THE TERROR
OF SPYDOM
In
the back pages of the OPERATOR #5 magazine,
Arthur Leo Zagat wrote twelve short stories featuring a secret agent called Red Finger in the battle against
foreign espionage and sabotage from agents of a foreign power. Actually, there
was little doubt as to who these agents represented. At the time it must have
been all right to use German and Japanese-sounding names.
To call these adventures short stories may be pushing it a
bit. They were mostly 8 1/2 pages counting the half page illustration that
appeared with each story. By the end of the series, the final two entries were
merely 6 ½ pages, with the ever-present half page of art.
The twelve stories were:
Second Hand Death 10/34
Death Rides The Sound 11/34
Red Finger – Death
Dealer 12/34
Caged Horror 4/35
Death’s Red Finger 9/35
Red Finger Meets His
Match 3/36
Red Finger – Spy
Poison 6-7/36
Locked In With Death 8-9/36
Death’s Toy Shop 1/37
Envoy of Doom 7-8/37
The Spy Who Stole
Death 9-10/37
Red Finger’s Murder
Messenger 3-4/38
I will include a synopsis for the stories I read after
discussing the main characters. (Note At the time I wrote this article, I had
only read a few of the stories, not the complete series yet. Since then I’ve
read them all.)
The hero’s true identity is never in doubt. He is Ford
Duane. The world sees him as a long-faced, alpaca-coated man. He appears young,
and his very blue eyes are continually moving and very watchful. His very
existence depends on the maintenance of his identity as a dreamy,
cobweb-brained sexton of a tomb of
defunct books.
Perhaps they were not
keen enough, those eyes. Perhaps sometimes they would not be quite watchful
enough to forestall the sudden, flashing flicker of death which at any moment
might strike at their owner. For death, to Ford Duane, was an ever-present,
ever imminent threat. There was a price on his head in half the chancelleries
of the Eastern Hemisphere. There were those whose lust to slash steel into his
heart – to blast lead into his flesh – needed no price to whet it. Sooner or
later, he knew, one of these must discover who the shambling bookseller he
pretended to be really was. And then …
For Ford Duane was America’s Secret Agent, known to every
foreign spy as … Red Finger. The
torch beam reflecting back showed a vague, black-clothed figure ominously
motionless. A gray felt was pulled low over his forehead, a gray mask hid nose
and mouth, only his narrowed eyes were revealed; their irises steely blue. A
glove was worn on the hand covering the butt of his weapon. The glove was black
except for the finger curled around the trigger. As if it had been dipped in
fresh blood, it was a glaring scarlet. The Red Finger!
Lithe muscles coil like steel springs, thin nostrils flare
imperceptibly. A black cloak hung from his shoulders to ground. They saw a
black swirl come through the vertical slit in the blind … the apparition
straightened, its black cloak swirling about and making it shapeless. A
broad-brimmed black hat showed only a gray, featureless mask.
These prowlers of the dark were, after all, brave men. But
it was the finger that told them who it was that had tracked them down. The
dread name dripped from the spy leader’s white lips:
Red Finger Gott in Himmel! Es ist der
Rote Finger!
About
mid-way through the series, a female agent code-named Flower, helps Red Finger on
some of his cases. The two fall in love, but a spy’s life does not include
marriage, so Red Finger tries to
discourage the girl both as an agent, and a lover. The only name associated
with her was Jane Adams. She is mysteriously dropped after only a few issues. A
shame, she could have been an added attraction to the stories.
On
the lower Fourth Avenue, in an area known as the Port of Missing Books, a little shop with a grimed plate-glass
window displays decrepit boxes of tattered volumes in front of their dark book
stacks within. A simple sign: This box 15
cents each, choice selections 50 cents - is just as rain-streaked and
illegible as the glass window is forlorn.
A
curtain ineffectually conceals his living quarters from the store proper. As
the curtain drops behind him, movement – and he has vanished. A slender wall of
tight-packed books has moved suddenly on well-oiled hinges, returning the wall
in place as he moved inward to the room beyond.
The
hidden inner room is little more than a cramped, windowless cubicle, not more
than a yard square. Within the room is a stool set before a narrow ledge
attached to the inner wall, and a powerful light from a high ceiling.
The
bookstore is sandwiched between one run by Radley Ransom and another run by
Lazarre Garreau. It was a street of bookstores. And the names of the men next
to his would change often.
The
living quarters, located behind the curtain dividing the bookstore proper, contains
a rumples camp cot and a two burner gas plate. A wooden table, and a rickety
chair. Not the normal abode we would associate with a secret agent. But what
better place for a pulp hero than a used bookstore!
I should add before going into the story synopsis that the
head of Red Finger’s secret
organization is only known as T, no
other name given to him. Ford Duane usually receives a message from T that send him off on another
assignment. The message is delivered in such a way that Ford Duane will know
it’s true. The initials, P.A.T. are
always given in some sentence to identify the messenger as being his contact.
The stories themselves are very simple: Ford Duane receives a message at his
bookstore, and this little scene is always played out, then the scene switches
to the location of the sabotage or whatever the current threat, and that scene
is played out. For an 8-page story there is little time for anything else. But
the stories are so well written that the two scenes come off perfectly, then
the end.
The Stories:
SECOND HAND DEATH: It was only a dingy little back street book
stall, yet it held a secret so sinister, so menacing, that even the mysterious Red Finger, Ace of the Military Intelligence Service, might well have hesitated
before the ghostly doom that awaited him.
A foreign spy has blackmailed a city engineer into turning
over blueprints of New York City’s subway system. His government plans on
setting bombs at strategic locations, killing many. The plan also calls for the
release of plague into the city, killing many more.
Red Finger gets
word of the plan and intercepts the master spy. His intervention avert
destruction and death within the city, as well as prolongs the start of war
between America and the foreign country involved.
DEATH RIDES THE SOUND: A few indentations on a shiny bit of
metal leads Red Finger, Ace of the Counter-Espionage Bureau – on
an eerie quest in the murky waters of a death-haunted inlet.
A foreign spy plans on sabotaging an army munitions supply,
leaving behind fake evidence pointing towards a neutral country. Red Finger must not only stop the
sabotage itself, but protect the other country from being blamed for terrorism
and sabotage.
RED FINGER – DEATH DEALER: Not Reviewed.
CAGED HORROR: Not Reviewed.
DEATH’S RED FINGER: Once more a veiled message comes to Ford Duane’s
dingy bookstore … and Red Finger,
nemesis of foreign spies, again plays a lone hand to thwart the undercover
enemies who would destroy America.
Adolph Maurer and an agent called G-X are set to blow up the
American battleship, the Missitucky, but
Red Finger learns of the plot and
intervenes, catching the saboteurs on board with the bomb.
Here’s a curious note on this one. America has a secret
agent called G-X that appears in
another of POPULAR PUBLICATIONS magazines, ACE G-MAN. The G-X exploits were written by Harry Lee Fellings, but these
adventures would not appear until 1939, four years after the current Red Finger story. I doubt there is any
connection.
RED FINGER MEETS HIS MATCH: Again, those fateful
three letters come to the musty second hand bookshop, this time as the initials
of the loveliest girl Duane had ever seen … and once more the dreaded Red Finger, counter-spy supreme, waged
battle in the Endless War, pitting his keen mind and troubled heart against the
enemy’s rat –sly secret agents.
This is a nice little entry in which foreign agents. Garon
and Fator, plan on assassinating the President during a national parade. Ford
Duane receives a secret message from a female operative, code named Flower, then she is kidnapped by the
foreign agents who were following her.
Red Finger
reaches them before they can torture the girl, or assassinate the President.
When Red Finger and Flower part, she
asks if they will ever meet again, and he tells her, never. But the next day he
receives a message, signed Flower, that
tells him, Never say never to a woman.
RED FINGER – SPY POISON: A crusty dowager whispers to a second
hand bookseller and Red Finger, the
terror of spydom, follows a perilous trail of death – and romance!
A scientist has invented a machine that uses ultraviolet
light to penetrate clouds, fogs, or any obtrusion, to pinpoint enemy aircraft
and successfully bring the planes down with anti-aircraft guns. He is hidden
away by the American government until the invention is completed. A female
agent, Jane Adams – Flower – designated
Agent 613, is the scientist’s guardian while in hiding.
Unfortunately, agents of a foreign power learn everything,
and capture military leaders en route to obtain the secret data on the new
invention. When the pseudo-American generals arrive for the data, they are
tripped up by Flower, and she
destroys the data. But the foreign agents tie her up along with the scientist,
and then apply torture to get the information.
Red Finger has
all ready been alerted to the incident, and was on hand as quick as he could
get to the hideaway. He stops the foreign agents and saves the scientist; and
now knows that he is in love with the woman simply known as Flower – all of this in an 8-page story.
LOCKED UP WITH DEATH: Faced with final, horrible destruction, Red Finger – counter-spy and terror of
all enemy agents – knew that he was playing the last grim hand of his long,
danger fraught career – but he hadn’t counted on the courage and stratagem of
the lovely girl he knew only as Flower.
Astroff, the leader of
the Lemurian spies has set a massive plan into being. Strategically placed
bombs to disrupt America, while the Lemurian army waited off shore to attack
New York. He sets his agents to signal the army after the bombs have exploded.
Red Finger hears
their plans and enters the hideaway, only to be captured by the wily spy. He is
left entombed in a room about to be blown up, when suddenly Flower arrives to set him free. He then
causes the death of Astroff, but it is not revealed how the plans for the bombs
– nor the Lemurian army was to be stopped. Supposedly, everything ended with
the death of Astroff.
DEATH’S TOY SHOP: High in a New York office building, the signal
was to go out that would set a secret army of destruction on the march for the
conquest of America. Could Red Finger,
the super-spy, get there in time to stay the slaughter?
Jane West (Jane Adams?) – Flower, is working as secretary to a known spy when she learns that
plans call for an invasion of America that very evening. She secretly tries to
leave the office but is caught and held captive by the foreign agent. Mexicans
are prepared to assault the West Coast, while ships lie in wait on the East
Coast. The invasion will begin a t 7 pm, when a popular radio station plays a
certain song on the air, the musician merely awaits the order.
Before the spies learn that Jane West is a secret agent,
they allow her to write a message to her boyfriend, telling him that she can’t
keep their date. One of the agents delivers the message himself – to Ford
Duane!
Red Finger
reaches the toy shop in time to save Flower,
as well as stop the message from reaching the musician who would broadcast
the coded song over the air.
ENVOY OF DOOM: The hem of a silken scarf told a fateful story
to Red Finger, nemesis of furtive
men who dealt in death for millions. Those lustrous threads sent him on a
danger trail to save a nation, though it meant tossing his own life on the
hissing fuse of hell’s own bombshell.
Germany’s agents have trained Green Shirts – Americans
against America – in causing anger and fights between American; doc workers and
seamen are targeted, while miners and labor unions were also targeted. The plan
was to arm them all, then set them to fighting each other, turning America into
a burning battleground within itself, leaving the way open – and easy – for
Germany’s armada of planes were already approaching each coast.
The agents merely await the signal. Fortunately, Red Finger stops the planned signal,
and has his own message broadcast to the waiting agents. A message that will
stop their plans cold!
THE SPY WHO STOLE DEATH: It was a terrible catastrophe those
foreign spies planned – to blow up the subway tube, to slay hundreds, and force
America into a war of reprisal. Only Red
Finger watched and waited, warned by those tin strung beads. For they were
not beads of prayer but a killer’s code that spelled death!
It is another plan by the Japanese agents to destroy the
subway system with a bomb, while many thousands will be murdered. And evidence
left in a little room, throwing blame on a Russian spy. But Red Finger intercepts the plan and
stops the destruction and loss of life. Again, the plans of an enemy have been
stopped.
RED FINGER’S MURDER MESSAGE: Untold millions in bills
were there, ready to pay the price that would forever doom America. But into
the secret room, where the Three laid
their amazing trap for Liberty, came Red Finger – America’s last desperate
hope, with the tiny uncorked bottle in his hand!
America’s enemies plan on dumping billions of American
dollars (printed illegally) into the economy system. This will cause financial
problems with the American economy, and bring America to the brink of
destruction. A foreign spy infiltrates our spy network and discovers Red Finger’s identity. They send an
agent to kill him, but the plan backfires, putting Red Finger on their trail. In his final encounter, he penetrated
the headquarters and kills the agents, while destroying the illegal money in a
blazing fire.
Thus ended an exciting little series. The 12 stories, put
together, would make a 100-page novel.
OBITUARIES ARE FINAL: Tom Johnson wrote a final story for the ALTUS PRESS complete reprint of the
series. In this final tale, Flower is
captured by a German spy planning on blowing up the Empire State Building
during a visit by the President’s wife. Red
Finger, wounded and weak, is searching for Flower, and discovers the evil plans. He finds the hideout and
kills the spy before he can set off the deadly bomb. The fear he had felt for Flower’s danger proved that he loved
her, and in the end he proposed.
Note: When Tom Johnson created The Black Ghost in in early 1995, retired government agents, Ford
Duane and Flower were his trainers/teachers from his teenage years. They had no
children, and left him their fortune in savings to continue his work fighting
crime when they were gone.
