The Last Black Bat Story

THE LAST BLACK BAT STORY

         For years now many pulp researchers have been looking for the last promised Black Bat story, The Lady of Death by author Stewart Sterling. We had a starting date for our search since the last published story, Hot, Willing, And Deadly, also by Stewart Sterling, published in the Winter 1953 issue of BLACK BOOK DETECTIVE to go on. At this time the stories were a year apart, so if they had the title of the next story, then surely it was already written.

         But where, and when could it have been printed? We knew that it was likely the title would be changed, but we felt the author would keep his byline on the story, or reasonably figured thusly. So over the years, while in correspondence with Monte Herridge, we looked at just about every Stewart Sterling story we came across. All to no avail. Finally, Monte wrote to say he had found a suspicious story, and what did I think about it. He sent me a photocopy of the story, and I reluctantly began reading it, thinking this would probably be another false trail.

         It wasn’t. Imagine my surprise, as I read the story, how much this sounded like Hot, Willing, And Deadly, including the format and similar characters. The more I got into the story, the more I recognized it for what it was – the missing Black Batstory, The Lady of Death.

         The story is, The Lady’s Out For Blood by Stewart Sterling, and it was published in TRIPLE DETECTIVE, Spring 1953, V9 N1. Whereas Hot, Willing, And Deadly was 35 pages in length, The Lady’s Out For Blood is only 31 pages in length, and reading the story you see a few pages where something has been removed from the story. My guess would be the roles of Butch and Silk; who were normally in the stories. Their counterparts were not in this story.

         In my correspondence with Norman Daniels, the lead author of the Black Bat series, he once told me that the new editor, a woman, had demanded more sex, thus the change to Stewart Sterling at that time. Hot, Willing, And Deadly had plenty of sexual suggestions to satisfy the new editor. And in that story Tony Quinn drops his pretended blindness, and becomes D.A. of Vulcan City in Ohio. It is a strange story in the series, and not in keeping with the long-lived Black Bat we knew so well over the years. The story involved prostitutes, venereal disease, and murder.

         InThe Lady’s Out For Blood, a young girl has been shot and is dying. A mysterious phone call alerts the police, and when they find the girl, she is almost dead, but claims to have accidentally shot herself with the gun. The Medical Examiner (ME this time instead of D.A.) doesn’t like the set up, and refuses to rule the case an accidental shooting or suicide. Strangely, he does a lot of snooping, even venturing out at night to investigate the people involved. Not the normal activity of a medical examiner, but right up the path for D.A. Tony Quinn, alias, theBlack Bat.

         Similar to Hot, Willing, And Deadly, there are some complicated twists in the story. First, the man in the case is married, but having an affair with the young girl. All the time he’s been promising to get rid of his wife. At the very first, the girl has a gun, and plans on killing herself. The man stops her.

         Later, she does turn up dead. As the story unravels for the ME, he finds out there are other forces at work – the man’s fat wife, and her young male chauffeur; these two are having an affair also. The husband wants to murder his fat wife so he can be with the young girl, and confides in the young chauffeur, who tells his mistress. She decides to have the girl brought to her, and knocks her out, placing her in in her own bed. When the husband comes to kill his wife, he shoots the young girl in his wife’s bed instead. The fat wife has him return the girl to her own apartment, where she will eventually be found and die from the gunshot wound. Thus, the lady of death. The young girl knows that it was her lover who shot her, thus her claim of accidental shooting.

         Also in the story, a girl assistant jumps from nowhere into the story suddenly, very likely the role originally played by Carol Baldwin. She is used as bait for the roaming husband, and has a hard time resisting his advances. But the ME arrives just in time to save her from being murdered by the fat wife. From there, after the police arrive and take the husband and wife to jail, the ME explains everything to his assistant, almost exactly as D.A. Quinn did in Hot, Willing, And Deadly.

         The changes: As already mentioned, Butch and Silk were dropped from the story, D.A. Tony Quinn becomes ME Myro Catin of Naveral City, Ohio. A beard is added for effect. Carol Baldwin becomes a girl named Paulette. Changes over. What the reader is reading is, The Lady of Death.

         Okay, so we now know that The Lady of Death was written, and does exist. Now we still have another Stewart Sterling mystery, the Phantom Detective’s last case, The Merry Widow Murders. Well, it doesn’t exist, but I discovered where it was coming from. The author was rewriting an older pulp story of his, one that might surprise you. But I will detail that one another time.

         I very much appreciate Monte Herridge for his help in locating this lost story. Long and hard research eventually pays off. Happy reading.