's cheating just for the thrill of having gotten away with it, rather than actually caring that much about winning the game. Confirmation bias and all, but Harry does think it odd that a man with that kind of personality would spend his downtime lounging around in a low-key hipster apartment complex unless there was something more going on.

Poking around a little, Harry learns that Joyce only arrived here recently, after Harry himself did, and he doesn't seem to have been around the area before. Thus, Harry infers that he wasn't directly involved in the Laidlaw murder/theft, but that he's here for something related to the aftermath. Heh, it'll be funny if it turns out he's just another Shadow agent. Or, more likely, an unrelated third party who's only getting involved here in the hopes of capturing a Shadow agent for reasons that have nothing to do with the Laidlaw case. Both are possible, but I'm leaning toward the latter. Anyway, Harry isn't sure if he has enough to report back to Fellows with yet, but he decides to do a bit more snooping and then drive into town to talk to him the next day.


Like I've been saying throughout, this is by far the best chapter up to now. It still feels like children's lit, but now it feels like DECENT children's lit. If the later chapters (and subsequent Shadow pulp serials) are closer to this level of quality throughout, then I'll be much less surprised at the character's cultural success and longevity.

That said, I'm also not getting my hopes up.

And oh man, this next chapter's title I swear to god....

15. Two Men Meet
​

"Two men meet" describes AT LEAST every other chapter in this damned serial. Maybe even two out of every three. In context, a very bad title.

Harry rethinks his decision the next morning. He tells himself that it's because he wants to make sure that he has something actionable to report before he bothers Fellows about it, but that's just a justification. Really, he's just enjoying his idly wealthy stay at Holmwood Arms more than he's enjoyed anything in years, and he's afraid that making the report might prompt his next relocation. I guess it's an understandable bias to have. Even moreso when you consider how miserable the last few years leading up to this have been for Harry. Glad this mini-arc is acknowledging his previous life in more ways than just recognizing his smalltown sensibilities.

He spends the day after his drive with Joyce doing basically nothing, and then - partly on purpose, partly just because the two of them have a rapport now - ends up sharing a restaurant table with him for dinner. He manages to ask Joyce how much longer he plans to stay here before he has more itinerant salesmanship to do without it seeming suspicious, and Joyce tells him that his next gig will be in about two weeks. Seems like a suspiciously long amount of time; Harry has a feeling that Joyce might be trying to lure pursuers or investigators into a false sense of security. Regardless of whether or not he suspects Harry himself.

After dinner, Harry sees Joyce checking his mailbox, finding a letter, and tearing it up immediately after reading it before making a beeline for the door. Harry sneaks after him and, after several pages of extremely slow, boring descriptions of him tailing Joyce in the darkness along the highway, loses his target when a car suddenly pulls over, picks Joyce up, and shoots away. It happens too quickly and the evening is too dark for Harry to discern the car's description, let alone its license plate.

Harry is frustrated, but not too disappointed. Joyce didn't bring any of his things with him, so this was probably just an emergency meeting rather than a permanent extraction. And even if it wasn't, it's not likely that the Shadow could have done anything about this in the few hours he'd have had if Harry had driven into town to report to Fellows this morning. So, for now, Harry resolves to return to the hotel and hope that Joyce isn't gone for good.

As he walks back to the hotel, a car passes slowly by him going the opposite way from the one that had picked up Joyce. Harry thinks nothing of it at first, but then realizes that it's only been a minute since that first car drove away, and it's a clear night, and yet he can't see any other vehicle's headlights in the distance. It couldn't possibly have driven out of sight that fast.

It's possible that it just pulled over somewhere along the highway and turned off its lights. But, remembering the circuitous taxi routes employed by the triad to throw off pursuers in NYC, Harry has a suspicion. As the car is moving slowly now, he's able to follow it on foot from a growing distance. And, lucky for him, it pulls up in less than half a mile, parking in the driveway of Ezekiel Bingham the lawyer, Laidlow's neighbor and witness to the murderer's escape. Harry had already noted that Bingham was a slow driver.

Harry sneaks as quickly as he can up to Bingham's driveway, and hides behind a hedge to get close. It turns out that Bingham CAN drive much faster when he has to, because he and Joyce are sitting in the car together having a furtive conversation.

Heh! I thought Bingham was just a red herring at this point, but I guess not. He probably hid the perp in his car, then. Or perhaps just in his house while he talked to the police when they arrived next door. Or maybe there's another layer to this. Anyway, end chapter.


Not as strong as the last one, but still a hell of a lot better than the ones preceding it. An actual twist in this mystery story, finally! Aside from some boring, overlong prose in a few places, this chapter didn't give me anything to complain about. It also continued from the previous one in actually developing Harry Vincent's personality.

I'd actually like to continue reading (the first time I've felt that way at the end of a "Living Shadow" review session), but unfortunately the next chapter is a longer one, and I have other work to get done tonight. So, I'll call this a post.