An interesting series are the crime series starting police officer Jimmy Wentworth by Sidney Herschel Small. Running 30 short stories in Detective Fiction Weekly, they have Wentworth going up against several cases in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Steeger Books has put out two volumes so far reprinting the first 12 stories in their Argosy Library series.
Sidney Herschel Small (1893-1958) was a prolific author, writing for the slicks (Collier’s and Saturday Evening Post), pulps (Adventure, Short Stories, Blue Book, and others), as well as books (a half dozen). Because his family’s business, what exactly we don’t know, was involved in the Orient, he took frequent trips there. This colored his fiction, with many characters, good, bad, and in between, being various Asians. Steeger Books has reprinted his other pulp series about Koropok, an American soldier undercover in WWII Japan, which ran in Adventure.
As the Jimmy Wentworth series are all short stories, there are few continuing characters. And they don’t appear in every story. There is Jimmy himself, who in the first story is just a police clerk working in the detective squad. But he had grown up in China and is fluent in the languages and culture, more so than any on the force. He will soon be made a detective sergeant, though he works undercover as a beat cop.
There is Capt. Bill Dunand of the detective squad. There are the Wangs, father and son merchants. The son was born in America and is about the same age as Jimmy. They are sources of information for him, but he has to be careful so they aren’t targeted. Lucille Cunningham is a young woman introduced in an early story who becomes a love interest and soon wife of Jimmy. And there is a reoccurring foe, Kong Gai, leader of a sinister criminal gang that uses the sign of a cobra about to strike.
The series was clearly popular as almost half the stories were cover-featured. Certainly, the inventive mysteries helped with its popularity.
Volume 1 is titled The Festival of the Dead, and uses the cover for “The Horns of the Dragon,” the first story to be cover-featured.
Our title story, “The Festival of the Dead,” introduces us to Jimmy. An honest beat cop who has been working Chinatown for 40 years has been murdered, stabbed while on his beat. But there is no clue as to who or why. Capt. Dunand turns to Jimmy who is just a police clerk. He knows Jimmy’s background and makes him a detective on the squad. But he will work undercover as a beat cop retracing the same route to solve it. None know he can speak the lingo. Will he figure out who killed the cop and why without also being a victim?
Next, in “Crimson Circles,” another beat cop is murdered when he tries to stop the attack on another man. It’s found that one of the man’s legs was washed. And in looking into the matter, Jimmy learns about crimson circles on certain men’s legs. What is the meaning of it, and can he figure it out before he himself is targeted by the sinister Kong Gai?
We get a locked-door suicide in “King Cobra,” but Jimmy and Capt. Dunand wonder if it’s so. The man had a safe, but it’s empty. In working the case, Jimmy comes face-to-face with Kong Gai and learns of the murdered man’s connection to Kong Gai, who has taken his daughter and made her a drugged puppet. Will Jimmy be his next victim along with the Wangs, or will Jimmy be able to turn the tables? And can he save the girl? No cobras were killed in this one.
A dead body washing up at the docks is the beginning of “Death Rock.” The body appears to be a sailor who was heavily beaten and says “Cohl’s gay” before dying with $50,000 in new, sequential $1,000 bills in his pocket. They trace the bills to an importing company, and one of the owners reveals that the dead man is his brother. They have been smuggling booze, but only to bring it close to shore, having others come to get it. And they recently got involved with Kong Gai. Is he behind the killing? And what is the mystery behind the cove used to bring the booze in? Jimmy goes on a sort-of date with the girl rescued in the last story. Where will this lead?
At lunchtime, a high-end jewelry store is robbed in “The Bloody Emerald,” which results in the death of a clerk by cyanide poisoning and several emeralds gone missing. No clues are left. Meantime, Jimmy is looking into a murdered Chinese girl he finds on the street, stabbed in the heart, with all her rings missing. Kong Gai is probably behind it, but what about the jewelry theft? How are they connected? While Capt. Dunand thinks they aren’t, Jimmy looks into it. When he discovers something about the murdered girl, he realizes the connection between the cases in Chinese culture and superstition, and is able to expose the killers behind it.
And finally in “The Horns of the Dragon,” we have a looming tong war. So nothing involving Kong Gai, right? Apparently, a death that was thought an accident two years ago was actually a murder by a member of one of the tongs. In vengeance, a member of the other has been killed. Now the two tongs will go to war. They are set to meet at a certain time and place, conveniently revealed to Jimmy, and Capt. Dunand and his men will be there. At the same time, a $100-million shipment of gold from the Orient is being offloaded.
Suddenly, a group of men attack with cyanide gas and machine guns, killing almost 20 and making off with the gold. Has Kong Gai engineered the tong war to distract the police from the gold theft? And how will he dispose of the gold? Can Jimmy not only bring peace to the tongs, showing who is really behind it, but figure out where the gold is and return it?
Volume 2 is titled The Jade Serpent, and uses the cover for “The Fireflies of Death.”
In “Fanged Terror,” Jimmy is having a meal with Lucille and the younger Wang when they encounter a trio of veterinarians celebrating. One of them, with clear signs of being an opium user, accosts Jimmy and his friends and he tosses him out of the restaurant, where the man is shot by an unseen assailant. Jimmy is being accused of this, but with other cops, they grab a paroled dope head who Jimmy thinks did it, and find an abandoned gun that had been taken from a slain cop. Jimmy sees the hand of Kong Gai. This is also tied to a shooting star and a Chinese legend. Can Jimmy figure out what is planned before anyone else dies and clear his name?
Then in “Yellow Venom,” Jimmy is called in after a mysterious death. The man is an immigration official, and it appears to be due to an opium overdose, but his doctor is there and doesn’t think so. Neither does Jimmy. They find jasmine tea there, recently sent to the man. He was able to take a trip to stop a group of Chinese being smuggled over the border. Was Kong Gai behind it to ensure their success? Can Jimmy figure out where they are being smuggled and help stop this? We get an interesting sequence where Jimmy and Dunand go undercover as Chinese.
A mysterious murder takes Jimmy to a hotel an hour from San Francisco in “Fireflies of Death.” The headless body of a Chinese hotel employee, drained of blood, has been discovered. Jimmy was requested by the sheriff and is working undercover. He learns of another mysterious death, that of a local lawyer. And there are issues with the Chinese workers at local fruit canneries. Is someone working a scheme? There is a half-caste Chinese worker who claims to be the son of Kong Gai. Will Jimmy be able to figure out the scheme and put an end to it?
Two young daughters of a banker are kidnapped and their chauffeur is murdered in “The Cobra Strikes.” Who could be behind it, and is there a connection to the Chinese? Jimmy is brought in and works that angle. Kong Gai may be behind it, but there is someone else involved. Can he expose those behind it and, more importantly, free the two girls?
The U.S. Pacific Fleet is in town, and the hubbub from this starts things off in “The Jade Serpent” with a couple of disconnected events. Or are they? In Chinatown, Jimmy hears a strange exchange involving a naval officer and his wife, when the wife is warned not to speak of what she saw. Before he can do anything, Jimmy must deal with a serious problem: a dangerous biting ant from South China that has attached him.
Meanwhile, in a crowd heading to the ships, a Filipino boy who works on a carrier is knifed. But certainly, they don’t have anything to connect them, right? Before Jimmy can start looking into things, the officer and his wife arrive at Captain Dunand’s office and tell him what happened. While at a museum looking at jade, the wife, who happens to be an expert on jade from her time in China, noted that all of it was fake. This was somehow overheard. Thus, a plot is afoot. When Jimmy heads to the carrier with the officer, he checks the Filipino’s bag only to find a jade serpent in it. Can he figure out the rest?
Finally, in “Yellow Yeggs,” we get a slightly longer story, which is a good ending for this volume. A truck driver is hauling dirt from a construction site in Chinatown when Jimmy joins him on his last run of the day. Jimmy is wondering about the source of the dirt and takes some samples, as he figures someone isn’t digging a foundation as another tunnel in Chinatown. Or maybe a tunnel that goes outside of Chinatown.
Jimmy receives a New Year’s gift of a pair of silk pajamas at HQ. But he is suspicious. He notes that they are Japanese silk, and no Chinese merchant would carry that. Having it tested, it’s discovered that it’s poisoned. Kong Gai must want to stop him. Investigating the tunnel, Jimmy gets in but is knocked out by gas. While that happens, Kong Gai makes his move, killing the guards in a bank vault with gas and making off with the money and gold. Can Jimmy use what few clues there are to find where Kong Gai has gone with the loot?
Overall I found these an interesting series of stories. Each one gives us a different and mysterious case with a bizarre explanation that isn’t fully revealed until the end. As Jimmy knows and understands the Chinese, he is respectful of their culture. There is a mix of good and bad Chinese; not all are villainous. And it’s usually the other characters who are more disrespectful of the Chinese, which I’ve seen is common in the pulps.
All stories have Kong Gai as the ultimate villain, though he doesn’t always appear. I do wonder if this will hold through all of the stories?
At this rate, we will need three more volumes to complete the series. Hope it doesn’t take three years to do so. I look forward to the next volume.
Thank you for bringing these books to my attention! They look fascinating.