H. Bedford-Jones (1887-1949) was a prolific pulp author with over 1,000 works, and several series. His longest series with a single character featured John Solomon, a mysterious cockney ship chandler who operated in Port Said, Egypt, before World War I with a network of agents starting in 1914.
Strangely, Solomon is often almost a secondary character in his own series. He often works behind the scenes, and is not seen for a long while. There always a more adventurous young man as the main character of the story, who usually marries the girl in the story and settles down at the end.
I’ve been posting on this character now that Steeger Books is reprinting this series as part of their H. Bedford-Jones Library. They started out putting out paperback editions with one novel each so far, but as there will be about 14 volumes for the 24-story series, they have switched to two novels per volume. There is also a three-volume complete hardback collection as well. This latest paperback volume, #7, contains two novels: John Solomon, Argonaut and The Shawl of Solomon.
While the series started in Argosy, it soon shifted to People’s, which is where these two novels appeared. John Solomon, Argonaut was cover featured in the August 1916 issue. The Shawl of Solomon was cover featured in January 1917, and that cover is used for this collection. The series will remain in People’s until it ended in 1921, after which it was revived in Argosy in 1930.
In an ealier story, Solomon had lost part of his leg and moved to America, Baltimore to be exact. However, in Solomon’s Carpet we find that he is living in Chicago and has been there for about a year being a “crime detector.” He points out that he’s not a detective. He gathers information, as he had done in his Port Said shop, and tries to put an end to certain crimes. In the first story, he is still in Chicago. Harvey Lind, introduced in Carpet, is still helping him, and others from previous stories join in. But our main character is sailor Robert Grattan. He brings a mystery to Solomon.
Grattan had been on the Almaric, an American tramp steamer carrying passengers and mail that sunk during WWI. He says the ship was shelled, but authorities say it hit a mine and he’s wrong. Then he shows Solomon a unique Chinese Ming vase, which he says he had carried for years and which was on the boat. But he found it for sale in a shop a month after the sinking, in it a unique necklace worn by Miss Carstairs, a passenger he is clearly interested in. The shop had taken the items in a lot sale from an unknown party, but there is nothing to link them to anyone else on the ship. So was the ship actually attacked by modern pirates who plundered it and maybe took passengers and crew prisoner? Well, Solomon checks his records, find a likely suspect, a James Trelawny, and agrees to help.
Soon Grattan finds out Solomon’s plans. Or what part of the plan he’s willing to provide. Through others, he has outfitted a yacht financed by a rich Arab that will carry medical supplies and gold to the Allies fighting WWI. Having given press releases, this is clearly bait for the pirates. Grattan will captain it, hiring a trusted man to assist him, but he’s not to sure of others in his crew. And there may be a stowaway. Dr. Firth (who appeared in Quest) arrives to be ship’s doctor, and Solomon himself is there as supercargo.
The pirates make their move, as we learn Trelawny was the stowaway, and with the help of one of the mates, have turned many of the crew to their side. They take the ship to their hideout in the Caribbean, and we learn of their operation. The captured ships are being refited so they can be sold. The crewmen who didn’t join the pirates are killed. Those passengers who could be ransomed off are held until the ransom comes through.
But all doesn’t go well for the pirates, as being captured was part of Solomon’s plans. And the rest of the plan comes together when a ship crewed by men who Solomon helped in prior stories shows up. There is Captain Murray (Supercargo), as well as Dr. Seaforth (Gentleman), Harvey Lind, Frederick Sargent (Seal), and Jack Bruner (Submarine). How does it all go down? And does Grattan get the girl? Oh, you’ll need to read to find out.
I was surprised by all the characters from prior stories showing up in this one. I wonder if this happens in future stories?
In The Shawl of Solomon, we kick things off in Tripoli, meeting our two main characters: Larry Regan and Mary Andres. Larry is a U.S. consulate member who grew up in the Middle East and knows Arabic. He has been working out of the Cairo consul office, but has quit and come to Tripoli to work for John Solomon, though he doesn’t know what for. At the consul office there, he meets the acting consul, an old friend, to get the lowdown on Solomon, and is informed of his background and that he is apparently dead, killed when the Italian liner he was traveling on was sunk.
While there, Larry meets Mary, who came to the consul to report a theft. It’s a sealed wooden box that contains a religious item of the Spanish Moors: a sacred woven shawl. Strangely, Larry was handed such a box after he left his ship. Is it the same? He breaks it open and finds a shawl! And woven into it is a poem in Arabic.
Then he and the consul are visited by an unusual Englishman: a Sir John Templeton Blackton-Friars. It’s clear to the reader who this is. He needs someone with exactly Larry’s skill to accompany him into the desert. As they prepare, Larry learns how the box with the shawn got into his hands, but not yet its importance.
Of course, there will be danger and intrigue for Larry and Mary dealing with the Touregs, a local tribe, and a secret society called The Order of the Ibiffs, connected to the shawl. And the Shereef of Mecca, a friend of Solomon’s, will also make an appearance toward the end of the story. And you know that Larry and Mary will head home to America to make a new life for themselves.
The next story is Pilgrim Solomon, which continues with Solomon in the Middle East. It, along with John Solomon, Retired, is available in the eighth volume from Steeger Books and is already out. Look for my review of it soon.
