I have previously posted on Jimmie Dale, better known as the Gray Seal, whose stories were written by Canadian author Frank L. Packard (1877-1942) and published in the pulps from 1914-35, and then reprinted in five novels.
Michael Howard is working on putting out a set of three definitive volumes, along with a new novel. Now we get the second volume which has the second and third novels.
It’s interesting to see how Jimmie Dale operates. At first glance, he follows the model of the rich playboy out for thrills, stealing from the unjustly rich to give to the poor that so many early pulp heroes (especially those from Johnston McCulley) followed from. However, while Dale broke into homes and safes, he never stole anything, but left a gray diamond paper seal behind. Hence the nickname. He wears a mask and slouch hat, along with a belt of burglary tools — a sort of “utility belt.” He maintains a secret hideout in the slums with disguise materials, and takes on the identity of “Larry the Bat” to move freely in the underworld.
But about a year before the first novel, he is discovered and blackmailed by a mysterious woman known only to him as the Tocsin (French for “alarm bell”) to use his skills to help people and then to battle certain criminal elements, in particular the Crime Club, which controls all crime in New York. He moves from doing it as a lark to actually becoming heroic.
In the first novel, the two finally meet (Tocsin’s real name is Marie LaSalle). We learn her connection to the Crime Club, and she and Jimmie put an end to it, heading off to start a new life together. So that’s that, but Packard quickly brought Jimmie and Tocsin back for a second and then further adventures. All were serialized in pulp magazines, then reprinted in book form.
- The Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1917) in People’s (May 1914-March 1915 and June-August 1915)
- The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1919) in People’s (November 1916-September 1917)
- Jimmie Dale and the Phantom Clue (1922) in People’s (July 1921-May 1922)
- Jimmie Dale and Blue Envelope Murder (1930) in Short Stories (June-August 1930)
- Jimmie Dale and the Missing Hour (1935) in Detective Fiction Weekly (March-April 1935)
As noted, in this volume we get the second and third novels. I was interested to see how Packard brought back his characters, as well as the fact that the underworld had turned against the Gray Seal, his identity of “Larry the Bat” was linked to the Gray Seal and his Sanctuary in the slums had been destroyed (and as far as the rest of the world, along went the Gray Seal, Larry the Bat, and Silver Mag, the identity used by Marie).
In Further Adventures, we learn that it’s now six months after the first adventure. We find out that after that adventure, Marie was able to come back and reclaim her fortune and even her family mansion, which had been turned into the Crime Club’s headquarters. But Marie made Jimmie only casually visit her, for fear that any who remained from the Crime Club may notice Jimmie Dale, now suddenly a part of Marie’s life, and might realize he was actually the Gray Seal, whom everyone thought dead. So she kept him at arm’s length.
Then after three weeks, she disappeared. Jimmie thinks she has returned to her secret life in the slums due to a remaining member of the Crime Club. He decides to do the same, but now has to create a new identity and a new Sanctuary, that of struggling artist and dope head Smarlinghue. And then a cop forces Smarlinghue to be a stoolie, this makes it more complicated.
Jimmie soon gets contact from the Tocsin. And like the first novel, she again sends him out on missions to help those in need, but there will be a difference with these as he now reveals himself as the Gray Seal. The first one involves helping a recently released criminal get a chance to go straight, but leads to the death of another criminal. To help him out, Jimmie makes it seem the Gray Seal was involved in the death, letting everyone know he is still alive. A bonus is we learn just who the cop forcing Smarlinghue to be a stoolie really is. But now it’s out that the Gray Seal is not dead.
Next Jimmie helps an elderly husband who is being blackmailed, letting him know the Gray Seal has helped him. Then he goes after the underworld character who exposed Larry the Bat as the Gray Seal, and finds him dead and someone trying to pin it on the Gray Seal. But instead, after taking a cop hostage, he turns the tables on the real crook, having him confess to the cop. So not only has he proved in this instance the Gray Seal is innocent, but who the real criminal is. And we continue with such stories, again with the element of danger that Jimmie will be exposed. A final one has criminals try to use the identity of Silver Mag to flush him out, but it doesn’t work out as they thought.
Finally he is able to find the Tocsin. Yes, she is after another dangerous member of the Crime Club, one who has dual identities, even a futher secret identity in the underworld. There are hints he may have been the one behind some of the crimes the Gray Seal was thwarting. We get a final confrontation with the Gray Seal and the Tocsin against this mastermind, and they put an end to him. They then make their escape before the Secret Service comes for him.
In The Phantom Clue, the adventure follows directly after the other. As Jimmie and the Tocsin get away in a rowboat, when they get to a wharf, the Tocsin ditches Jimmie. This is because there is another foe she must defeat, and protect Jimmie. This antagonist is known as just “The Phantom.”
And as with the other stories, the two characters must work separately in their disguised identities, having their own adventures. And in the end, they triumph over The Phantom, revealing at the end that he was really a character that we were actually introduced toward the end of the prior novel.
After reading these two, where the two characters are separated, only to come together at the end, as well as having the Gray Seal deal with a several adventures, I have to wonder if this will repeat in the next two stories. It was several years before the next novel. Is it set shortly have the prior one, or is there a wider period of time?
And as far as I know, the issue of the Crime Club was put to an end with the third novel, so what will cause him to become the Gray Seal again? Do the two of them finally put this behind them and live a normal life?
There is also the thread that Jason, Jimmie’s long standing and loyal butler, has taken note of the letters from the Tocsin. He knows they are important, but not what they are about. Will he be brought into the secret?
One thing I found interesting in the second novel is Jimmie using a special pair of tweezers to pull out the gray seals and how careful he is to not touch them and leave a fingerprint. Of course, he does lick them, but there wasn’t DNA evidence back then.
So we will get the third and final volume, hopefully in 2021, and it will have in addition to the final two novels, a Gray Seal chronology and additional Jimmie Dale information from Frank Packard. So I look forward to this. And I need to read and review Howard’s prequel novel, Alias the Gray Seal.
Great article