Gun in Cheek (19 page)

The other managed to gasp: "Who are you?"

"Call me 'Nemesis,"' was the reply.

Another prolific British spy novelist of the thirties and forties (and through the fifties into the sixties) was Bernard Newman, a member of the Civil Service, a staff lecturer with the Ministry of Information during World War II, a traveler and travel-book writer, and an amateur spy-watcher. Although Newman was not nearly as lurid or sensational a writer as Sydney Horler, he nonetheless managed to produce at least one novel of enduring status. This is
The Mussolini Murder Plot
, published here in 1939.

The jacket blurb for the American edition reads as follows:

"On October 3rd, 1935, Italian troops marched into Abyssinia. I wonder if Mussolini knows how near he stood to death on that eventful day? And I wonder if he realizes that he has me to thank for his escape? Mussolini is admittedly a nuisance, but as Saint Benito he would be insufferable! Yet, many times I have wondered if I were right in saving him from the sudden death which threatened him."

With this opening bombshell, Captain Newman plunges into the narration of a wildly exciting mystery which utilizes fact in the manner of fiction and fiction in the manner of fact.

The League of International Amity, early in 1935, gave formal warning to the world that any statesman who led his nation into war would be tried and, if condemned, executed. The Abyssinian venture proved that the organization was not jesting. Mussolini was duly condemned to death, and the sentence came within an ace of being carried out.

The novel purports to deal with the events leading up to this mythical assassination attempt by the mythical League of International Amity. Newman himself is the narrator and, more or less, hero of the piece, referred to by name. Inspector Marshall, of the "Special Branch of Scotland Yard," also plays a fairly large role in the story.

What is the League of International Amity? A right-wing nut group, we are told, full of good intentions and misguided methods of accomplishing them. As Marshall explains to Newman at one point:

"Of course, every organization is liable to become freak on the slightest provocation. Their ideas are often excellent in their own sphere, but enthusiasts gradually assume that their pet theory will solve all the world's problems. The Nudists, for example, claim that their cult would ease our problems by abolishing clothes, which causes complexes. Other people want compulsory free love. One brainy fellow devised a new religion to be ruled by a priestess, to be chosen as 'Queen of Hearts,' as an 'object of worship,' because of her feminine build—she was to have a wide pelvis, and so on. The choice of the lady was to be effected by 'detached scientists, with a tape-measure and a pair of dividers.' I should think the scientists would have to be very detached! Imagine choosing a girl as a sort of unofficial goddess just because she's got a bulgy behind!"

The scene of action shifts frenetically from England (where Marshall also lectures on the methods by which Scotland Yard solves crimes: "Anonymous letters and squeaking are the detective's stand-bys") to Venice, to Sarajevo, to the Slovene Mountains, to Rome, back to England, back to Rome, to Corsica, through the Italian countryside back to Rome. Along the way there are two kidnappings, some poisoned bullets, fights on narrow ledges, a character crawling out on the wing of an airplane in flight to repair "a control wire," secret coded messages, villains who say things like "I thought we were foolproof . . . I read up all similar cases in the Crime Club books," a couple of chases (car and airplane), a miraculous escape by Newman (" 'One of the arts you learn in my business is to write in the dark—or in your pocket"), and many footnotes to make sure that the reader is paying attention. The thrilling climax involves a race against time to stop the final Mussolini assassination attempt—and a deucedly clever attempt it is, as Newman might say, utilizing a rifle mounted on the roof of a building, with a string tied to the trigger and the string then dropped down through a water pipe to the street, so the killer can stand below and pull both string and trigger at just the right moment. The attempt fails, of course, because Newman and his troops arrive in the nick of time.
C'est la guerre
.

As a heroic figure, Newman leaves something to be desired. Like Horler's protagonists, he is a class-conscious prig, though not nearly so shrill or obnoxious. And when it comes to women . . . well, women are just not Newman's forte. He knows very little about them. In fact, he may know less about women than any other hero in crime and espionage fiction.

I felt a sudden grip at my arm, heard a little half-strangled cry, and there she was lying on the floor beside me, once again in a dead faint! This was a situation to which I was scarcely accustomed. My life has been planned along somewhat sterner lines than the succouring of distressed ladies. However, it was obviously no time for finesse. I picked her up and carried her to the bed again. I stripped off her skirt and coat, for I had the impression that the proper thing to do in the case of a severe faint was to remove a lady's corsets. However, apparently this girl wore none. Again I resorted to the time-honored method of bending her double, flooding the brain with blood.

Whatever else you can say about James Bond, he knew what to do when he had a woman on a bed with her skirt off. And it wasn't to bend her double so blood would flood her brain.

The involvement of the United States in World War II spawned a surfeit of American spy novels, some of which were the equal of anything Horler, Newman, and others were turning out in England. Nearly all of these dealt with home-front espionage—the threat of Nazi spies and saboteurs in the large cities, in and around defense plants and military installations. Outstanding among them is Frank Diamond's
Murder Rides a Rocket
(1946), featuring the breezy escapades of Vicky Gaines (a.k.a. "the Dish") and counterespionage agent Ransome V. Dragoon (a.k.a. "Drag," not inappropriately).

The scene is Manhattan, where Drag and the Dish mix it up with German spies, French spies, Russian Army Intelligence, the FBI, assorted vamps, a couple of horny but good-hearted naval officers, a couple of murders, and the model of a "new form of compact one-man hand rocket weapon," similar to a bazooka, which contains three "sausages" (i.e., rockets) and has an interchangeable barrel and magazine of "the ordinary tommygun type." The Dish is fun to watch in action because she's cute and cuddly and kissable and wily and is always doing something unpredictable, like Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy. Drag is fun to watch because he has an amazing repertoire of clever expressions, including (but not limited to): "Great murderous mastodons!", "Dangle my remains from a tree," "Well, rack and-thumbscrew me," "Burn me for an infidel!", and, best of all, "Great whistling wheels of the Pit!"

But the real charm of
Murder Rides a Rocket
lies in its breezy style. William Le Queux may have been a master of padding, but Frank Diamond was no slouch in his own right; where Le Queux's method was to use description and repetitive dialogue, Diamond's favorite tool was an endless stream of devastatingly simpleminded humor. This novel (and its forerunner,
Murder in Five Columns
, also starring Drag and the Dish) fairly bulges with wisecracks, atrocious puns, snappy one-liners, B-movie patter, and Bowery Boys routines—sort of like the joke book for a stand-up comic on the forties burlesque circuit.

Just a few samples:

"I want a lawyer," Vicky said instantly. "Get me

Danglewrit and Loophole. On second thought, get Dragoon. He's better than a lawyer."

"Did Dragoon put you up to this stunt?" demanded Petersen.

"Why don't you ask him?"

"Don't worry, I will! Where is he?"

"He said something about going on a USO tour, but he ought to be back by now. He wasn't in good voice, you see."

"You mean I'm a desperado?" said Vicky in delight. "Shall I start going around with a six-gun on each hip?"

"No, the hips themselves are quite dangerous enough!"

"And here I slave over a hot tommygun all day!"

"Who lives up in yon hedonistic penthouse?"

"The owner of the building," Vicky said. "He's a highly successful playwright, name of Ian Waldo Craig. In private life, Paddy Hoolahan."

"I wonder if Ian Waldo, né Hoolahan, would object if we nimbly scaled his terrace and browsed about up there?"

"He wouldn't even hear you. . . . When he writes plays, believe me, he lives 'em. Right now he's working on a play about Olde Englande."

"Odds boddikins!" exclaimed Dragoon. "I hope he doesn't decide to sink a clothyard shaft into my midriff. . . ."

The clicking of a typewriter ceased abruptly, and was followed by a loud and eerie clanking. From a desk in the corner a figure reared up. It was presumably Ian Waldo, but it could have been anybody, because it was encased from head to foot in a brightly burnished suit of medieval armor. The apparition jerked a broadsword from its sheath with a spine-chilling zing, and approached threateningly. Perceiving Vicky, he stopped, and dramatically stuck the broadsword into the floor. "Ah!" bellowed a muffled voice. " 'Tis the Gaines wench!"

"Sire, I bring with me the Duke of Dragoon!"

"
Avaunt!
" thundered Ian Waldo, wrenching the sword from the floor. "Let me cleave this king's man to the navel!"

"You monster!" Vicky accused. "You put me to bed with my clothes on!"

"Must you use one of my men as your calling card?" snapped Petersen.

"It's a Sort of barometer," Dragoon explained, coming in and looking down with a friendly grin at Carter. "When I can't handle one of your buckos, Pete, I intend to retire and open a fish shop. I see myself now, in a white apron, behind a carefully weighted scale—"

"Breakisdamneck!" groaned Carter from the carpet.

"You realize you've assaulted a federal officer?" said Petersen.

"My dear lovable Pete, he assaulted me! By the way, here's his gum" Dragoon grinned mockingly. .

"Knockisbrainsout!" growled Carter, finally able to sit up.

"There's nothing so restful as slab after slab of cool, complacent fish!" Dragoon rhapsodized. "And when Pete comes snooping around, I can always wrap one around his neck. Fascinating!"

Yes it is. A veritable laff riot.

Or, as Drag says hilariously to one of the Russian characters, "
'Da, da! Ja opororzghenil nie odnou boutilkou s Semonom Vasilievim!'
" And you can't argue with that, now can you?

N
o study of the good spy novel would be complete, certainly, without mention of James Bond; similarly, no examination of the bad spy novel would be complete without mention of some of the James Bond imitators. There have been dozens on both sides of the Atlantic since Fleming and Bond achieved international fame in the early sixties, but the two worst are American. The first of these is Sean O'Shea's rollicking and heavily erotic adventures of Valentine Flynn, a spy of sorts whose specialty is cases of industrial espionage. An oddball mixture of Bond, The Saint, Ted Mark, and Shell Scott, Flynn owns a Ph.D. and sports a "Doctor" in front of his name. Which is appropriate, because playing doctor is what Flynn most likes to do, with bevies of beautiful and willing ladies as his "patients."

The foremost Flynn caper is
What a Way to Go!
(1966), which takes place in the Grand Bahamas and other parts of the Caribbean. The plot is undistinguished, but the writing is alternatively brilliant. Classic lines abound, the most notable of which, not coincidentally, are of a sexual nature.

I looked at her naked figure and felt my pulse beginning to race through my veins.

While I had now made up my mind to be clinical about my lovemaking with her, I found it somewhat difficult to remain professional in my approach. It was too hard for that.

She frowned and kissed me again, playfully tickling me. She poked a fingernail into my navel and something stung me. When she withdrew her fingernail she was holdirfg something up between her thumb and forefinger. "Whatever is this, Val?"

I sat up and blinked in amazement. "So that's how the baroness was able to trail me everywhere I went! And that's why my pants' belt had been tighter than usual when I came to after she chloroformed me!"