Seabury Quinn is now grinding the Jules de Grandin tales out at a quick pace but despite that these are the best of the tales. He is exploring different types of stories, the supernatural, the non-supernatural, always looking to old stories and myths for inspiration. “The Gods of East and West” got a C. C. Senf cover (one of his better ones). Later, every story would pretty much warrant a cover. “Mephistopheles and Co. Ltd.” had the gratuitous half-naked woman but failed to get a cover. All three stories revolve around attractive women, gone are the days of getting lost on a desert island.
“For a fleeting instant de Grandin turned an appalled face to me, and I met his flying glance with one no less surprised, for the voice issuing from the girl’s slender throat was not her own…”
“The Poltergeist” originally appeared in Weird Tales, October 1927.
De Grandin is called in by a Captain Loudan whose daughter Julia suffers from a strange illness. De Grandin is offended by suggestion of quackery but takes the case when he hears the illness may destroy her engagement. Julia’s affliction includes spells where she acts in strange ways, objects fly around the room and strange voices come from her mouth. De Grandin thinks the answer medical until the possessed Julia hurls a bolo knife at him from thin air.
De Grandin works to protect the girl as he digs deeper. He notices a portrait of a girl who looks like Julia but with an angry animal quality to her. This turns out to be Anna Wassilko, Julia’s cousin. Six months before she had fallen for the same young man, Lt. Proudfit. When Proudfit chose Julia, Anna drowned herself in the sea. Unfortunately, the two close cousin had once made a suicide pact. One stormy night, Julia had invited a phantom bird into her room. Since that night she had suffered the seizures.
De Grandin plans to take Julia out for a drive when she is possessed, strips naked and is impaled by pins and all manner of small metal objects. On her arm is the word `dracu`or Rumanian for `demon`. De Grandin plans his attack for the night. He hypnotizes Julia with a spinning mirror gizmo then waits for the demon to come. Using mistletoe he drives it away for good, but not before he and Trowbridge see what Anna has become in death, a bat-winged, fox-faced monster.
The term “poltergeist” dates back to the 1840s in Germany but Quinn may have been one of the first writers to use it in a horror story. Elliott O’Donnell mentions it in By-Ways of Ghost-Land (1911), Chapter IV “Occult Hooligans”. This was long before the 1980s movies or even Colin Wilson’s investigative non-fiction. The story has a wonderful build-up with the naked Julie being impaled by pins but de Grandin’s big fight is too easy and a little dull.
“…The statue represented a female figure, gnarled and knotted, and articulated in a manner suggesting horrible deformity…”
“The Gods of East and West” originally appeared in Weird Tales, January 1928.
Dr. Trowbridge’s patient, Idoline Chetwynde is slowly dying and no cause can be found. Jules de Grandin consults and notices an ugly statue in the house. It is one of the curios Mr. Chetwynde has sent from India, where he is working. When the men return home they find that the Chetwynde’s cook has quit. Katy Roony is Nora McGinnis’ niece and she claims the statue winked at her and she even found her mistress worshipping it in a heathen manner. De Grandin fools Katy into returning to look after Mrs. Chetwynde by giving her a fake Irish charm.
The two doctors sneak into the house and witness the worshipping first hand. Later they check marks they made in the wall and see that the statue is growing larger as Mrs. Chetwynde grows sicker. De Grandin leaves to retrieve an ally, Dr. Wolf, who he met at a medical conference. Dr. Wolf is actually Johnny Curly Wolf, a full-blooded Dakotah shaman as well as a specialist on disease.
The three sneak back into the Chetwynde house to see another ceremony. This time they interrupt what will likely be the final devotion with Native American spells. These call the Great Spirit to come and defend Mrs. Chetwynde. The Great Spirit defeats the Indian goddess, that de Grandin identified as Kali. After a shaky few hours, Mrs. Chetwynde returns to good health and will remember nothing of the terrible incidents. De Grandin and co. return home so Jules can explain everything to the obtuse Dr. Trowbridge.
Seabury Quinn based this story on his earlier tale, “The Stone Image” (The Thrill Book, May 1, 1919). In that story the statue is Fo, a Chinese spirit rather than an Indian goddess. Quinn seems to be playing a bit of a pun in this story, having a woman named Idoline worshipping an idol, and by having “Indian” versus “Indian”, though this would be considered politically incorrect today.
“…Parbleu, I damn think we shall have much good sport before we take the pelts from off these two-legged tigers!“
“Mephistopheles & Company, Ltd.” originally appeared in Weird Tales, February 1928.
The story opens with de Grandin and Trowbridge in the park. A young man comes running up to them speaking German. She collapses. A strange man appears suddenly in the bushes. He says he is a friend of hers and will take her home. De Grandin refuses and the man takes a swing at him. Using his savant training, de Grandin kicks him in the face. They leave with the girl. Trowbridge wonders if the man might not have been a friend. De Grandin admits he saw a man appear and disappear and then another and another. All had the same burning face, each bearing a strange device.
Upon reviving the woman the two men learn she is Bertha Mueller of Austria. She came to the US as a governess and became homesick and lonely. That was when she runs into Frau Stoeger. She convinces Bertha that she should go see a medium named Madam Laila because spirits may be hurting her. Laila refuses to see Bertha at first, claiming she was terribly haunted. A second try and the medium convinces her that she must see Doctor Martulus. He convinces her that she is promised to Mephistopheles himself and the only way to save herself is to get two thousand dollars and pay for a substitute. Being poor, it is suggested she steal from her employer. Poor Bertha! She is ready to go insane when she sees the men with the burning faces in the park, who burn her with their hands.
De Grandin uses Bertha as bait. He agrees to pay the two thousand dollars. He goes with Bertha to see Madam Laila. She is a younger woman of twenty-five. She and her black dwarf accomplice try to impress the two men with parlor tricks. De Grandin is not taken in. The result of the visit is that the criminals kidnap Bertha. De Grandin follows in Trowbridge’s car because he earlier had attached a leaking can of flourescent paint to the vehicle. The trail takes them to a gated estate. They are too late to get past the gates so they must climb the wall. Seeing a cat sudden;y drop dead from the wall, de Grandin has a suspicion of why. He goes to the car and takes the rubber mats out and places them over the top of wall. Once up, trowbridges sees there are four electrical wires running along the top, ready to electrocute him.
Sneaking into the house they discover a woman chained up in the dark. It is not Bertha but Amerlia Mytinger, who disappeared a month earlier. Dr. Martulus burns her with his hands, torturing her into signing agreements unread. She must pay ten thousand dollars to be set free. Someone comes into the room. De Grandin pistol-whips him with his revolver. It is the man who he had kicked in the face at the park. he pulls off his devil make-up and shows it to Amelia. Taking his keys, de Grandin frees Amelia.
Their next encounter is with Dr. Martulus. De Grandin shoots the fiend only to see his image shatter. A mirror! Martulus is behind them and shoots his own gun, hitting de Grandin. The head of the crime rings stands there and gloats with a German accent. But de Grandin is only pretending. He raises his gun and shoots Martulus and his two goons. De Grandin sends Trowbridge out with Amelia, while he goes back for Bertha and a souvenir, as he calls it.
Now all four are outside running. Six more gunmen show up. De Grandin shoots one when his bullets run out (No Matinee cowboy with endless bullets!) He throws the gun in the face of a second man before they flee. The only way out is the beach which is notorious for quicksand. De Grandin leads the others out onto the deadly sands. He has learned in Japan the secret to traversing quicksand, feeling for cold spots. Following the Frenchman, they all make it to the other side. Not so the bad guys. The four pursuers all succumb to the deadly drowning pools.
De Grandin’s post story explanation is shorter than usual. He explains the souvenir. It is the two thousand dollars in counterfeit money he borrowed from the police museum. While getting that, he found Bertha tied up and being guarded by Madam Laila. Armed with a wicked knife, she tris to kill de Grandin. He disarms her (more karate?) and ties her up well so the police will find her when they arrive.
This story is a new favorite of mine. No supernatural. Seabury Quinn doesn’t really try to preserve the air of the abnormal much after the first visit to Madame Lalila. This is a corker of a weird detective tale in the spirit of the Shudder Pulps that will exist in about six years. Mystery fiction is not new to Quinn either. He wrote actual detective stories for the soft magazines of the decade before. He wrote for Real Detective Tales and Mystery Stories before Weird Tales and Thrilling Mystery after.
