“The Living Shadow” (finale)

I decided to fuse the last two Living Shadow posts from Patreon together, since one of them was pretty short. So, here's the finale.


Final showdown between Harry Vincent and Johnny English to serve as the former's proper initiation into the criminal and/or anticriminal underworld. Harry's unconscious right now, but Johnny English is *probably* going to insist on waking him up and interrogating him when he recognizes him.

Hopefully no Shadow deus ex machina this time, but I mean...the pattern is too well established by now. This story just doesn't have any credibility left in terms of putting the protagonist in danger.

Well, let's see.

33. English Johnny Explains​

Bingham welcomes Johnny, and asks if anyone has anything they'd like to say before they get down to business. He's surprised when Johnny does, in fact, have something to say; apparently Bingham only meant that as a verbal flourish. However, he shuts up when Johnny starts telling them that someone has been doggedly tailing him for the last several days, and that it appears to be a someone with resources and connections, not to mention combat ability. Bingham starts rolling his eyes when Johnny mentions a "shadow" breaking into his house, but changes his tune a little when the mafia guys inform him that there really is a shadowy interloper who's been messing up everyone's business in New York lately. In addition to Croaker having babbled about seeing him before being murdered, the mobsters have a short list of other anecdotes and sightings.

Spotter brings back a thread from much earlier in the story, when he reveals himself to be one of the men who attacked the limousine that the Shadow used to recruit Harry. He happened to see someone matching the Shadow's description (stealthy, masked, big trenchcoat and hat) slipping into a limousine while he was out with some mobster friends, so they decided to poke and see what happened. And, well, they fucked around and found out; Spotter vividly remembers the Shadow killing their pointman, beating up several others, and then stealing their car and shooting away in it.

Also, there are some rumors about the Shadow's identity that Spotter's been trying to look into since that incident. Apparently, there was a NYC private detective with uncanny fighting and espionage skills who earned a serious reputation for himself back in the 1910's. He joined the military, and allegedly served as a spy in Europe during the Great War. This man was honorably discharged after suffering a disfiguring face injury in France, but no one knows what happened to him since then. No one's been able to find a link between this man and the Shadow, but most of the details seem to line up so he's their best guess for now.

Interesting. This could be a red herring by the author, just one of several invented in-universe backstories for the enigmatic Shadow. But, it could also be that Spotter is right, and this is our first tidbit of actual background for the titular character. I can see how this story might have room for "something something saved a European nobleman's life, something something big sack of gold" to explain how the Shadow got his financial resources in it as well. It's not immediately relevant to the story whether this is the Shadow's actual background or not, but for the time being it feels plausible enough.

Whether or not he also acquired supernatural powers at some point during or after the war, of course, is still up in the air. Maybe he sacrificed his face to Satan in exchange for the power to disguise himself as people physically smaller than him.

Anyway, Bingham is skeptical of this whole Shadow business, even though he admits out loud that he had an unsettling sense of a shadowy home intruder once in the recent past. However, he bids Johnny to continue his story, because regardless of whether or not these "Shadow" incidents are all actually related or not Johnny has definitely been dealing with a persistent enemy. Johnny tells them about last night's run-in with the man he recognized as the fake cab driver and his violent backup infiltrator, and about his sense of being pursued earlier today that led him to take the private airplane to Long Island. Bingham thinks that last bit was excessive, but still, at least they're secure now.

Bingham tells Johnny English to go help one of the other guys retrieve the box of gems that Tony presumably brought here earlier today. But, on the way through the living room, Johnny asks who the unconscious guy tied up in the corner is. He's told that it's just some rando who got too close to the lodge, but Johnny way too suspicious to just roll with that explanation. He looks at Harry more closely, and of course recognizes him, quickly warning the others that this is in fact an enemy agent.

The group muses about this for a while. Spotter assures them that this man isn't the Shadow; the size and proportions are all wrong, and Spotter doesn't know that the Shadow has cartoon-physics disguise powers so as far as he knows that means it couldn't be him. However, it's likely an accomplice of the Shadow's, or at least of some other rival gang that's trying to steal their shit even if it isn't Shadow related. So, they decide they'd best kill Harry.

...wait, they don't want to interrogate him? Really?

Why does no one ever want to interrogate him? This is at least the second or third time that baddies have had every reason to want information out of Harry, but decided to just kill him without asking any questions. Which is really weird, because the baddies wanting to capture he hero alive actually makes this kind of story much easier to write. It gives the author a perfectly believable excuse to give the hero extra chances to escape with less contrivance required. You know, reducing he number of times that he needs the level twenty DMPC to pop in out of nowhere to rescue him from death at the last moment.

Anyway, they discuss how best to kill him and hide the body. Bingham insists that they don't say the word "kill" or even use any slang euphemisms for it, because...um...I have no idea, if they're being recorded or something than they're already pretty much fucked. In the end, Johnny English says that he has a score to settle with this guy, so he'd like to do the honors. There's a deep river a little ways up the road, and throwing an unconscious guy in that should produce an accidental-looking death. Weren't cinderblocks popular in this era? Like, kill the guy, tie the corpse to a cinderblock or two, and then throw it in the sea? That seems much more reliable.

Harry regains consciousness, and sees Johnny English's face leering down at him. End chapter.


The backstory bits about the Shadow are interesting, and it's nice to call back to that early shootout from chapter 2 or whatever it was. And, while Bingham is still kind of skeptical about the Shadow, I like that he's gradually letting the others convince him and responding reasonably to evidence. Other than that though, this was fairly meh.

34. English Johnny Departs​

Johnny sure has his name in a lot of chapter titles, doesn't he?

Harry wakes up momentarily, but then quickly loses consciousness again. One of the mobsters suggests tying rocks to Harry before throwing him in the water, which...well, better late than never, but I still think it's dumb that *I* was able to think of this before the actual 1930's gangster characters did lol. They bring Harry and the jewels into Johnny's car, and Johnny gets in. He assures Bingham and the others that he'll have the body in the river within the half hour, and the jewels sold to Wang Fu before daybreak. Then, he tells them that he has something else to say, but didn't want to air it until everything else was taken care of. He tells them to get a flashlight, and then explains.

Johnny English did encounter the Shadow face-to-face, just less than an hour ago, as he approached the lodge. It was one hell of a fight, but Johnny managed to take him down; he left him tied up in the side yard by the lodge. He tells Bingham and the others that they can do whatever they want with him, just so long as Johnny gets the credit for subduing him.

Oh for fuck's sake, really? REALLY? Are we REALLY doing this, story?

Fucking...

So, the Shadow drives away with Harry and the jewels both secured in the car. Bingham and the mobsters run over to the side yard, and find English Johnny bound, gagged, and unconscious. Why did the Shadow tip them off at the last minute like that and risk letting them set up a trap or pursuit or something, when he could have just let them figure it out on their own long after the fact after he was miles away? Because this story is dumb, that's why. End chapter.


That wasn't just anticlimactic. It was plain insulting. All that buildup for Harry Vincent vs. Johnny English, and then the DMPC fucking ganks him offscreen before it can happen, and instead we get a THIRD Shadow-rescues-Harry sequence that gives Harry even less agency than the last two.

Don't try to tell me that the buildup for a final Harry vs. Johnny battle was all in my head. Even aside from all the thematic stuff that makes him a good foil, Johnny's ability to recognize Harry on sight was established as the big complication that would have to be dealt with. Johnny has FIVE chapters named after him, including ones that really didn't have to be. None of the other villains get more than two. Also, Johnny's actual role in the story besides "being a foil to Harry" is pretty much...nonexistent? Remember, this guy never even got to do his part in the criminal plot. And that part was only ever going to be "drive a box of jewels to a fence and sell them."

God, what a waste. I'm not surprised, but I am disappointed.

Well. Let's finish the book.

35. At Headquarters​

Open in the police precinct that the Shadow was spying on as a janitor back in chapter whatever. Detective Malone the idiot who interviewed Harry and Detective Cardona the other guy are commiserating on their recent string of failures. Nothing on the Scanlon case. Nothing on the (much higher profile) Laidlow case. Malone is ending his shift come midnight tonight, and with his recent performance he's expecting to be demoted in tomorrow's evaluation.

Cardona isn't on the line for this lackluster performance the way Malone is, but he still feels demoralized. He was the one who followed up on that anonymous tip they received about that tea shop in Chinatown, and he got nothing. Together, they muse on the probability that there's another "big mastermind" behind these cases, based on absolutely nothing. They also bring up that Diamond Bert guy from however many years ago, for some reason. I had to namesearch Diamond Bert to even remember who that was, and yeah, it's just a jewel thief they contended with a long time ago who got mentioned in passing like, once. Okay.

The phone rings. Cardona answers it, and excitedly declares that they just got another tip on the whereabouts of the jewels, still on Long Island. Cardona hurries off to chase it. Malone, who only has one hour left in his shift, just shrugs and stays at the precinct, sure that this is going to be another dud just like the Chinatown call.


Am I supposed to care about Malone being demoted? The guy didn't exactly impress in his previous appearances, and the story hasn't gone out of its way to make me feel for him either. The fact that he'd rather just sigh and shrug than spend his last hour in rank trying to reprieve himself doesn't help with this, to say the least.

Next chapter.

36. The Gems' Delivery​

A large, trenchcoated man steps into Wang Fu's shop and sets a box down on the counter in front of Lu Choi. Lu, who has been morose ever since his cousin stopped showing up a couple of days ago (lmao) recognizes the man as English Johnny. English Shadow puts a big wooden box down on the counter, causing Lu to lean over and look at it curiously. While he's distracted, English Shadow grabs Lu by the neck, gags him, and ties him up before stashing him behind a stack of tea boxes in one corner of the shop. Next, English Shadow knocks four times on the back door, and stuns the "giant Mongol" behind it when he opens it to see who's knocking.

English Shadow goes upstairs to Wang Fu's office and sees himself in. Wang isn't surprised to see Johnny, and for all his alleged perceptiveness he is no more able to see through the Shadow's shapeshifting powers than anyone else. He asks Johnny to show him the jewels, and the Shadow complies. Erm...he actually brought them here? Maybe he's trying to implicate him for the police to step in. That would make sense. Anyway, Wang inspects the goods and seems dispassionately pleased with them. They're worth just about the agreed upon price. Then, English Shadow asks where all Wang Fu's security guards are tonight, he only saw the one downstairs. Wang Fu says that he doesn't need them at the moment, and - when asked why - proceeds to show the Shadow his entire home defence system.

Like, just because he asked, Wang shows him the hidden door that leads out of the office, the trigger-loaded trapdoor in front of the desk that drops you into a pit that's probably full of alligators or squirrels or something, etc. Because this eminently cautious crime lord trusts a thuggish go-between just that much, apparently.

Anyway, there was just the one Tong backbreaker on duty tonight. Seems unwise on Wang's part, but he might be hiding more of them somewhere. Once he's seen all the security, English Shadow tells Wang that he's also learned some information that might be relevant to their business going further. Specifically, he's found out what happened to Diamond Bert after he disappeared all those years ago. Wang raises his eyebrow, and tells him that Diamond Bert is dead. English Shadow shakes his head, and declares that Wang Fu is, in fact, Diamond Bert in yellowface.

Yes. Really.

Bert tries to escape, but the Shadow grabs him, and a moment later Detective Cardona comes in and recognizes Bert now that the truth has been pointed out. Holding the two of them at gunpoint, Cardona waits for the group of cops behind him to file in and then declares that Bert and English Johnny (who he's long been trying to pin for something) are both under arrest. I guess the Shadow didn't coordinate this with them, then. Anyway, the Shadow slips his handcuffs - presumably by shapeshifting his hands into tentacles or something - and escapes using Wang's hidden door before anyone can shoot him. From outside the building, they all hear the Shadow doing his spoopy laugh. End chapter.


That was the stupidest, most pointless twist I've ever seen.

At first I thought that maybe Diamond Bert was a preexisting villain from the Detective Story Hour franchise, in which case having him turn up again here in disguise could be meaningful to longtime followers, and possibly the resolution to an earlier setup. But, I looked it up, and no. As far as I can find, his origins are in this very book.

I want to say that this at least makes the Chinatown subplot a little less racist, but honestly it doesn't. If anything, it kind of makes it worse. The budget Fu Manchu gig is framed as something that Bert did IN ORDER TO pass himself off as Chinese, and it seems to have worked. None of the other Chinese characters seemed to treat it as something weird that their wacky supervillain boss does, but rather they all seemed to regard it as normal behavior for a tong underboss. Meanwhile, the apparent nuance of acknowledging class relationships within the Cantonese immigrant community (one of this subplot's few saving graces) is undone with the reveal that the guy talking about them was actually a disguised Anglo. And that his description of his underlings as "indolent, and therefore useful" wasn't a reflection of intra-Chinese biases, but a COMPLETELY ACCURATE WITHIN THE WORLD OF THE STORY description of Chinese people as a whole.

I really don't know why the author did this. Again, I literally forgot that Diamond Bert was even a thing until the end of last chapter. He had no bearing on the story. His past exploits didn't provide any clues to the current mystery, as far as I can tell (this aspect of it is honestly extra disappointing, because Harry researching the crimes of this legendary past jewel thief and figuring out that he's back under a new persona could have been an entertaining subplot in itself). Wasted potential on top of just plain stupidity.

Well. One chapter left. Let's get this over with.

37. What The Papers Said​

Harry Vincent is riding in a first class train car back home to Michigan to visit his parents. A well earned vacation, albeit one of undetermined length. His next mission, after all, could come at any time.

As he rides, he reads the news coverage of the arrest. Diamond Bert Farwell was notorious enough to make this a sensational story, on top of the high profile nature of the Laidlow murder. The arresting detective, Cardona, attributed his colleague Detective Malone for doing a lot of the figuring-out, saving the latter's career. Oh thank god, I was really worried for Malone for a while there. Several of Cardona's accomplices were also identified and arrested. Burgess confessed to killing Laidlow via suicide note before the police could catch up with him. I guess we're never going to find out how he got shot in the shoulder.

Johnny English remains at large. Ezekiel Bingham was never implicated; the paper talks about how it's strange that he refused to defend Diamond Bert, even though it acknowledges in the same passage that he's a witness in a related case lmao. Unfortunate, since of the whole lot of perps it seemed like Bingham was the most actively malicious, and the biggest threat to the community at large with his penchant for manufactured evidence, blackmail, etc. Maybe Harry and/or the Shadow take him out in a later story, I don't know. For now, Bingham has fallen ill; the stress of recent events seemingly having taken a toll on the old man. Maybe that problem is about to solve itself without further intervention being required.

The Shadow avoids mention in the paper, as does Harry Vincent naturally. The end.


So, final thoughts.

Obviously, this is a pretty bad story, and blandly written on top of it. However, I'm glad I read it. Both because it's such an important landmark in the evolution of American pop culture, and because it offers a look into early Depression-era escapism. In an America full of broken dreams and ubiquitous crime, it's easy to see how Harry Vincent - bland and underexplored though he is - might have been an appealing vessel for many readers. Particularly those of the white, male, lower-to-middle-class persuasion, who had the highest expectations for the course of their lives before the 1929 crash.

Which is where we get into kind of politically fraught territory. Not the racism so much (honestly, "The Living Shadow's" racism is pretty low key by the standards of early twentieth century pulp), but the economic focus. The victim of the criminal conspiracy is a millionaire sitting on a huge pile of jewels that he isn't using while people in the protagonist's situation are starving, and we're expected to care? Really? In a way, this story feels like not only escapism, but also deflection. Giving economically anxious readers a wish fulfilment fantasy while also being careful to protect the status quo and ensure their sympathies remain with the wealthy.

The story didn't have to do this. You can't even say that doing this was a neccessity for getting published during the first Red Scare, because there are plenty of other socially and legally condemned types of criminal that could have served as the enemy. The Shadow could have enlisted Harry in going after loan sharks, or protection racketeers; criminals who are actually a danger to people like Harry and to people like the average contemporary Detective Story Hour audience, and who were just as politically safe for the author to cast as baddies. Maybe that would have just been a little too "real" for comfort, IDK. Even so, it's baffling to me that the author didn't think it necessary to give Laidlow and his family some characterization, so that we'd have something to want to see justice for.

Through this Lens, the Shadow is almost a kind of surrogate father figure who steps in for men caught in the Depression like Harry where the patriarch of "polite society" has failed them. An edgier, angrier father figure, but one with ultimately the same values and agenda. He might as well be the same authority figure wearing a different costume. This also kind of sheds light on Harry's ultimately passive role in the story, especially in what should have been the climax. "Don't worry, working class white men; someone is still taking care of you."

That said, these deficiencies in the story's ethos are actually another reason I'm glad I read it. World War 2 sort of cushioned America's social faultlines for a while, but the pressure that had been building up came right back in the 50's and 60's. Here, in the late interwar period, you can see that buildup. Both in the media of the time that engages with it, and in that which tries to distract from it. So, "The Living Shadow" is an interesting look at part of the 1930's zeitgeist, as well as a huge inspiration for the detective, noir, and what would later become the superhero genres.

Not good, but educational.