I picked up the third volume in the Jimmy Wentworth series from Steeger Books. The Brothers of the Snake: The Complete Chinatown Cases of Jimmy Wentworth, Vol. 3, collects the next six stories in this series.
Written by Sidney Herschel Small (1893-1958), who wrote more than 500 stories of Asian intrigue in both the pulps and the slicks, these appeared in Adventure, Collier’s, and The Saturday Evening Post. His knowledge of Asia was due to frequent trips there for the family business.
Another of his series of stories, Koropok, about an American working undercover in wartime Japan, has also been reprinted by Steeger Books.
This series is about Sgt. Jimmy Wentworth, a police detective born in China, who is on the San Francisco Chinatown squad. As such, he goes up against Chinese gangs and other crimes there. These include facing Kong Gai, the head of a sinister criminal organization called the Brothers of the Snake. This series ran for 30 stories in Detective Fiction Weekly from 1931 to 1934, with the final one appearing in 1936. This volume reprints the cover from the Jan. 7, 1933, issue, which features the last story in this volume. Many of these stories were cover-featured.
As the Jimmy Wentworth series is made up of 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 anyone 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 for information, but he has to be careful so they aren’t targeted. They appear in a trio of stories here, in one of which Jimmy is adopted into the family, which is a high honor.
Lucille Cunningham is a young woman introduced in an early story who becomes a love interest and soon the wife of Jimmy. But she doesn’t appear in any of these stories, only being mentioned once. And there is a recurring foe, Kong Gai, leader of a sinister criminal gang that uses the sign of a cobra about to strike. His presence is always felt, even if he doesn’t appear in the story.
In the title story, “The Brothers of the Snake,” Jimmy learns that Capt. Dunand has sent a white man, accompanied by two Chinese merchants, into Chinatown to make a deal with Kong Gai in an attempt to expose him. Jimmy says he will most likely find the man’s body. Heading into Chinatown on a stormy night, he does his best to track the man down. When he does find him, the man is struck dead by lightning. But can Jimmy show that he was, in fact, murdered?
We learn about the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco in “The Black Cobra,” and that one of the security measures is that they send an “Okay” signal to police headquarters every 15 minutes. If not received, the police are to send the riot squad. Today, the signal is not received, and the riot squad, along with Capt. Dunand and Jimmy, head to the Reserve Bank.
They are soon joined by a squad of machine gunners from the Presidio, led by a general. Once they get into the vault, they find it filled with poison gas, and all the personnel there are dead, including the bank president, who was leading a pair of important visitors. They soon find out the two visitors were Chinese from the Bank of Hong Kong, but were they really? Where are they, and how did the vault get flooded with gas? After touching the body of the bank president, Jimmy’s hands are burning. This leads him to discovering how the man died, which may lead them to cracking the case.
A stockbroker and his three children have been abducted in “The Headless Idol.” Is this a simple kidnapping for ransom, or much more? And why would Jimmy, whose beat is Chinatown, be pulled into investigating this? The only clue he has is a small headless idol, with three flowers painted on the neck, taken from a hatchetman. And when the broker is found wandering in a daze near his home, will they be able to solve it? Kong Gai has nothing to do with it. Or does he? Will Jimmy be able to rescue the children?
It is approaching the Chinese New Year in “White and Yellow.” Jimmy is approached by Wang Chen-po, one of his friends, who says the head of his family has been murdered. Wentworth grabs a Japanese man who might be the killer, and fends off a mob that wants to kill him. Back at HQ, he learns of a dead body found at the harbor, with a China lily in his buttonhole. Did he drown, or was he murdered? The man is an American aviator raising money to form an air group to fight for China against the Japanese, so these events could be tied to that. Jimmy then finds a group of 10 Chinese men who were going to accompany the aviator to China dead. But how? Can Jimmy figure out whether it’s the Japanese or someone else? Later, Jimmy is at a dinner with the Four Families tong, and due to his efforts to stop the killers of Wang and the other Chinese, he is made a member of the tong.
In “The Crimson Coffin,” Jimmy is pulled into an old case. Two years prior, a young white girl went missing. Now, suddenly, the family is getting messages that she will be returned. But it seems a new scheme by Kong Gai to get back at Jimmy. Will he be able to figure out the trap and stop Kong Gai?
Finally, in “The Hood of Kong Gai,” a well-respected merchant has died. Someone sent him some bad mussels, which he loves. Was it a mistake, or murder? Is Kong Gai behind it, and if so, can Jimmy figure out why without putting himself in danger? Especially when, during the funeral procession before the body is sent back to China for burial, Kong Gai’s men attack for some reason. The police step in and take the coffin to headquarters. There, they open it to find more than a million dollars in cash, gold, and diamonds. Kong Gai’s fortune is being smuggled back to China. But Jimmy is called before a commission, which feels he is actually protecting the opium trade in Chinatown. He either gets Kong Gai or faces being fired. Can he do so? What will be the outcome?
I was really surprised by what happened at the end of the last story here. That makes me want to see what happens next. We should need two more volumes to complete this series, and I hope we’ll see these in upcoming releases of the Argosy Library.
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