Mon 28 Dec 2020
Pulp Stories I’m Reading, Selected by David Vineyard: ERLE STANLEY GARDNER “The Heavenly Rat.”
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Stories I'm Reading[10] Comments
ERLE STANLEY GARDNER “The Heavenly Rat.” Novella. Ed Jenkins (a/k/a the Phantom Crook). First published in Black Mask, September 1934. Not known to have been collected or reprinted.
After Perry Mason and Donald Lam and Bertha Cool, the most popular of his creations, and certainly of his many pulp characters, was criminal Ed Jenkins, the Phantom Crook who haunted the pages of the legendary Black Mask.
Jenkins is a professional crook always in the shadows, often in disguise, and often hiding among his friends, allies, and sometimes rivals in the shadows of Chinatown. Gardner, who had begun his career as a young lawyer in Chinatown representing clients there, had a genuine interest and respect for the people, and if there is the faintest taint of condescension and prejudice still found in stories like this one they were, for their time, fairly rare in their representation in the pulps of the Chinese as human beings and not the Yellow Peril, as allies and not implacable cruelty personified.
In “The Heavenly Rat†Jenkins, in disguise as a down-on-his-luck bum looking for work, is stopped by a man who flashes a badge and tell him if he wants work to meet him that night at the “Yellow Lotus.†Once the man is gone, Jenkins really has no reason to show up, but there is something about the fellow, he’s no ordinary cop for one thing, that leads Ed to follow through.
Granted that might seem a pretty odd thing for a wanted man to do, but then Jenkins is a somewhat more grounded and less romantic version of the Saint in many stories. He just can’t not show up especially when he is tipped to “a twist in a blue coupe†tagging him after the man with the gold badge approached him.
The girl is Beatrice Harris, the daughter of miner George Harris, accused of murdering his ex partner Frank Trasker after a strike. Also partners in the game were an ex pug named Sam Reece, and a Chinese cook. The big shot behind them, the man who flashed a badge and hired Jenkins, is Oscar Milen, and he knows who killed Trasker, that’s why Harris daughter is following Ed hoping if she does Milen’s bidding he will clear her father.
The game ups considerably when Jenkins witnesses Sam Reece killed by a big one legged Chinese on a crutch with a throwing knife in the fog. As Reece dies he lets two words escape his lips, T’sien Sheuh, “the Rat of Heaven†aka “the Bat.â€
The story has pretty much everything, a good girl in with bad men trying to clear her Father, if indeed he is innocent, a smart dangerous criminal the police can’t or won’t touch, a hero with no one to call on for help caught between protecting his neck and helping a girl he can’t trust, and a mysterious Chinese exacting revenge in the San Francisco fog.
And Gardner rings every change out of those old familiar bells, never letting his hero or his readers pause, spinning expertly from one moment to the next, the writing not as artful as Hammett, Chandler, or Whitfield, but never less than perfectly expressed.
Hammett would have said it cleaner and sharper, Chandler more eloquently, but Gardner nails it without fuss or bother. There is something to be said for cool professionalism.
Tongs, revenge, a big dope deal, a beautiful girl, Jenkins framed for Sam Reece death, it all piles on in a novella that moves in a clip down to a satisfying conclusion of that favorite Gardner plot, the Cinderella story, with Jenkins on his own again as he always is.
As for me, I had cast my lot in life. I was headed back toward the only life that I could live — the foggy, mysterious streets of San Francisco’s Chinatown — the underworld …
Maybe the music is a little tinny, the tune a bit too familiar. Like the ever present fog a familiar slightly musty air lays over it all, but it is still music, still sweet, still beautiful in it’s oft repeated rhythms if you know how to listen, and are inclined to its song.
December 28th, 2020 at 3:41 pm
Nicely described.
I’m going to fwd this review to my pal who is a dedicated collector of early Erle Stanley Gardner.
By the way, he’s still pondering the question of how to safely publish his uber-rare collection of early ESG stories…
December 28th, 2020 at 3:42 pm
Right on, Lazy.
And in particular, someone can correct me on this, but I think there have been many more Lester Leith stories collected or reprinted than there have of Ed Jenkins tales. Somebody really ought to do something about that!
(And there’s no shortage of Ed Jenkins stories to choose from. After a quick count, I came up with 75 of them.)
Not that there isn’t a shortage of other ESG characters that haven’t been reprinted yet either. Does anyone have Matt Moring’s ear?
December 28th, 2020 at 7:39 pm
Nice series of pulpy reviews, Steve. Loving them. Not having read the story, I can’t really talk about it. But having tried to find it in an anthology, I came across the following tidbit which was quite interesting:
The editor of Black Mask wrote Gardner a description of a painting which had been purchased for a cover illustration, and Gardner wrote an Ed Jenkins story, “The Heavenly Rat,” to fit the painting.
Source:
Secrets of the World’s Bestselling Writer: The Storytelling Techniques of Erle Stanley Gardner
By Francis L. Fugate · 2014
I saw the original painting at Windy City. Beautifully done by Fred Craft.
PS: I think the ESG estate may have a part in why Matt hasn’t reprinted any ESG so far.
December 28th, 2020 at 7:55 pm
That’s quite a behind-the-scenes story behind the story, Sai. Thanks for sharing. And that you saw the original painting? Quite the bonus.
And I think you’re right about Matt and why he hasn’t done any ESG reprints. I’ll have to ask.
December 28th, 2020 at 7:56 pm
There are two collections of Ed Jenkins stories that were printed in hardcover, only a handful of the seventy five stories, and I think both from later in the series.
I’m not sure why the Gardner estate would shy from their publication. Gardner himself seemed fond of them and wrote about them a few times, especially about the fate of Jenkins steady girl and the lesson that taught him about Della Street.
With the exception of of Lester Leith Jenkins is probably the best loved of Gardner’s pulp creations.
December 29th, 2020 at 12:04 am
Two collections of Ed Jenkins short stories:
1. The Blonde in Lower Six (Carroll & Graf, paperback, 1990).
The Blonde in Lower Six. Argosy Sep ’61
Grinning Gods. Black Mask Dec ’27
The Wax Dragon. Black Mask Nov ’27
Yellow Shadows. Black Mask Feb ’28
2. Dead Men’s Letters and other short novels (Carroll & Graf, hardcover, 1990)
The Cat-Woman. The Black Mask Feb ’27
Come and Get It. Black Mask Apr ’27
Dead Man’s Letters. Black Mask Dec ’26
In Full of Account. Black Mask May ’27
Laugh That Off. Black Mask Sep ’26
This Way Out. Black Mask Mar ’37
December 30th, 2020 at 7:51 am
I just realized that the cover i saw at Windy City wasn’t this one. My memory is playing tricks on me.
It was actually this one:
https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1198481
January 1st, 2021 at 8:24 pm
My buddy says he’s already in possession of all 75 ‘Jenkins’ stories by ESG. Figures. He wouldn’t be remiss on anything like that. He’s in contact with other fans all over the world with this hobby of his.
I don’t know what format he’s got but I assume that it’s always originals (which he then scans).
It’s all over my head; I don’t grasp any of it. Like, is he saying that he has 75 original copies of Black Mask which the stories appeared in? I’ll have to ask him sometime.
January 1st, 2021 at 10:14 pm
In terms of reprinting any of the ESG stories, LG, I suspect that his estate is keeping a tight control over them, given the success of the recent PERRY MASON series on HBO. You probably don’t want to run afoul of them!
January 2nd, 2021 at 12:59 am
He doesn’t want any trouble, nope. He’s just a regular guy. I suppose he should save up and hire an entertainment lawyer to advise him before taking any false steps.